Joel Youngblood

He will not take his batting turn.

Joel Youngblood has come out on deck to bat for Nino Espinoza.

Nino, who has not had his control here today, has thrown a lot of pitches.

For a second baseman, Doug- So this will be all today for Nino Espinoza.

And the long throw, safe! [cheering] The throw pulled Perez off the bag.

Wide throw by Chris Spire pulled Tony Perez off the bag.

So Doug Flynn reaches safely, and now Joel Youngblood will be a pinch hitter.

We'll wait for the official scoring.

Only limited, Orange, New Jersey.

We have a new third baseman for the New York Mets, Joel Youngblood, taking the place of Doug Flynn.

So pencil in Youngblood at third base, and he'll bat in the eight slot vacated by Doug Flynn.

Stepping in for the Yankees against Bob Myrick here in the third inning is Cliff Johnson, who walked, forcing in a run in the first inning.

George Zeber, single to right field to drive in two runs for the Yankees in the first inning.

Joe Torre getting a look at, uh, a lot of his new ball players now, and Myrick's first pitch, a curve, low ball one.

Uh, Joel Youngblood's supposed to be a pretty good, uh, hitter.

I don't know where they're gonna put him.

Doug Flynn, Bill Plummer was the backup catcher back then.

It was Ed Armbruster and Joel Youngblood.

And then you had your pitchers and Gary Nolan, Pat Zachary, Jack Billingham, Fred Norman, Don Gullet.

I mean, they just were really, really, really good.

I, I don't want to fall into that trap, though, of, and th- th- this is a deep dive, so I will try to confine it to my head.

But I just remember, [laughs] uh, going into the 1981 season, the Mets had Dave Kingman, and they had Rusty Staub, and they had Lee Mazzilli, and they had Mookie Wilson, and they had Joel Youngblood, and they had John Stearns, all of whom could p- play different, more than one position, and I'm leaving out some other names.

And it was sort of framed at the time by the optimistic among us and those who wrote about the team and spoke for the team, "Oh, this is an embarrassment of riches." And no, it wasn't.

It was just a lot of players who could play a lot of positions, [laughs] and they weren't necessarily at the top of their game in 1981.

Mets get their second base runner.

And that'll bring up Joel Youngblood.

Youngblood 2 for 4 in the first game and 3 for 6 so far in this series, batting at .270 now with no home runs and three runs batted in.

He's had 24 base hits.

Batting second and playing left field, number 18, Joel Youngblood.

Mets did all their scoring in the first game in the first inning.

Pirates tied the game at 2-2 with two runs in the second driven in by the winning pitcher, Jim Rooker.

So in the first game, Rooker did it all.

One ball and no strikes.

Joel Youngblood warming his arm up.

He may come in to play right field.

Now Lynn McGlothlin checking it out with Larry Cox.

[crowd cheering] Manny Trillo a big favorite with Cub fans.

[crowd cheering] Jerry Koosman suddenly running into trouble.

Now Joel Youngblood is coming on the field.

Youngblood will go to center field.