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Tommy Marcus at Bleacher Report takes a look back at Joe McEwing.
Marcus writes:
“He may have finished his career hitting .251, but he was much more valuable than that.”
“Currently, he is the hitting coach for the Triple-A affiliate of the Chicago White Sox, and is working his way towards being on the staff of a major league baseball team.”
Here is a YouTube tribute to “the greatest utility player to ever play the game”.
…i’m still amazed by the exaggerated fascination with mcewing…it just goes to show how far hustle, hard-work, and humility goes in terms of likability…
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I guess I’m the only one that wasn’t in love with super Joe.. it was an automatic out so many days….
I hated McFooey.
He was terrible.
Matt, my god, sure its a slow day, but to post this…..
He was awful and (from rumors I heard) a malcontent.
I thought I had removed his memory from my mind. Shame on you for bringing them back.
Lets talk about Rube Walker too and how good he was! Ugggh!
I liked Joe McEwing, but I was not in love with him. I know it’s a joke, but he was far from the greatest utility man to ever play the game. I did laugh every time he came up to bat to Nu Shooz, “I Can’t Wait.”
I think it’s funny how so many people seem to think that Joe McEwing hit Randy Johnson really hard, when he only had a .250 career BA against him. He happened to go 3-for-4 against him in a game at the height of Randy’s career, and he was dubbed a Randy Johson killer. Funny.
That 3-4 game was when Johnson was 7-1 in 2000 and unhittable (Johnson won Cy Young in 99, 00 and 01) and Joe hit two big doubles (scored both times) and his HR in the 7th (with Edgardo hitting one too) knocked Johnson out and tied the game.
The next time they faced Johnson he was 15-2, and McEwing hit an RBI double, then a sac fly the next time up, helpng knock the 19 game winnner out in the 4th.
The third time they faced Unit that year was a few games later when he was 16-4 and again they knocked him out in the 4th, McEwing going 0-2 with an RBI.
The thing was that while he only hit .250 over his career against Johnson, he was a career 250 hitter and guys with Hall of Fame careers could not hit Johnson at that time, let alone as well as they did the rest of the league.
Like this video, it was a joke.
he was awful
Joe Mac is not worth remembering, commemerating
“the greatest utility player to ever play the game”
wow, that’s the most ridiculous statement I’ve read in a long time.
The fact that it was written ironically makes yours more ridiculous, no?
Do you really talk like that? Pretentious, no?
So you are admitting your comment was real. Yes I am pretentious, and I talk like that to ignorant people like yourself. I apologize, but I am sure you are used to it.
If I am not mistake, he had the uncanny ability to hit Randy Johnson, when no one else could.
joba chamberlain, honorless
The Super Joe love never appealed to me at all. I always thought it was pretty stupid.
That said, I loved when Looper pluncked a Rockie after one of them broke Joe’s leg.
Looper got a raw deal in NY.. he pitched hurt that year.. I certainly wouldn’t of minded him being around these past few years….
Ironically, if we had him this past year, maybe things turn out differently. As bad as he was, he was still better than Heilman, Schoeneweis, and Sanchez were in 2008. Heck, even Mel Rojas was better than what Heilman did in 2008.
I know there’s an affection for Super Joe because of his unlikely story, but it was the same attraction to the “gritty, veterany ballplayer who knows how to play the game the right way” that led the Mets down the path of trading away Kazmir and relying too much on guys like Franco, Leiter, etc, to make personnel decisions.
You need those gritty, grimey, players, but you have to be sure they can still produce or if their production is limited that they will not have to see a lot of playing time. If the Mets indeed relied on that too much then that was a problem. But for all we know they just weren’t very good at making personnel decisions/evaluating talent.
yeah, the rays have tons of gritty and grimy players.
not.
I hated McEwing, usually you have to be at least adequate to be a feel good story, that guy didnt deserve to be on the MLB roster 160 days of the season.
I liked Super Joe. What I didn’t like was that the Mets couldn’t find anyone better to put on the field.
I enjoyed watching McEwing when he was a Met… However, he’s from Bristol, PA and grew up a Phillies fan lol
That last picture doesn’t have Joe in it. Joe wasn’t on the 2006 team. You can tell it’s that team because Mota, Perez, and Woodward are in it.
Agreed, its a fake.
McEwing’s last year with the Mets was 2004. He was on the Astros in 2006 (his last year in the majors).
The between pitches routine was so annoying I used to immediately change channels when ever he came up to bat.
Bad as his overall numbers were, Joe was respected by the veterans on the team and looked up to by the rookies, as evidenced by their comments (especially David’s) when he left the team.
He was always mentioned as a “future manager”. I have no knowledge of how he did as MnL coach for the Chisox this year, but with all the problems the Mets had this year with situational hitting, I’d love to see him at Citifield next year.
My biggest memory of McEwing is that he robbed us of a second chance to enjoy Jesse Orosco. I think it was the last day of spring training when they traded Orosco for McEwing in 99 or 2000.
My goodness…
Joe had a pretty solid 2001 as a part-time player posting an OPS+ of 106. But he was AWFUL in 2000, 2002, 2003 and 2004 with OPS+’s of 55, 43, 61 and 59.
For a point of reference, Rey Ordonez had a career OPS+ of 59, so that tells you how bad Joe was in those other years. If the guy couldn’t have played every position on the diamond (save catcher) he wouldn’t have lasted 3 years in the league.
I don’t know if it was his actual nickname, but Valentine used to call him “the giant slayer.” I loved that and in video games for the last 10 years have used it.
Also, premature male pattern baldness goes a lot towards likability. We felt sorry for you Super Joe.
McEwing was one of the better players on the 2001 team, somehow.
Remember, this was a team where Desi Relaford led in batting.
One of my favorite moments remains Bobby V pitching Relaford in a blowout, and after saying that it would have been much uglier if “Relaford didn’t have such good stuff.”
Joe Ewing was a 25th man on the bench who played because he was decent defensively in every position. He would have been a 10-year major leaguer if he could hit 275. But he couldn’t.