Mets First Opening Day Victory

On a day like today, there are any number of Opening Day highlights we can chose. There is Gary Carter‘s walk-off homer. There is Alberto Castillo‘s and Joe Torre‘s walk-off hits. There is Anderson Hernandez‘s diving catch. There is Cleon Jones‘s two home run game, or the game Richie Hebner went 4-for-5.

There are a few pitcher’s duels between Tom Seaver and Steve Carlton. There are many, many highlights for a Mets team who has the best Opening Day win percentage out of every Major League team. However, there is only one first time the Mets won on Opening Day, and as luck would have it, that game is actually available:

Looking back at it, it is funny to think the Mets actually won a World Series before they won on Opening Day. The Mets would start the game where they left off with first inning RBI singles from Jones and Art Shamsky. Eventually, this game would go extras with reigning World Series MVP Donn Clendenon once again playing the part of the hero with a two RBI single in the 11th.

All things great have a beginning, and it was 1970 which began the Mets Opening Day winning ways. We can at least watch this game until we can get back to 2020 baseball with Jacob deGrom, perhaps the Mets best pitchers since Seaver, toeing the rubber for the Mets.