Reyes Running His Way Into Mets Record Book

Let's take a time-out from the ugliness at Shea. It's like watching a car wreck over there. Today is Jose Reyes's 25th birthday, and he's already close to breaking two all-time Mets marks. If you take a look at the Mets all-time leaders lists, it's really not that impressive. There's no Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron or Ted Williams. There is Doug Flynn, Ed Kranepool and Bud Harrelson, though, scattered among the top 10 in certain statistical categories. But that's one of the things that's fun about the Mets. You can have your Stan Musials, I'll take Cleon Jones. Jose Reyes is only six triples and 25 stolen bases away from smashing Mookie Wilson's club records. It took Mookie nine and a half years to compile his numbers, while Reyes is doing it in four full seasons and two injury-shortened ones. The triple is arguably the most exciting play in baseball, not counting a ball bouncing off Jose Canseco's head and going over the wall for a home run. Reyes can probably out-run Da' Tara or Big Brown at this point. (Was Big Brown out late the night before the Belmont doing shots with hookers? "I got it in the bag, baby.") And watching him run is almost as entertaining as watching Hunter Pence run, but of course, Pence's style is a whole different type of entertainment. Mookie's record for triples stands at 62. Reyes is next with 57, and the rest of the top 10 is: Harrelson with 45, Cleon with 33, Steve Henderson 31, Darryl Strawberry 30, Lance Johnson 27, Doug Flynn 26, Ed Kranepool 25 and Lee Mazzilli with 22. When Kranepool's in your all-time top 10, what does that say? The all-time leader in triples is Sam Crawford with 309, followed by Ty Cobb at 295 and Honus Wagner 252. The most Reyes has hit in a season is 17, which he did twice in '05 and '06. The club's single-season record is held by Lance Johnson, when he belted 21 in 1996. Reyes will most likely break Wilson's stolen base record this season also?unless he comes down with a sudden case of Ramon Castro Disease, and loses all his speed because of the weight of his giant head. Mookie had 281 stolen bases for the Mets. Reyes stands at 257 so far. Rounding out the top 10 are Howard Johnson with 202, Strawberry 191, Mazzilli 152, Lenny Dykstra 116, Harrelson 115, Wally Backman 106, Roger Cedeno 105 and Vince Coleman 99 (can we erase these last two from Mets history as if they never existed?). Reyes already holds the Mets single-season mark with the 78 he swiped last season, thankfully breaking Cedeno's record of 66 in 1999. Jose Reyes out-classes everyone on these Mets lists in terms of talent, with the possible exception of Strawberry. It's highly unlikely he'll have a chance at Rickey Henderson's stolen base record of 1,406 or Crawford's triples mark, but when he's done he'll have run right past every other Met in team history. And no one will be close to him.