Milk Carton All-Star of the Week

We had quite the week here at BoomRoastedSports. First and foremost, there was our unprecedented 439 hits thanks to yours truly's piece on StergTV. Since then, we've had the World Cup and Team USA's coming and going in the world's biggest soccer tournament. There was the NBA Draft(which I will be weighing in on in my next piece). The epic Wimbledon match which spanned longer than Megan Fox's relevance after Jonah Hex released. Needless to say, we've been too occupied to focus on everyone's favorite weekly feature. That is, until now.

It would have been easy to, in honor of this being the week of the NBA Draft, to put some worthless NBA Draft bust in this space like Pervous Ellison or Keith Van Horn. However, we here at BoomRoastedSports don't opt for the easy button. Instead, I thought it would be nice to give props to one of Gabe's sentimental favorites: Former Mets "slugger"(and I use that term loosely) Benny Agbayani.

Agbayani was drafted by the then-California Angels in the 25th round of the 1992 Draft but opted not to sign and was later taken in the 30th round the following year by the New York Mets. Like any run-of-the-mill outfielder with decent pop but little batting skill, he toiled in the minors until getting his call-up in 1998. He only made 16 plate appearances that year but came back in 1999 with an astounding(sarcasm alert) 14 home runs and 42 RBIs in his first full season at Shea. The next year was Agbayani's coming out party. He was the Mets' answer to Derek Jeter, hitting a clutch 11th inning grand slam against the Cubs in Tokyo for the Mets' first win. In the playoffs that year, he went yard with a 13th inning walk-off in the NLDS against the Giants and also drove in the game winning run in the only game the Mets won in the Subway Series that year.

All of that is fine and dandy but in the hearts of some, Agbayani will best remembered for something else that occurred during that epic 2000 season(which was Benny's best, hitting .289, 15 HRs, 60 RBI). On August 12th, with the bases juiced, Giants catcher Bobby Estalella popped out to Agbayani in the fourth. Agbayani, being the consummate people's champion, flicked the ball to a young fan sitting along left field. Problem was....there was only one out. The brainfart allowed the Giants to score two runs and Agbayani was spared the goat horns when the Mets came back to win 3-2. A couple years after that, Agbayani was shipped to Colorado in a 10-player buffet table's worth of future Milk Carton All-Stars. The Mets sent Todd Zeile with Agbayani to Colorado, as well as trading Lenny Harris and Glendon Rusch to Milwaukee. The Rockies gave the Mets sweet-swinging Russ Gload and up and comer Craig House(yup, sarcasm alert). The Mets also received sure-fire MVP candidate(I think you'll sense a theme here) Jeromy Burnitz as well as building blocks Lou Collier, Jeff D'Amico and Mark Sweeney from Milwaukee(Incase you still cared, Alex Ochoa was sent from Colorado to Milwaukee....you know, to make sure the deal wasn't one-sided and all).

Agbayani only hit six homers in 61 games while a member of the Rockies and was picked up off waivers later that year by Boston. He'd hit four more homers before calling it quits at the end of the 2002 season. For his career, Agbayani hit .274 with 39 homers and 156 RBIs....or as Albert Pujols calls it: "an off year".

So let's get the wave going for the most famous Hawaiian since Ashley Lelie....Benny Agbayani, everybody!