I haven’t seen Mets Yearbook 1978 yet but Osh41 has. Â You kids that are stressed about 2009 have NO IDEA what bad is. Â At least you knew everyone was coming back. Â Imagine if Wright, Reyes and Santana were in Reds uniforms. Â Here’s Osh…
Mets Yearbook – by the way – how great is this show?? Anyway I checked my DVR and was very happy to see the 1978 Yearbook showed up. For Mets geeks like myself 1978 was ‘the year after’. Seaver had been traded in mid 1977 so this was the first full season of the dark ages which finally lifted in 1984 – coincidentally my favorite Mets Yearbook edition so far.
One thing you can definitely say about Mets Yearbook 1978 is – SPIN CONTROL.
After watching the show you’d never know that the 1978 Mets went 66-96 – all this while the team in the boogie down Bronx won their second straight WS. Can you imagine in the WFAN/24 hour sports cycle the Mets being that bad? Well last year was probably as close as we’ll ever see to this – but they could at least blame the injuries. The 78 team was just bad.
Some highlights
* The Mets have new uniforms! Check Metspolice archives for this – 1978 – 1981.
* The Mets turn a lot of double plays! The flip side to this is that they had a ton of base runners allowed which teams that lose 96 games tend to have.
* Pat Zachary describing how he broke his foot having a tantrum which ended a season which had him make the All-Star team.
* Ralph Kiner narrating a reenactment of Zachary breaking his foot – um guys, you lost 96 games – is this something that was funny? Funny how???? (insert Joe Pesci Goodfella’s clip here).
* The San Diego Chicken doing a full out imitation of the Willie Montanez painfully slow HR trot. How did this guy not get a pitch to the side of his helmet? David Wright shows up no one and gets hit and this guy never got drilled for this act?
* Bobby V being really over the top and annoying during a bubble gum blowing contest. I liked Bobby as a manager and put up with his hijinks so it’s good to see that he could be equally annoying as an active player.
* Lee Mazzilli gets glasses!!!
* Old Timers Day! Clips of an event the Mets used to have which David Howard says won’t sell seats – Hey Dave – school’s out – I don’t see the numbers jumping in home attendance – what’s the excuse now?
* The Happy Days cast plays softball at Shea! Holy crap – is this a Mets highlight film? Oh yeah – baseball-reference.com says that the team had on OBP of .314 and collectively hit 86 homeruns. Yeah – get the Laverne and Shirley cast out there too while you’re at it.
* Steve Henderson and Dan Norman profiled – 2 of the prizes of the Seaver trade (Doug Flynn and Zachary were the others) get some face time. Henderson gets tips from Willie Mays on how to play the outfield (Steve plays the OF like Roger Cedeno based on the highlights so Willie had his work cut out for him. And he is almost unintelligible – his drawl is so thick you have to rewind it a second time to get the jist). Dan is what he always was ‘ a prospect who has a bright future’. That future included 9 homeruns over parts of 4 seasons with the Mets. Yeah.
Looking forward to the 79 film – the 79 team was the absolute rock bottom of the dark ages for the Mets – looking forward to what they put out there. I am guessing the Mets showing off their juggling skills or maybe the mule ‘Mettle’ makes an appearance.
