Two former Met greats say goodbye

Neither John Olerud nor Rickey Henderson was with the Mets for very long, but both made an impact in their own way. Henderson only spent about a year and a half of his first ballot Hall Of Fame career in the orange and blue, and he's as remembered for playing cards with Bobby Bonilla as the 1999 NLCS ended as for anything he did on the field. But he had quite a year in 1999, hitting .315/.423/.466 for the Wild Card Mets. It doesn't seem like anything official has come out yet, but word around the winter meetings is that Henderson is finally retiring, twenty-six years after his first major league season. There will never be another one quite like Rickey.

Olerud was with the Mets a bit longer, from 1997 to 1999, and his excellent offense and defense played an important role in the Mets' late-'90s success. He now holds the top spot on the Mets' career and single-season lists for batting average and on-base percentage and is also the franchise's career leader with a .926 OPS. He won't wind up in Cooperstown, but he had a long, impressive career. He hit .295/.398/.465 over seventeen seasons with five teams, racking up 2239 hits and 1275 walks in 2234 games. He was a quiet, classy guy and his departure left a hole that it took the Mets six years to fill. He will never truly be replaced.  ¶ joe | 10:03 PM |