Author: Shannon Shark @metspolice

From last year, one man’s attempt to craft an “Irish” Mets team.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day from Shea Stadium – lets welcome Bob Murphy to the microphone (Tim McCarver is up in the TV booth) to introduce the Irish Mets – a list of Mets who have at-least Irish-sounding names.   Feel free to hit comments to add suggestions, nitpick heritage, or bitch.  Bob, take it away…(no I’m not going to attempt to write in Murph-cadence)

First let’s meet the pitchers:

Our starters: Nolan Ryan, Tim Leary, Terry Leach and Jim McAndrew

The bullpen:   Tug McGraw & Roger McDowell (we could add brief 2009 Met Darren O’Day)

Behind the plate: catcher Mike Fitzgerald

Third base: He played 38 games there in 1990, please welcome back our old friend Tom O’Malley

Shortstop:  Roy McMillan

Second base:  Doug Flynn

First base: moving from LF on the 2008 team to first…Daniel Murphy!

In left: Our former “we need a body” supersub Joe McEwing. (I wanted to nominate the big redhead Rusty Staub but was overruled by the Mets Police Emerald Society).  Last year McEwing was at first and Murphy here.

In Center: Kevin McReynolds (33 games there in 1991)

The Right Fielder: Dave Gallagher

Pete Flynn will take care of the grounds, and to manage this not-so-impressive lineup, we considered having a player-manager at SS, but we decided to go un-Wilpon and not forget the New York Giants so John McGraw will be our choice.

Who did I miss?

Gregory sent me an email yesterday that I thought would lend itself to a good discussion:

A lot of people will think, and rightly so, that this is a totally meaningless question, but I am curious. I’d like to know, what’s up with the blue the Mets use in their uniforms?  They say it’s Dodger blue, but it’s not. My mom saw a Mets hat on me recently and said it looked like electric blue. It does, especially with that orange. It’s definitely lighter than Dodger blue. It’s not a very becoming blue, and it looks even worse when coupled with civilian clothes.

Who chose it, and why? Was it just an accident? Did someone think it looked good? What shade of blue is it? Does it have some symbolism? Was it just to be different from the Dodgers? Did they get an order on some cheap blue tint and stick with it? I’m inclined to guess it was just an accident which has been upheld as tradition, out of inertia.

I figured you would know the answer to this, if anyone would, or you would know how to get it.

For a team challenged with having to combine blue with orange, they pick shockingly clashing versions of each, and then pinstripes, and dropshadows. What a noisy uniform.

It’s funny this came up.  During the week I was asking Osh41 if I was right when I think the current Mets blue is darker than that of the late 70s.    Let’s take a look at several photos:

One thing we must consider is the lighting and other stuff I don’t know about in all the photos.  To try to have some measure of consistency I thought I’d look at some Sports Illustrated covers, assuming they have some sort of consistent quality control.

In the bottom row is Casey Stengel.  That blue has always struck me as dark.  Pictures from that era always make the Mets look dark, but maybe it’s just the quality of film from the period.

Compare Casey to Seaver and Strawberry.   Seaver looks lighter than Casey and Darryl looks lighter than Seaver.

Is Jackie Robinson’s blue the same as Steve Garvey’s?   Jackie’s looks darker.  Again, is it the photography?

How about the shots of Rusty in the 70’s and 80’s?  The 70’s look lighter to me.  Comparing both to David Wright, the modern blue looks darker than either.

If you flip through the MLB Style Guide, the blue on the 1974-77 road jerseys is clearly lighter.

From Mets.com

November 16, 1961 – The circular Mets logo, designed by sports cartoonist Ray Gatto, was unveiled. It has gone virtually unchanged throughout the history of the club. The shape of the insignia, with its orange stitching, represents a baseball, and the bridge in the foreground symbolizes that the Mets, in bringing back the National League to New York, represent all five boroughs. It’s not just a skyline in the background, but has a special meaning. At the left is a church spire, symbolic of Brooklyn, the borough of churches. The second building from the left is the Williamsburg Savings Bank, the tallest building in Brooklyn. Next is the Woolworth Building. After a general skyline view of midtown comes the Empire State Building. At the far right is the United Nations Building. The Mets’ colors are Dodger blue and Giant orange, symbolic of the return of National League baseball to New York after the Dodgers and Giants moved to California. Blue and Orange are also the official colors of New York State.

I love highlighting that black is not mentioned as an official color.

This article from 1961 mentions “royal blue”

$3.95 – New York Times – Nov 17, 1961
The New York Mets have struck it rich, and they are sharing the wealth. … The insigne done in orange and royal blue, official colors of the new club, …

Here’s a fun one..I often refer to the Mets looking like a softball team.  Here’s Casey talking about the A’s switching to green:

Miami News – Google News Archive – Feb 4, 1963
bet that the Mets will and dignified white,” he was rumored as saying. don’t have to wear gay colors to look like a softball team.” . …

I’m sure this will generate comments.  As for me, I remember ’70s blue to be lighter.  Thoughts?