If you read the site regularly, you know how much I have been raving about The Mets Illustrated History.
I spent some time yesterday not just looking at the pictures but reading some of the text, and I learned quite a few things.
Back when there was talk of the Continental League, the American League was going to expand by adding a second team in New York, and then swapping that franchise for one of the Pennsylvania teams. Maybe we could have had the Phillies in the AL East these days.
I also was dumbstruck by the events surrounding Gil’s death – try to imagine this one with today’s media. The Mets Opening Day game was the same day as the funeral, and they didn’t cancel it. Let the blogosphere catch fire, right? Well there’s more.
Gil’s body flew back on the same plane as…..the Yankees!
Want to guess what team did cancel their game? The Yankees.
Seaver said there was no way he’d pitch, and the strike made the whole thing moot.
Amazin’ stuff, beautiful pictures and a great way to catch up on the parts of the story you that might be before your time.
Coming up at 12:30 I will offer a chance to win a copy of the book via twitter (details will be published here), and tomorrow I will run a blog comment contest with a trivia question.
The book gets my all-star super review, get a copy today.
Honored by all the attention at Mets Police. If Shannon is this excited about the book, I must have done something right.
As for the Gil Hodges situation in 1972, let me just note that this occurred during the first actual strike in baseball history. That said, it was not known when Hodges died when the strike would be settled, and if the strike had been resolved quickly, then there would have been the mother of all scheduling conflicts. M. Donald Grant acted like a horse’s ass to the media and Mets fans devastated by Hodges’s death, announcing to the conflicted press after the funeral that they should quickly convene over at Shea while the family buried the beloved Hodges. Amazin’ly callous.
in all fairness,let it be known the pirates did not want to wait for a decision to be made to cancel the game for hodges funeral had the strike ended.
as a matter a fact they felt they would lose money having a “extra day off” in new york and did not want to fly in from pittsburgh on the day of the game.
as for the yankkes and mets flying on the same plane, michael burke, the yankees president,offered the mets to share the smae flight.
he felt the mets just simply wanted to get to new york as soon as possible.