Posted on by Shannon Shark @metspolice

Mets Yearbook 1966

I’m emptying out the DVR this week, catching up on Mets Yearbook (the fine SNY series where they dust off the old “rain delay” films).  As usual, I’ll type as I watch.

Here in the first few minutes ’66 is not grabbing me.   Murph is in full-blown propaganda mode.  They are playing “winning ball” (um Bob they won 66 games).

This film is more worn than the others SNY has shown.  It has the washed out color that some of your old 8mm films may have (if you were a kid in the 70’s you know what I mean), but I’m happy to see any old film at all.   The washed out color makes it look like Charlie Samuels dressed the team in black.

The Mets went to Greenland to visit troops?   Pretty interesting.

Real Mr. Met (with the paper mache head) just made an appearance with Mrs. Met.    What happened to her?  Did she die?  Are they divorced?  Why wouldn’t you bring her out on Mother’s Day or something.

Murph says there’s something called the “Lady Met Club” – I will have to do some research on that club…but it reminds me that the character was called Lady Met not Mrs. Met.  Maybe they had a fight and broke up.

One of the biggest days of all is “the famed Banner Day.”  Imagine that, Mets fans walking on the field with signs.   Have you ever heard of such a thing?

Camera Day!   That’s a good giveaway.

Why is Mr. Met wearing #56?   He’s walking Elsie the cow around on Borden’s Day.   They’d get killed if they did that now.

Helmet Day – another good giveaway that’s long gone.

Lindsey Nelson just said “yours truly and Bob Murphy” man the microphones.   What happened to Ralph?

“Don Grant” the chairman of the board.  “Don?”

Nelson just mentioned how most Mets fan now hate the Dodgers.  Most.

Blue Caps watch…nope in 1966 nobody wore blue caps to games.  I’m telling you, it’s never been true for whatever reason.  We’re gonna change that.

Lindsey is bragging about the Mets scoring on Koufax.  Relax Lindsey, 30 year old Sandy was 27 and 9 in 41 starts and walked away after that season.

They’re bragging about this Willie Mays guy from San Francisco again.  If you want him so badly then acquire him.

Oh man now Lindsey is taking credit for a Met going into  the Hall of Fame.  Casey Stengel.

Now he’s asking is a fine young pitcher like Tom Seaver (#21 on the Suns) make the jump to the majors.  They have high hopes for this Bud Harrelson kid too.

It looks weird to see a Met (Ken Boyer) wearing #14 on the field.

Tommy Davis is coming over from LA to start for the Mets on ’67.  (He will hit .302 at age 28 with 16 1967-homers, which is like 30 in 2010 numbers…yet I had to look him up.  He was one and done and went away in the Tommie Agee deal)

That’s it for ’66.  I was going to do 1968 next but looks like SNY cylon’d the tv listings.  Instead of yearbook I taped the inexplicable dopey show I won’t name – the one with the fat guy asking trivia questions.  SNY can do better.  I’ll set the DVR again

I’d love to see SNY make a DVD set of these when they finish restoring them all, and please make new deliberately cheesy ones – Howie would be perfect to voice them!

7 Replies to “Mets Yearbook 1966”

  1. Mr. Met had on Facebook this year that Mrs. Met was with him ST. Maybe he got remarried.

    1. some day when I’m unemployed or retired I really want to get to the bottom of Mr. Met and his ladies. The character of Mrs. Met as portrayed in ESPN commercials does not look like Lady met from the 1960’s – but Mr. Met II doesn’t look like the Mr. Met of the 60’s either.

      Perhaps Mr. Met married Lady Met and they had a son. Mr. Met retired in the 70’s and moved to Florida. Eventually Mr. Met II took on the character at Shea, and met a beautiful bald ballcreature and married her, thus she is now “Mrs. Met.” From the commercials we know they have kids, so perhaps we will see Mr. Met III at Citi or The MercuryDome some day.

  2. Camera Day wasn’t a giveaway day. It was a day when the players would make themselves available to picture-taking fans before the game. You’d come down to the box seats and they’d smile for you. Decades later, it was revived, with players stationed at various intervals along the foul lines and fans allowed access via the center field gate and around the track (a la Dynamet Dash and that thing with the banners).

  3. Interesting story. I was there at Banner Day in 1966. It was a double-header, and all us kids with banners had to leave the first game around the fourth inning and head to the staging area, outside the outfield fence.

  4. I won Banner day in 1966 with a friend of mine,we were 6 years old. Is there a film of that I can see/buy?

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