Hello Newman

There are so many terrific episodes from Seinfeld, which aired from 1989 through 1998. One of the most iconic moments from that series was when Kramer and Newman recanted the story of how Keith Hernandez of the New York Mets supposedly spit on them after a crushing loss.

Here is a bit of the dialogue from that show.

Newman: June 14, 1987…. Mets Phillies. We’re enjoying a beautiful afternoon in the right field stands when a crucial Hernandez error opens the door to a five run Phillies ninth. Cost the Mets the game.
Kramer: Our day was ruined. There was a lot of people, you know, they were waiting by the player’s parking lot. Now we’re coming down the ramp… Newman was in front of me. Keith was coming toward us, as he passes Newman turns and says, “Nice game pretty boy.” Hernandez continued past us up the ramp.
Newman: Then a second later, something happened that changed us in a very deep and profound way from that day forward.
Elaine: What was it?
Kramer: He spit on us…. and I screamed out, “I’m hit!”
Newman: Then I turned and the spit ricocheted off him and it hit me.

In reality though the Mets did not play the Phillies on June 14, 1987 and were not even at home for that game. Instead, on that day the Mets played the Pittsburgh Pirates and won that game 7-3 in Pittsburgh.  In addition, Hernandez did not make an error, and in fact went 2-4 with a home run and two runs batted in to spur the Mets to victory that day.

Instead, the actual game for the inspiration of the Seinfeld episode likely occurred two weeks afterwards when the Mets did play the Philadelphia Phillies on June 28, 1987. The Mets did blow a lead to the Phillies, but the game was played in Philadelphia, and Hernandez was actually removed for a defensive substitute (Dave Magadan) before the lead was lost.

On this day, the Mets had a 4-0 lead going into the bottom of the eighth inning. This looked like a Mets win for most of the afternoon, as Ron Darling carried a no‑hit bid into the 8th inning.  The situation unraveled though, when Greg Gross led off the bottom of the 8th with a triple, breaking up the no‑hitter and igniting the Philadelphia comeback. The Phillies scored three runs in the 8th and won it with two more in the 9^th with two outs. The culprits in this loss were Met relievers Jesse Orosco and Roger McDowell who surrendered seven hits and three runs in just 1 2/3 innings. 

If Darling had completed the no-hitter it would have been the first one in Mets history.  Instead that event would not happen until 25 years later when Johan Santana threw the first Mets no-hitter on June 1, 2012.  What made this an even more devastating loss was that the Phillies were in last place at the time, and the loss dropped the Mets 6 1⁄2 games behind the first-place Cardinals. Mike Schmidt of the Phillies remarked after this win that “The Mets don’t like to give credit when they lose, but they have to do it today”.

Later on in that same Seinfeld episode it was revealed that Roger McDowell was the spitter and not Keith Hernandez.  Funny that they chose McDowell or maybe intentionally, since he was the one that ended up losing on June 28, 1987 and thus ended up being the villain in that game as well as this Seinfeld episode.