October 6, 1985: Fan favorite Rusty Staub bows out as pinch-hitter for Mets

As a homegrown All-Star with the Houston Astros, the beloved Le Grand Orange in the earliest days of the Montreal Expos,1 and a 100-RBI man with the New York Mets and Detroit Tigers, Rusty Staub became a fan favorite in multiple cities across an accomplished 23-season major-league career.2

Staub’s big-league journey – which began as a teenager and ended at age 41 – wrapped up on the last day of the 1985 season, October 6, when he appeared one final time in the pinch-hitter’s role he often filled in his twilight years with the Mets. He received a rousing cheer from 31,890 fans at Shea Stadium before grounding out to second baseman Al Newman, capping a 2-1 Mets’ loss to the Expos.3

As Mets fans said goodbye to an old favorite, they could also savor a seemingly bright future. The 1985 team stayed in the pennant race until the season’s last week and recorded the Mets’ second straight second-place finish in the National League East Division. Their 98 wins were the second-most in franchise history, trailing only the 100 posted by the “Miracle” 1969 World Series champions. 

Manager Davey Johnson’s Mets, led by NL Cy Young Award winner Dwight Gooden’s dazzling pitching,4 had spent 68 days of the season in first place. A win over the Expos in the second game of a September 13 doubleheader put them there for the last time, a half-game ahead of the St. Louis Cardinals. The Mets went 13-9 from September 14 through the end of the season, but the Cardinals went 17-6 over the same time span – including a red-hot 13-1 stretch between September 14 and 26 – and won the NL East title by three games.

Meanwhile, Buck Rodgers’ Expos had faded from their competitive peak of the early 1980s. The Expos spent their final day in first place in late June, and by mid-July they had fallen into the third-place slot they held the rest of the way. Andre Dawson, Tim Raines, Tim Wallach, Bill Gullickson, and former Met Jeff Reardon remained significant holdovers from Montreal’s 1981 playoff team. The Expos entered the last day of the season with an 83-77 record.

The New York Times likened both teams’ lineups to “a choose-up sandlot game,” with starters resting and backups carrying the day.5 Notable starters on the Montreal side included rookie first baseman Andrés Galarraga and veteran catcher Ned Yost. Galarraga had debuted in the majors on August 23 and went on to win two Gold Gloves, two Silver Slugger Awards, and the 1993 NL batting title. Yost was playing his 219th and final major-league game of a six-season career; he later managed the 2015 Kansas City Royals to a World Series title.

The Mets’ lineup featured role players like Tom Paciorek at first base, John Christensen in right field, and future major-league general manager Billy Beane hitting cleanup and playing left field. Thirty-nine-year-old Larry Bowa, who’d been signed on August 20 following his release by the Chicago Cubs, played second base. It was the last of 14 appearances the former Gold Glove shortstop made as a Met, and the 2,247th and last regular-season game of his 16-season career.6

Staub wasn’t in the lineup, but that was par for the course. He hadn’t started a game all season and had started only one in 1984. The six-time All-Star had settled into a role as a lefty-swinging pinch-hit specialist. Between 1983 and 1985, Staub played in 236 games with the Mets but made only 14 defensive appearances. He hadn’t played the field since April 28, 1985, when he shuttled between right and left field in an 18-inning, 5-4 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates at Shea Stadium. Staub entered the game hitting .273 with one home run and 8 RBIs in 44 at-bats spanning 53 games.

The Sunday afternoon game opened with a quiet first inning. Mets starter Bill Latham, a rookie left-hander with a 1-2 record and a 4.08 ERA in six appearances, ran into trouble in the second. Former Met Hubie Brooks led off with his 34th double of the season, to left-center field.7 Galarraga’s grounder to second moved Brooks to third base. Center fielder Herm Winningham, yet another ex-Met, scored Brooks with a sacrifice fly to right field that gave Montreal a 1-0 lead. (Brooks and Winningham had come to Montreal with two other players in the December 1984 trade that sent All-Star catcher Gary Carter to the Mets.8)

Expos starter Dan Schatzeder reached on a force play in the third and made it to second base, but Montreal could advance him no farther. The Mets pulled even against lefty Schatzeder (2-5, 3.90 ERA in 23 games) in the bottom half. Bowa singled to left for his 2,191st and final major-league hit, and Schatzeder threw wildly on Latham’s bunt to put Mets on first and second.9 One out later, Paciorek singled Bowa home to even the score at 1-1.

Brooks reached a noteworthy statistical milestone in the fourth as the Expos regained the lead. Mitch Webster led off with a single to right field, stole second base, and advanced to third when Mets catcher Ronn Reynolds, spelling Carter, threw the ball away.10 Brooks’s single brought Webster home for a 2-1 Expos lead. It was Brooks’s 100th RBI of 1985, making him the first NL shortstop to reach that plateau since Ernie Banks in 1960. The Shea Stadium fans generously gave Brooks an ovation.11

Razor Shines ran for Brooks, and the Expos juggled their lineup in the bottom half, with starter Fred Manrique moving from third base to shortstop and left-handed Terry Francona coming in to play third. Francona played four innings in his only major-league appearance at third base.12 Francona fielded flawlessly, with three assists and no errors, before Vance Law replaced him late in the game.

Ron Gardenhire tripled with one out in the Mets’ fourth, but Reynolds and Bowa stranded him. The following innings passed mostly without incident. The Mets got a runner to second base in the fifth and the Expos did the same in the sixth, but neither could score.

