The last game-winner
Marion Mets Newsletter – Issue 26
I have a trivia question for ya.
Name the player who hit the last go-ahead, game-winning home run in Marion Mets history.
If you want, I’ll give you a few minutes to look over the 1976 Marion stats and roster. (Take your time. No stress-inducing Jeopardy-like musical timer here.) That year, ‘76, was the team’s last year in Marion before the parent organization moved its rookie league operations north to Little Falls, New York.
When you examine that ’76 Marion roster, you’ll find Jody Davis, who went on to play 10 successful seasons in the big leagues, most of those years with the Chicago Cubs. In 50 games with Marion, Davis smacked five homers, but none are the answer to my trivia question.
Kelvin Chapman was on that Marion team, too. He played parts of the ‘79, ‘84 and ‘85 seasons with the New York Mets.
But, he’s not the answer either.
Do you know yet? Yes? No?
Let’s set the scene.
On a Sunday afternoon in late August, the Marion Mets were in Pulaski, Virginia, playing the final three games of the 1976 season. In the fifth inning of game 1, the Mets sent their 6-4, 205-pound first baseman to the plate with the score tied at 3-3 and a runner on base. The batter, a ninth-round draft pick by New York that summer, was already leading Marion with six home runs in 60-plus games. Home run No. 7 would be a positive boost for his last-place team hoping to end the season on a high note.
Pulaski lefty pitcher John Noonan fixed his eyes on the Marion batter, uncoiled from his windup and delivered a pitch.
The rest is Marion Mets history.
The Mets’ right-handed batter used his enormous strength to mash the pitch to the opposite field, and “the towering shot cleared the green fence atop Calfee Park’s ‘Green Monster’ right field and across the road outside the park,” wrote Jerry Ratcliffe, covering the contest for The Southwest Times.
The home run gave Marion a 5-3 lead, an advantage they never relinquished on the way to a 14-5 win over the home team.
Do you know the answer yet?
When I found the player on Facebook – that’s where I regularly stalk find a lot of Marion Mets players – I asked if he remembered that home run, you know, 48 years later.
“Thanks for the memories. I think I remember it,” he replied on a Monday night. “I will share this with my kids.”
The next morning, he sent another message:
“Hey Chad, it took me a second, but I do remember that,” said Curtis Fisher, the answer to today’s Marion Mets trivia question. “That’s when Coach [Tom] Egan told a teammate after I hit that home run that nobody can hit the ball farther than me. That was probably my biggest first-year pro ball highlight.”
Fisher hit .284 for Marion that summer, drove home 33 runs, walked 35 times – that’s great plate discipline, Curtis – and smacked a team-leading seven home runs.
That blast to right field turned out to be the last game-winner for Marion’s Mets, even though they won the next night, 9-0, when the umpire declared the game a forfeit after being struck in the back of the head with a ball thrown by an angry Pulaski player. (That’s a story for another day.) The Mets lost 5-0 the following day to those same Phill-O’s — Phill-O’s? Yeah, yet another story for another day — in what turned out to be the Marion Mets’ last game ever.
So, did you get the answer? If so, congratulations. That was a tough one!