I was at Game 5 of the 1993 World Series in Philadelphia and my family and I booed this #$%@ every time he came to the plate. Seeing him out there made me sick. Joe Carter's series-ending homer off Mitch Williams in Game 6 hurt me on three levels - as a part- time Phillies Phan, as a fan of that particular bunch of Phils (Kruk and the gang), and far more importantly, as a die-hard Mets fan who saw almost every game in 1993. Tony Fernandez gets a ring? The final insult. UGH!!!!!

Though he was here for only part of one season, Fernandez is certifiably the starting shortstop on the Mets All-Time Jerk Team, beating out Rey Ordonez by quite a stretch. That's saying a lot, but it's the truth. He turned it off with the Mets, then turned it on again immediately after he was traded back to the Blue Jays. Those bleepin' underhanded lobs to Eddie Murray!!! Fernandez quit on us, plain and simple. And he possessed neither the decency nor the intelligence to not make it look obvious. Don't do any autograph shows in the NYC tri-state area, Tony.

He unfortunately passed away at the young age of 57. His Mets career was not one for the Hall of Fame, but had he had better health, he could have been a Hall of Famer.

Hear me out: He had poor health from 1994 to 1998, averaging just 94 hits per year. Give him 150 hits per campaign during that span, not an unreasonable amount, and he ends up with nearly 2,600 for his career. All his other numbers would receive a boost, too. He'd probably have been an All-Star at least once. And he likely would have earned a big enough paycheck to stay in the US in 2000, instead of skipping over to Japan for that season. So, you could add at least another 120 more hits to his total there. One can imagine.

Anyway, Fernandez's Mets career was not illustrious, but it was a blip in a career that could have been.