Mets pitcher tossing glove into the stands? Hey, that's happened before

The Mets pitcher, unhappy with his outing, was walking off the mound when all of a sudden he chucked his glove into the back of the box seats behind the Mets’ dugout.

The year was 2001. The pitcher was Turk Wendell.

Thirteen years earlier, after a rough outing and two balk calls, another Mets pitcher decided the best landing spot for his glove was the box seats behind the Mets’ dugout.

The year was 1988. The pitcher was Bobby Ojeda.

So Jorge Lopez is not the first Mets pitcher to hurl his glove into the stands after a difficult appearance.

Lopez did it on Wednesday at Citi Field, and that act — in addition to a problematic postgame interview session — led to the Mets designating the 31-year-old reliever for assignment on Thursday.

When Wendell did it, the Mets had gotten off to a 33-41 start under Bobby Valentine after reaching the World Series the previous year.

Wendell allowed three runs in the eighth in a 10-1 loss to Atlanta. After striking out Jose Cabrera for the final out of the inning, he decided to give some lucky fan behind the dugout at Shea Stadium an unexpected leather souvenir.

“  ‘Here you go,’  ” Wendell said on Friday in a telephone interview with Newsday. “  ‘Have this glove.’ I don’t need it. It doesn’t have any more luck in it. That’s the way I looked at it.”

Wendell was known to be extremely superstitious, so he frequently changed equipment when he felt as if he needed a change of luck.

“I had some frustrating stints myself when I was with the Mets,” he said. “Maybe a few bad games in a row and I just felt like I needed to change everything. So I would basically throw my glove up for a souvenir and get a new glove, new uniforms, new cleats. The whole nine yards. It wasn’t obviously as dramatic as [the Lopez incident] was.”

One other difference: Wendell wasn’t disciplined by the Mets. That’s not to say they were happy about his glove toss.

“Bobby V did pull me aside and say, ‘Hey, you may not want to do that,’  ” Wendell said. “  ‘You’ll feel bad if you hit somebody, some little old lady, in the face or something and knock her glasses off.’ I said, ‘OK, valid point.’  ”

In 1988, the Mets were two years removed from a World Series championship when Ojeda, in an April game against the Phillies, was pulled with two outs in the fifth inning and the Mets trailing 6-1 in an eventual 10-2 defeat.

Ojeda, who argued with umpires after the second balk call, threw his glove into the stands as he walked off the field.

According to a Newsday account of the game, the glove landed about 12 rows deep, and the Mets got it back by giving two baseballs to the fan who caught it.

Ojeda, again according to the Newsday story, did not address the media after the game and “told public relations director Jay Horwitz to keep reporters at a safe and non-inquiring distance in the clubhouse.”

A few weeks later, after another disappointing loss to the Padres, Ojeda decided not to toss his glove.

Progress.

“I have to be philosophical,’’ he said, according to a New York Times story. “I’ve been angry and that didn’t help. I’m always telling the younger pitchers not to get too high or too low. I have to practice what I preach.’’

Luis Tiant once threw his glove 15 rows into the stands at Yankee Stadium when he was with the Yankees in 1980. Dick Howser removed him from a game in the eighth when he was pitching a shutout, and Tiant responded by dropping the ball on the mound instead of handing it to the manager and then tossing his glove.

Howser fined Tiant $500.

By Anthony Rieber

anthony.rieber@newsday.comAnthonyRieber

Anthony Rieber covers baseball, as well as the NFL, NBA and NHL. He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since July 5, 2004.