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Sometimes it all comes together. You have a favorite player wearing your favorite number on their uniform jersey. I have loved, absolutely loved, Francisco Lindor since he began his career with the Cleveland Indians. And for the longest time I truly believed he would be yet another one of those opposing players who I would watch and root for, and dream of him playing for the Mets someday. So when the Mets pulled the trigger and brought Lindor to Queens, it was certainly gratifying. And to have him wearing my favorite number on top of that…well…no fan could be happier.
I actually came to love the No. 12, believe it or not, because I really liked the way it looked in the full block style on the old Mets road uniforms when I saw Ken Boswell wearing it. Boswell was not my favorite player, but he was one of my favorites. It bothered me to see it assigned to a guy like Jack Heidemann (I know, who is he?) when he came to the Mets. And I got excited when Lee Mazzilli came up and wore it his first year, and then was disappointed when he swapped numbers with John Stearns and took the No. 16. Some very obscure players wore my No. 12 over the years, although there were some really good players like Tommy Davis, Stearns, Ron Darling, Willie Randolph and Roberto Alomar. Even Cleon Jones, who will forever be associated with No. 21, wore it, after first wearing the No. 34, believe it or not.
So I decided to take a look at the top player at each position who wore No. 12 during his Mets career:
It’s exciting to begin the new era with such fervor, including a blockbuster trade with the Cleveland Indians to get an All Star the caliber of Francisco Lindor. Lindor comes to the Mets along with front line starter Carlos Carrasco in exchange for the two talented players who were to be vying for the starting shortstop job in 2021 – Amed Rosario and Andres Gimenez – along with a couple of prospects. Lindor is the prize, the impact player the Mets coveted and needed.
He is 27 years old, is a four-time All Star, two-time Gold Glover and one of the best all-around players in baseball. He may be coming off a down year that saw him hit .258 with eight home runs in the shortened season, but he averaged 34 homers with a .278 batting average and .856 OPS from 2017-19. The downside of it…Lindor can be a free agent after the season.
Carrasco…the proverbial “throw in” in the deal, is 33 years old, and was the 2020 American League Comeback Player of the Year, returning from a chronic myeloid leukemia diagnosis to start 12 games for the Indians with a 2.91 ERA. We’ve been down this road before with the Indians. Lest we forget that the Mets fans got their hopes up when some pretty good All Star second basemen made their way to Flushing…only to flop.
Alan Karmin is an award-winning journalist and author. He was born in Brooklyn, New York and spent most of his life growing up in the New Jersey suburbs. Alan's family were avid Brooklyn Dodgers fans and when the Dodgers moved west, the Mets became the team to root for. The Mets have always been a true focal point, Alan even wrote a term paper in high school to analyze what was wrong with the Mets. While at the University of Miami, Alan honed his craft covering the, gulp, Yankees during spring trainings in Fort Lauderdale for a local NBC affiliate, as well as the Associated Press and UPI. He broadcasted baseball games for the University of Miami, and spring training games for the Baltimore Orioles and Montreal Expos. New York Mets Mania is a forum for Alan to write about his favorite team and for baseball fans to chime in and provide their thoughts and ideas about New York's Amazin' Mets.