Sept. 15, 1962 - Faced with the grim realities of extending their one-game winning streak, the New York Mets fell back on habit today and presented 17,534 fans at the Polo Grounds with a full display of their many-faceted incompetence. In the course of losing to the Cincinnati Reds, 9-6, the Mets chased hits and knuckleballs with equal futility, tied a major league record for yielding home runs in a season, and cemented their spot as the first 10th-place team in modern baseball history. The defeat, the Mets’ 111th of the season, was fashioned principally by the Reds’ offense, which made 11 hits, and secondarily by Bob Purkey, whose knuckleball delivery kept the Mets in relative check throughout the first seven innings and gained Purkey his 22nd victory. The most damaging blow among the Reds’ hits was a two-run homer by Jerry Lynch in the seventh. The homer was No. 187 against the Mets this season, tying the modern major league record set by the Kansas City Athletics in 1956.