Rookie right-hander Tim Burke came on for Montreal in the sixth and pitched two hitless innings, striking out four. It was his 78th appearance of the season, most in the NL, tying the big-league record for rookies held at the time by Ed Vande Berg of the 1982 Seattle Mariners.13

Darryl Strawberry, whose 29 homers in 1985 were the most by a Mets left-handed batter in franchise history, came close to number 30 with a long foul ball while hitting for pitcher Randy Niemann in the seventh.14 Strawberry struck out. Randy Myers, a 23-year-old lefty, replaced Niemann and worked the final two innings in his major-league debut. Myers later became a two-time NL Fireman of the Year and Rolaids Relief Man of the Year, pitched in four All-Star Games, and won a World Series title with the 1990 Cincinnati Reds.

The score remained 2-1, Expos, entering the bottom of the ninth. Ray Knight flied out to center against ace closer Reardon, and Gardenhire struck out. Reynolds would have been next, but instead a familiar lefty-swinging figure wearing number 10 came to the plate.

Staub grounded the first pitch foul, then swung and missed to fall into a two-strike hole. A wild pitch and a pair of balls followed to bring the count full. Staub fouled the next pitch backward, then grounded a fastball to Newman for the final out of the season and his long career.15 Schatzeder got the win, Latham took the loss, and Reardon earned his league-leading 41st save.

Staub, reportedly misty-eyed in the clubhouse after the game, left open the possibility of a comeback. “Everyone wants to come back and contribute when we have a chance to win,” said Staub, who played in only one World Series, with the defeated 1973 Mets. “If it is in the best interests of management for me to come back, I would like to come back.”16 Another reporter quoted him, “If they find they can’t afford the luxury of carrying me on the roster another year, then it’s been a fine career.”17

The Mets’ decision came quickly. The team granted Staub free agency on November 12, ending his career with a .279 batting average, 2,716 hits, 292 homers, 45.8 WAR, and six All-Star selections. When the team regrouped for the 1986 season, Staub had accepted an off-the-field role. He provided color commentary on radio and TV broadcasts as the Mets rolled to a 108-54 record, won a hard-fought National League Championship Series over the Houston Astros, and prevailed in a similarly grueling World Series against the Boston Red Sox.18

Acknowledgments

This story was fact-checked by Bruce Slutsky and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources and photo credit

In addition to the specific sources cited in the Notes, the author used the Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org websites for general player, team, and season data and the box scores for this game. Norm King’s SABR Biography Project article on Rusty Staub also served as a primary source.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYN/NYN198510060.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1985/B10060NYN1985.htm

Photo credit: Rusty Staub, Trading Card Database.

Notes

1 Staub’s nickname Le Grand Orange was owed to his red hair. In addition to his on-field talent, Staub also won the hearts of Montreal fans by learning and speaking French. Serge Touchette, “Montreal’s Grand Love Affair with Le Grand Orange,” TheAthletic.com, March 29, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/293434/2018/03/29/montreals-grand-love-affair-with-le-grand-orange/.

2 Staub also played a single season, 1980, with the Texas Rangers, batting an even .300 in 109 games. He retired as the first man to collect 500 hits with each of four different teams – the Colt .45s/Astros, the Expos, the Mets, and the Tigers. Norm King, “Rusty Staub,” SABR Biography Project, accessed September 2025. 

3 The French-language newspaper Le Devoir said Staub received “une bruyante ovation” – a loud ovation. Richard Milo, “Hubie Brooks clôture une saison de rêve,” Le Devoir (Montreal), October 7, 1985: 16.

4 Gooden led the league in several major statistical categories, including wins (24), ERA (1.53), strikeouts (268), and complete games (16).

5 Joseph Durso, “Mets Lose and Say Goodbye,” New York Times, October 7, 1985: C3.

6 Bowa also appeared in 32 postseason games and five All-Star Games. He’d been the starting shortstop of the 1984 Chicago Cubs team that beat out the Mets for the NL East Division title, then lost the NL Championship Series to the San Diego Padres. With the 1985 Mets, Bowa played four of his final five games at second base. Before September 1985, he hadn’t appeared at second since playing a few innings there during an extra-inning game on June 25, 1970, for the Philadelphia Phillies.

7 “Mets-Expos” (roundup of scoring plays), New York Newsday, October 7, 1985: 93.

8 Full terms of the trade: Carter to the Mets; Brooks, Winningham, Floyd Youmans, and Mike Fitzgerald to Montreal. Carter, who led the 1985 Mets with 32 home runs and 100 RBIs, did not play in the season finale.

9 “Mets-Expos.”

10 “Mets-Expos”; Durso, “Mets Lose and Say Goodbye.”

11 Dan Castellano, “Mets Fall; 98-64 Mark 2d Best in Club History,” Newark (New Jersey) Star-Ledger, October 7, 1985: 25. Le Devoir described Brooks’s season as “une saison de rêve” – a dream season.

12 Francona appeared in 708 major-league games across 10 seasons.

13 “Staub Takes Last Cut,” Hackensack (New Jersey) Record, October 7, 1985: C5.

14 C.L. Smith Muniz, “Mets Take Bow, Then Fade Away,” New York Daily News, October 7,1985: 42. As of September 25, 2025, Juan Soto had hit 43 home runs as a left-handed batter for the Mets, setting a new team record; he still had about a week of the regular season to add to that total.

15 Pitch-by-pitch sequence from Smith Muniz, “Mets Take Bow, Then Fade Away.”

16 Steve Marcus, “Farewell To Mets Is From the Heart,” New York Newsday, October 7, 1985: 102; Smith Muniz, “Mets Take Bow, Then Fade Away.”

17 Castellano, “Mets Fall; 98-64 Mark 2d Best in Club History.”

18 In contrast, the 1986 Expos sagged to fourth place in the NL East with a 78-83 record.