Joe From Jersey
December 21, 2005
I was at this game. Cyndi Lauper sang the national anthem and some of the '69 Mets threw out the first pitch. Willie Banks from Jersey City pitched for the Cubs; He was a phenom at St. Anthony's High School as a pitcher and he was also a good hoops player off the bench for Bob Hurley's legendary teams. I remember Jeromy Burnitz messing up in the outfield and the fans got on him. I was sitting in the Loge in rightfield that day. Randy Myers came in the 9th to stop a Mets rally and I think he struck out Burnitz. Btw, the game wasn't sold out; there were 10,000 empty seats, a reminder of the horrible '93 season.

Dave VW
March 6, 2023
At least you got good weather for the game, Joe. Unfortunately, there wasn't much else to celebrate in the 1994 home opener. Indeed, Burnitz did commit an error during the Cubs' 6-run 3rd inning, though his blunder didn't really do any damage as all the runners that moved up a base on the play would have scored on Steve Buechele's home run later in the inning anyway. Burnitz was actually double-switched out of the game by the top of the 4th when the Mets brought in Jonathan Hurst, showing just how much confidence Dallas Green had in the outfielder. David Segui was the one who struck out with the bases loaded to end the game, spoiling an otherwise nice afternoon for the first baseman which saw him go 3-for-5.

It was a weird outing for Bobby Jones, who looked in control by retiring the first 5 he faced before walking Rick Wilkins. That's when the wheels completely fell off, and I wondered if he might have been hurt (in hindsight, he wasn't -- he just had an off day for whatever reason). After the walk, 6 of the next 8 batters reached base, including Sammy Sosa on an RBI single in the 3rd that finally did Jones in. At 2.1 innings, this marked Bobby's shortest outing of the 1994 season. Unfortunately, Dave Telgheder wasn't any better, as he walked his first batter and then allowed a mammoth 3-run homer to Buechele. That put the Mets down 8-1, a deficit that proved too great to overcome.

Aside from the poor pitching, the defense wasn't much better. Along with Burnitz, Telgheder and Vina also committed errors -- Vina twice, although his miscues can be somewhat forgiven as he was playing in only his second game at third base as a pro. Both of his errors were on poor throws to first, though none of the 4 the Mets had on the day led to any unearned runs. Vina was playing 3B because Bonilla had separated his shoulder for the second time in 8 months the previous day in Houston. Thankfully, Bobby only missed a week of action but it does help explain why he struggled so much at the dish in April.

Local hero Willie Banks picked up his first win as a Cub in the game, as well as his first career hit with a double in the 6th. Meanwhile, I found it odd that fellow local boy John Franco came into this game in the 8th inning with the Mets trailing by 4. He wound up pitching two innings, despite the fact he had just pitched the previous day. Was Dallas already using Franco in a mop-up role? I mean, with the way Franco pitched in 1993 -- and judging by how much he struggled to navigate his two innings here -- I can't say I'd disagree with the treatment.