The Mets and Cubs made an odd little deal on June 30, 1986, and it ended up producing two very different footnotes in baseball history.
New York sent Ed Lynch, who had been with the Mets since 1980, to Chicago for Dave Liddell and Dave Lenderman. Lenderman never reached the majors.
Liddell did, but only once, and in the most compact way possible: on June 3, 1990, he entered as a pinch hitter, singled, and later scored in an 8-3 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies. That was it for his big league career.
One game, one at-bat, one hit, a perfect 1.000 average.
For the Mets, the trade also connected Lynch to a championship season in a way that feels a little strange on paper. He pitched in 167 games for New York overall, though injury limited him to just one appearance in 1986.
Even so, that was enough for him to be part of the title team, at least in the broad sense that usually comes with a ring. The article notes that, ring or no ring in hand, Lynch counts as a Mets World Series winner.
Lynch’s situation wasn’t entirely singular, either. George Foster fit the same basic description, just with far more games for the 1986 club.
Liddell’s place in Mets lore is a different kind of weird. In the franchise’s all-time hit list, he sits second-to-last, ahead of only Jed Lowrie and behind almost everyone else.
As for Lynch’s time in Chicago, he logged 99.2 innings for the 1986 Cubs and stayed with them into 1987. He never got the chance to appear in the playoffs for the Mets or for anyone else. His lone Mets game came on April 12, in the team’s third game of the season, when he worked in relief in another loss to the Phillies.
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