The forgotten NY Mets All-Star player who hit .350 and was gone a year later

The 162-game schedule wasn’t in action during the 1981 season when a player’s strike mid-year had MLB splitting the season into two halves. The MLB All-Star Game was pushed to August 9th, about a month past when it was originally scheduled. This was a prelude to the second-half of another lost Mets season.

Not lost were some of the individual performances. Specifically, their lone All-Star, Joel Youngblood.

A player remembered most of his legendary 1982 achievement of playing two games, in two cities, for two different teams, and getting a hit in each, his abridged 1981 season is one of the more impressive statistical campaigns for a Mets All-Star that has been pretty much forgotten. There’s a good reason.

There’s a very specific reason why we don’t remember Joel Youngblood’s All-Star season

Youngblood appeared in 38 games in the first-half and hit .359. Another 5 after his All-Star appearance, which included an 0 for 1 performance, Youngblood finished the season hitting a fantastic .350. Because it was in only 161 plate appearances and 143 at-bats, it didn’t qualify for the league lead even in a shortened season.

For the time period he played, Youngblood was actually a pretty good player and an even better Met. A lifetime .274/.333/.410 slash line with the Mets, his stretch during the dark ages of 1979-1981 was even better. Those three seasons included a .284/.350/.424 slash line. He added 28 home runs and drove in 154.

Someone needed to represent the 17-34 Mets (their record in the first half). Youngblood was a choice they couldn’t deny.

The 1981 Mets had a lot of problems, but they did have multiple guys finish with good batting averages. Hubie Brooks hit .307. Rusty Staub was even better at .317. Their offensive shortcomings were more about the quality of their hits. Dave Kingman hit 22 of their 57 team home runs. Along with Kingman, they had Doug Flynn, Frank Taveras, Lee Mazzilli, and Ellis Valentine bat under .250 with minimal power.

With just a .398 winning percentage, the 1981 club was on pace to challenge for 100 losses. Youngblood was a strange outlier on the roster. A knee injury early in the second half cut him down before being able to challenge for a batting title. Bill Madlock, at .341, ended up taking the title. Had Youngblood sustained his rate, he would have been the first Mets player to win a batting title.

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