As usual with an excerpt from Faith and Fear..it looks like I stole the entire article, but this is just a small snippet.
Greg emailed me to remind me of the 1981 split season. There was a major strike that year, and the season was played in two halves. So when they came back in August, every team was 0-0.
Greg put it, “It’s one of those moments I love to write about — a huge deal in its time, all but expunged from institutional memory. I mean who ever mentions the “second-season” 1981 pennant race? But it was real and it was spectacular (h/t Seinfeld).”
The Mets had a second chance…but as the story unfolds, some punk kid named Mookie was taking playing time from Lee Mazzilli
Mets 7 Cardinals 6. It was the sweep the Mets needed to stay alive in the September no one could have seen coming. They were 2½ out of first place with fourteen games remaining. Never mind they were only 19-20 since play resumed in August. Forget completely that they were 36-54 when you factored in April, May and June. None of that mattered now. The only thing that mattered was the downtrodden Mets of the Joe Torre era had just captured a must win in the midst of their first deep-September pennant race in nearly a decade.
via The Happiest Recap 037-039 « Faith and Fear in Flushing.
Hmmm, if you get to the end of Greg’s story it isn’t happy at all. Lee Mazzilli gets traded away. Stupid Faith and Fear blog bringing that up.
Did you guys hear SNY talk about Lee last night in the 8th? Keith talked about Lee’s tight pants, and Ronnie got off a good line wondering how the Mets could have traded Lee for two minor leaguers. Look it up if you don’t know why that’s funny.
i remember lindsay nelson interviewing lee mazzilli when he signed with the mets. the sound was down on my t.v. set and i thought he was singer peter lemongello!
(for you youngsta’s out there,peter,an unknown sold his album on t.v via mail orders in 1973)