Brock Pemberton, who had a few brief cups of coffee with the Mets in the 70s, passed away on February 17. A first baseman, Brock debuted in the majors at 20 years old. He seemed to be a decent line drive hitter and his doubles might have turned into home runs in time. Maybe not. Either way, he was out of baseball entirely before turning 27--and that includes a year he didn't play, a year in independent ball, and his final year as a player/manager (also with an independent team).
The best image of Brock most of us has ever seen is the third one down in
this post from Merkle a couple of years ago.
I remember well the Mets kiddie corps from the 70s--Brock, Lute Barnes, Rich Puig, Roy Staiger, Bruce Boisclair, to name a few. It was abundantly clear that these guys were not going to be in the same class as Singleton, Jorgensen and Foli. But I loved them anyway. My general philosophy back then (and not much different now): if you're going to suck, suck with the kids. Yeah, I know...we made the Series in '73. But, as inspiring as the whole "Ya Gotta Believe!" thing was, I don't think any Mets fans were fooled into thinking we had a championship team anymore. What we didn't realize--or at least I didn't--was that it was going to get worse. Oh, so much worse. A lot of Mets fans I know think the Sandy Alderson years (prior to 2015) were the Mets nadir. And, geez, I honestly don't know how anyone anywhere could think that, let alone say it--not if they endured that stretch from '73 to '86. Sandy came in with a plan and I knew immediately that the train was back on the right track. There was no such hope in that decade of despair. Once Mrs. Payson passed in 1975, there was no hope no how. But I never blamed the kids for that. Me, I'd rather lose with Lute Barnes than with Luis Castillo any day. Just sayin'.
Sorry for the rant. It just made me sad that Brock is gone.