Good morning.
The 8’s have been interesting years for the Mets. We have a team on the cusp in 1968, this mess in 1978, the little brother of The Dynasty in 88, the Mets probably won or lost or something in 1998 when I was getting married and not paying attention, and 2008 of course was Shea Goodbye and Collapse II.
Today we focus on the 40th anniversary of the 1978 Mets.
I thought I would pull out the 1978 Yearbook and reminisce, which I did, but there is so much to digest that I will have to divide this into several parts over the next few weeks of dead-time.
We can learn a lot from the 1978 yearbook that will inform us of where we are now.
Let’s remember where we were in 1978. Fans were mad at ownership because the Mets didn’t sign players. The Franchise had left. Across town, the Yankees had won a World Series in their refurbished ballpark.
In Queens….we marketed the manager. Hmmmm. These are the opening pages of the yearbook.
And if you want a nice suit, who better to ask than Joe Torre.
It’s kind of weird to think of this guy as the same guy who would become Saint Joe in the Bronx, but he was ours once. $135 in 1978 dollars for a suit? Mets fans must be pretty affluent.
Anyway, perhaps you’d like a cool Chromacolor II TV Set!
Well, what else can we market? Um er….Willie Mays played for the Mets for 5 minutes. Let’s try and ride his Cooperstown coattails.
And who says the Mets are stupid and cheap? Welcome to the Big Apple Ellot Maddox. I find it interesting that the Mets used Big Apple in 1978. Although the term had been around since the 1920’s, it was part of a tourism campaign in the 1970s. You may recall that the 1970’s were New York City at its lowest and we were coming off Son of Sam, blackouts and the Bronx on Fire. A tourism campaign was surely needed in those days.
This photo reveals that I have a copy of Van Halen III sitting on the desk of my office. A story for another day.
What catches my eye here is the ad for A&S (or A and Esses and we said in Queens) – why does the payer have Mets on his back?
And finally as we wrap up part one – this page was bragging about the “celebrities” who showed up at Shea. Rea that list. OK Herman Munster. Bobby Nystrom ok. Conceptually I can understand who some of these athletes are. I mean wow, imagine if Steve Gelbs Senior had started interviewing these guys during games, we’d lose our minds.
And that wraps up part one. Notice that with the exception of Elliot Maddox that the Mets haven’t even bothered to mention players yet.
So the next time you are mad at ownership on a team that has Yoenis Cespedes, Thor, JDG, Conforto, two promising rookies, the idea of The Dark Knight and conceptually David Wright why don’t you think about Son of Sam and The Franchise leaving town and see why nothing about the Wilpon Era even phases me.
