Happy Anniversary: Reds-Mets brawl leads to position player shortage

It was on this day 28 years ago when a Mets-Reds brawl led to the Mets having to move Jesse Orosco and Roger McDowell between pitcher and corner outfielder the rest of the game.

Also on July 22: Walter Johnson's 3,000th strikeout

Back on July 22, 1986, the Mets and Reds had a pretty decent brawl, starting when Mets third baseman Ray Knight threw a punch at Reds baserunner Eric Davis when the two were tangled up. Here it is:

Pretty good action there, including the takedown by late Hall of Famer Gary Carter.

Here's where it gets good, though. Due to myriad ejections and the game going into 14 innings, the Mets ran out of position players immediately after this 10th-inning brawl. So for the remainder of the game had to bring both left-handed reliever Jesse Orosco and right-handed reliever Roger McDowell into the game.

McDowell would pitch to Reds righties while Orosco played right field with Mookie Wilson in left. Orosco would then come on to pitch to lefties while McDowell played left and Wilson shifted to right. Orosco would face eight batters while McDowell faced 10, gaining the win in 14 after recording three groundouts following a top-of-the-14th Howard Johnson three-run blast.

Here's the baseball-reference.com box score, for fun

The Mets would go on to win the 1986 World Series after a 108-54 regular season, six-game win over Houston in the NLCS and seven-game takedown of Boston in the famous (notorious?) World Series.