Top 5 Mets leadoff hitters in franchise history

New York Mets v Miami Marlins
New York Mets v Miami Marlins / Eric Espada/GettyImages
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The Mets Top 5 leadoff hitters of all time: Honorable mention

As previously stated, the Mets have had a few players who had one excellent season batting leadoff but for whatever reason, still were short timers in Flushing.

Richie Ashburn: The two-time batting champion, 1950s hits leader, and Mets representative at the 1962 All-Star game had an uncanny knack for working pitchers deep into counts. He hit .306 that year with a .424 on base percentage batting leadoff and then retired. The story goes that during the 1957 season, the future Hall of Famer struck a female fan with a foul ball. On the next pitch, he hit the same person with another one while she was being carted off on a stretcher. That's what's called bat control.

Ron Hunt: Hunt was the Mets first home grown star. He was elected to and started the 1963 All-Star game at Shea Stadium. In his four years hitting leadoff with the Mets, Hunt batted .282 on some very bad teams, each of which lost well over 100 games. Known for doing anything to get on base, Hunt led all of MLB for seven consecutive years in being Hit by Pitch.

Tommie Agee: Batted leadoff for the 1969 World Champions. During his five year career in New York, he set season records at that time for At Bats, Runs, Hits, Stolen Bases, and Total Bases. He also made some outstanding World Series fielding plays that you may have heard about.

Lance Johnson: The 1996 season was one for the record books for the player they called “One Dog.” He led the league with 724 plate appearances, 682 at bats, 227 hits, 21 triples, while hitting .333. The next season he was traded to the Cubs.

Rickey Henderson: What list of all time leadoff hitters would be complete without mentioning the greatest of all time. In his one full season with the Mets, Rickey hit .315 with 42 stolen bases at age 40. The following year, he did the other thing that made Rickey famous: he began to complain about wanting a new contract and was traded. Henderson's career 1406 stolen bases and 2295 runs scored are both MLB records.