Scrappy Mets shortstop dies; fought Rose in playoff game
NEW YORK — Bud Harrelson, the scrappy and surehanded shortstop who fought Pete Rose on the field during a playoff game and helped the New York Mets win an astonishing championship, died Wednesday night. He was 79.
The Mets said Thursday morning that Harrelson died at a hospice house in East Northport, New York, after a long battle with Alzheimer’s. He was diagnosed in 2016 and publicly shared his struggle two years later, hoping he and his family could help others afflicted.
Throughout his health ordeal, Harrelson stayed involved with his professional pride and joy. He was part-owner of the Long Island Ducks, an independent minor league team located minutes from his home. He called his decades of work with the club — which he was instrumental in starting and running — his greatest achievement in baseball.
The team said Harrelson’s family was planning a celebration of his life for a later date.
During a major league career that lasted from 196580, the light-hitting Harrelson was selected to two All-Star Games and won a Gold Glove. Known to family and teammates as Buddy, he spent his first 13 seasons with New York and was the only man in a Mets uniform for both their World Series titles.
The first came as the infield anchor of the 1969 Miracle Mets, the other as the club’s third base coach in 1986.
In one of the most famous scenes in baseball history, it was a euphoric Harrelson who waved home Ray Knight with the winning run on Bill Buckner’s error in Game 6 of the ’86 Series against Boston.
Harrelson also managed the Mets for nearly two seasons, guiding them to a second-place NL East finish in 1990 after taking over from the fired Davey Johnson in late May. He was inducted into the team’s Hall of Fame in 1986, joining Rusty Staub as the first two players honored.
In Game 3 of the 1973 NL Championship Series between the Mets and Cincinnati Reds, Rose slid hard into Harrelson at second base on a double play. The two ended up toe-to-toe and then wrestling in the infield dirt at Shea Stadium, triggering a wild, bench-clearing brawl that spilled into the outfield.
Outweighed by more than 30 pounds, the scrawny, gritty Harrelson got the worst of it.
But he didn’t back down. “I have no regrets about going at it with Rose. I did what I had to do to protect myself, and Pete did what he thought he had to do to try to motivate his team,” Harrelson wrote in his 2012 memoir, “Turning Two: My Journey to the Top of the World and Back with the New York Mets,” co-authored by Phil Pepe. “We fought and that was the end of it.”
Sort of.
The game was held up as irate fans hurled objects at Rose, and the Reds were pulled off the field by manager Sparky Anderson until order was restored. Mets skipper Yogi Berra and players including Willie Mays and Tom Seaver went out to left field to calm the crowd.
Cincinnati players apparently were peeved about a comment from Harrelson after Game 2. Making light of his own shortcomings, Harrelson said Mets pitcher Jon Matlack “made the Big Red Machine look like me hitting” after the left-hander tossed a two-hit shutout.
“I didn’t think it was all that bad. I was kind of putting myself down a little bit, but I was also putting them down,” Harrelson said. “Then I heard that they were going to come after me and all that, so I figured that was it right there. And when Pete hit me after I’d already thrown the ball, I got mad. And we had the little match. He just kind of lifted me up, laid me down to sleep and it was all over.”
Harrelson later wrote that Charlie Hustle caught him with “a cheap shot.” But the former shortstop would also joke about the fracas, often saying: “I hit him with my best punch. I hit him right in the fist with my eye.”
The two became teammates in Philadelphia years later and when their playing days were long over, Harrelson said Rosesigned a photo of the fight for him and wrote, “Thanks for making me famous.”