Philadelphia Phillies Retro Scorecard Recap: May 22, 1999

As I sift through my repository of Philadelphia Phillies‘ scorecards to share, I’ve decided to take the show on the road for this edition and highlight a May 22, 1999 contest between the Phils and the New York Mets at Shea Stadium; a game played 23 years ago today. It was my first trip to that now-demolished stadium, and I’d get back a few more times before the Mets moved into their current digs in 2009.

It was a sunny Saturday afternoon in Queens as the Phillies and Mets played the middle game of their series, with Paul Byrd toeing the rubber for the visitors and Bobby Jones starting for the home team. After a scoreless first inning, the Phils got cooking in the top of the second. They somehow got back-to-back triples from Mike Lieberthal and Desi Relaford, of all people, to open the scoring, then Byrd helped himself by driving in a run, just like he did in the game where he outdueled Randy Johnson the previous season.

The Philadelphia Phillies took on the New York Mets at Shea Stadium on May 22, 1999.

Marlon Anderson doubled later in the inning to bring home two more runs, and it quickly became 4-0 Phillies. And in case you’re wondering, the triple by Lieberthal was his only one in 1999, a season where he had a career-high 574 plate appearances. He had 10 in his MLB career. And Relaford only had 19. I feel like seeing them hit consecutive three-baggers was more notable than being at a perfect game.

At any rate, the Phils tacked on another run in the third via a Bobby Abreu home run, then Lieberthal hit a sac fly in the fifth inning off of Mets’ reliever Pat Mahomes. I’m told that his son ended up being a pretty good athlete, though. It’s 6-0, and Byrd and the Phillies were absolutely cruising. The first bump came in the bottom of the sixth when Robin Ventura plated a run to make it 6-1.

When we got into the eighth inning, a new Mets pitcher emerged from the bullpen, and I had no idea who he was. Perhaps they flashed his name initially, and I missed it, but it certainly didn’t stay there throughout the inning. The old scoreboard at Shea listed only player numbers and positions on either side of the video board; there wasn’t space for names. He also wasn’t listed in my program, the ancient public address system was so garbled that I couldn’t hear the announcer clearly when he introduced the guy, and this happened to be the only year in Mets history that they didn’t have names on their home uniforms. Also, this being 1999, I couldn’t just get out a phone and look it up. I literally had a blank spot on my scorecard until I saw the box score in the paper the next day. The dude’s name was Rigo Beltran, by the way.

Anyway, in the bottom of the eighth, Byrd finally got tired. After he put two men on and was sitting at 112 pitches on the day, Terry Francona lifted him for Yorkis Perez. Perez allowed two runs to score on a single by Luis Lopez, but Wayne Gomes rode in to save the day (there’s a first time for everything) by striking out Brian McRae to end the inning. It was a 6-3 game, headed to the ninth inning.

Former/future Phillies pitcher Dennis Cook took the mound for the Mets, and he immediately gave up hits to Ron Gant and Abreu. That’s when Lieberthal stepped to the dish and unloaded an opposite-field, 3-run homer that gave the Phillies a 9-3 advantage and removed any doubt about the outcome of this game. It’s one of the more productive days we’d seen from Lieby, and he fittingly took home NL Player of the Week honors for the only time in his career a few days later, owing to this game plus the two-homer, six-RBI performance he put up in Montreal earlier in the week.

It’s no longer a save situation for closer Jeff Brantley, but he came in nonetheless and retired the Mets in order to seal the Phillies’ win. Then he ended up needing shoulder surgery and missed the rest of the season after this game, because nothing can ever go right. The Phillies ended up re-signing him for another year, and he was awful despite collecting 23 saves, but the real fun came from the fact that Ed Wade extolled the virtues of the team’s bullpen during the offseason since they had Brantley, Gomes, and Mike Jackson, who of course got hurt before appearing in a game. Phillies’ bullpen issues? Perish the thought.

But I digress. The point is, even in digging into Phillies games that are decades old, there are always plenty of fun/painful offshoots to discuss. They’ve hooked me for life; what else can I do?