Stuyvesant Little League Opens, Joined by Mets Legends Gooden & Chavez

It was not exactly baseball weather on March 28 but the appearance of Mets legends Dwight “Doc” Gooden and Endy Chavez warmed the hearts of fans young and old as they joined in the opening day parade to celebrate the start of the 70th anniversary year of the Peter Stuyvesant Little League.

For Gooden, the 1984 NL Rookie of the Year for the Mets and the 1985 Cy Young Award winner, it was a return engagement to the league’s opening day ceremony. For Endy Chavez, who made one of the most spectacular catches in Mets history in game seven of the 2007 National League championship series that the Mets would ultimately lose, it was a first-time appearance.

Gooden was so comfortable that he slipped into the crowd and walked with the parents and players as they formed up on E. 18th St. and First Ave. and wound their way through Stuyvesant Town to historic Con Ed field.

Gooden, who came up through the Mets organization and later played for the New York Yankees asked, “How many of you are Mets fans?” He got a good reception, but the crowd cheered a little louder when he asked: “How many are Yankee fans?”

He told the crowd that it is “the 40th anniversary of 1986 Mets World Championship and the 30th anniversary of the Yankees 1996 World Championship.” Gooden was on both squads. He also noted it was the 30th anniversary of his sole no hitter which he threw with the Yankees.

And the Yankee fans did not seem to be too disappointed when he admitted, “I’ll always be a Met at heart.”

This reporter mentioned that he was at Shea Stadium in 1984 when Gooden came closest to throwing a no hitter for the Mets. It was the fifth inning on September 7, 1984, and nobody had been able to pull Gooden all game. Cubs batter Keith Moreland was jammed with an inside pitch and the ball slowly tricked down the third base line. Ray Knight, the Mets 3rd baseman charged the slow rolling ball, but was off balance and never attempted a throw.

“It should have been an error,” said Gooden, still miffed years later. “Even Ray Knight says it should have been an error,” he told Straus News. But the official scorer ruled it an infield hit. At the time it seemed insignificant, but it ended up being the only hit he gave up in a complete game 10-0 Mets win.

When asked if he can believe the last Mets championship was really 40 years ago, Gooden remarked, “It went by fast.”

While the Mets would go on to lose the seventh game to the Cardinals on October 19, 2006, the catch that Chavez made off a screaming line drive above the home run line in left center field is still regarded as one of the greatest catches in post season history. Chavez joked for years he was known as “Endy ‘the catch’ Chavez.” After catching the ball, he easily doubled Cardinal Jim Edmonds off of first.

McKeon urged kids, “have your parents look it up on YouTube.”

Both of the players stuck around after ceremony to sign baseballs, hats and scraps of paper.

Nick McKeon said that the league for the first time since well before COVID could reach 700 players this year. “We’re back,” he said. One item on the agenda is to regain the district crown that Greenwich Village Little League won last year in the 12-year-old division that ultimately leads to the Little League World Series. “We’ll give them a run for it this year,” said McKeon.

Local politicians also turned out and mindful of the weather kept their remarks short. Keith Powers, the one-time city council member who now represents the area as a newly elected NY State Assembly member reminded the crowd that “I played here growing up and more importantly, my father played in this league when it was first formed.”

Next up was Assembly member Alex Bores, who is running for Congress in a crowded Democratic field to succeed Jerry Nadler. “It’s a tough act to follow baseball legends like Doc Gooden, Endy Chavez and Keith Powers,” he said.

And newly installed city council member Harvey Epstein was also on hand. He had endorsed Powers in the special election to fill his seat.

The league is often associated with Stuyvestant Town, but McKeon noted it draws players from East 12th in the East Village up 72nd St. for baseballs and up to E. 86th in softball. The boundaries are set by Little League International. It runs from the East Side of Fifth Ave. to the East River. McKeon said there are six majors teams in the 11/12 year old division and eight teams in the 9/10 year old division.

It also has a Challenger Division which pulls special needs kids from across the borough. He said that thanks to Con Ed installing a $1 million artificial turf field more than a decade ago, it enables players in wheel chairs to participate. The Challenger division usually draws about three dozen kids from across the borough.

And while some of the 9-12 year divisions are at max capacity with the seasons that began in the cold blustery weather on March 28, he said the league is still adding players to the youngest tee ball division and in the Juniors division for baseball players 13 and 14 years old. He said he was most encouraged by the growth in the younger divisions. “That shows where our future growth is,” he said.