Hobie Landrith, the first player in Mets history whom the team selected with its first pick in the 1961 expansion draft, died last Thursday, according to longtime Mets public relations director Jay Horwitz.
He was 93.
Landrith, a Decatur, Ill. native who played high school ball in Detroit, was a catcher who played 772 MLB games across 14 seasons.
Mets manager Casey Stengel reportedly said of Landrith being the team’s first pick in the expansion draft, “You gotta have a catcher or you’d have a lot of passed balls.”
He started behind the plate in the Mets’ first game ever on April 11, 1962, an 11-4 loss to the Cardinals.
His signature moment with the Mets came one month later when he hit a two-run, walk-off home run off of Hall of Famer Warren Spahn, giving the Mets a 3-2 win over the Milwaukee Braves.
Landrith played in 23 games for the Mets before he was sent to the Orioles in June of 1962 as the player to be named later from their acquisition of Marv Throneberry the month prior.
Landrith, a career .233 hitter, hit .289 with an .811 OPS with the Mets.
He began his career with the Cincinnati Reds, playing six seasons for them before spending one season with the Cubs, two with the Cardinals and three with the Giants.
Hobie Landrith, the first Mets player ever, has died at the age of 93. Society for American Baseball ResearchLandrith finished his career with the Washington Senators in 1963.
Horwitz wrote in a blog post that Landrith was one of the first players he reached out to upon becoming alumni director “a few years back,” and that Landrith told Horwitz he was the first person from the Mets to have called him “in over 50 years.”
Landrith, according to Horwitz, said he “always cherished his brief time with the Mets.”
