By Honoring Hernandez, the Mets Fully Embrace Their Past
The New York Times
The retirement of Keith Hernandez’s No. 17 continues a recent trend of recognizing the players most crucial to the team’s glory years.
It’s a feel thing, the notion of retiring a player’s number, as the Mets will now do for Keith Hernandez’s No. 17. It is more about symbolism than statistics, a referendum on the meaning of a player to a team and a town.
Many teams have long understood this. There is no plaque in Cooperstown, N.Y., for Thurman Munson, but the Yankees retired his No. 15 anyway. Same with Johnny Pesky and the Boston Red Sox, Frank White and the Kansas City Royals, Randy Jones and the San Diego Padres and on and on and on.
The Mets took a long time to grasp the concept. It took them until their 55th season, in 2016, to retire a second player’s number. That was because Mike Piazza had just been elected to the Hall of Fame, meaning his No. 31 could join Tom Seaver’s No. 41 on the facing of the top deck in the left field corner at Citi Field.
