Category: mets

Mike asks:

hey shannon..just a thought. why is there almost never any mention of the great 1973 season the mets had?? heck, they were one game away from beating big bad oakland..this was my era as i grew up in the late ’60s, early ’70s and basically lived at shea during this time. we had some great players on the team and of course the best pitching rotation in baseball. we beat the big red machine who were many times better then us (on paper).
i mean the mets honor nl east championship teams more then they do the 1973 mets. any thoughts from you would be great. thanks for listening.

Two words: wild cards.

I got into this team in the late 1970’s.  All we had was 1969 and 1973.  ’73 was almost on par with ’69.  It was almost as if the Mets won in 1973.   You often heard the names of Tug McGraw, Willie Mays and Yogi Berra.

Even after 1986 came along, ’73 stuck around.   As fans we celebrated our three great teams.  The details of the ’73 World Series loss got fuzzy and the focus became Tug.  I know I would be hard-pressed to press a quiz on that series.

Time went on.  1988 happened – the Mets were surely on their way to another World Series until Mike Scoiscia and the Dodgers ruined that.   The 1988 Mets have largely been forgotten, and after a half century of baseball they are just another division winner.

Another decade – and some wild cards.   The ’73 team sort of got folded into the ’69 team.  If you were going to honor Seaver, Koosman, or Harrelson – why not pick ’69.

If you’re over 45 you have ’69.  If you are 40ish like me you have ’86 and the youngsters have ’00 to be their ’73 and 2006 as a recent semi-success.

That’s my guess…73 is now a subset of 69, and ’00 has taken it’s place.

In the past this is where I would have gone on and on about the lack of Mets history, but the Mets have made great strides by adding the historical bricks, and opening the Hall of Fame museum (although there is no news on that which makes me wonder if it is ready yet.)

What does everyone else think about Mike’s question?

I exchanged emails with the new Events Manager of McFadden’s Citi Field – I am hopeful that we’ll be officially marching on McFadden’s (in a peaceful way) on Opening Day.  Will keep you posted…and I have one eye on the weather.

If you are wondering about this Blue Cap Army thing, information is here and please sign up.  Signing up helps me answer the question “how many people ya got?”

The cool Mets blog On The Black visited McFadden’s yesterday and these photos make it seem there’s still lots of work to do.  Thanks to Kerel for sending the link over, and go check out On the Black for the pictures and a McFadden’s update.

Some of us were chatting in the comments section about pre-renovated Shea.  The great site Forgotten New York has the picture below:

Check out a few things…the National League is listed on the left side.  In later years it was on the right.  I wonder why they flipped that?   Even Mets Police 1970 wouldn’t have complained about that.

I love the big text message board that was replaced by a Budweiser ad at some point.  It would take forever to put a message  up there, they had to do it one letter at a time, scrolling through each letter like you would on a video game back in the day.

Check out the “video screen” up top.  That was gone before my day.  I recall that being a clock in the late 70’s, and later a Mets logo.

Note the way the pitchers are logged.  The pitcher uniform number is not being displayed, but rather a code which you would then look up in a scorebook.  I recall being at some other stadium semi-recently and finding it interesting.  Philly maybe.

I don’t recall there being a message area on the bottom left of the scoreboard.   I know the light panels were replaced at some point after the 1980’s, but the design in the picture is the one I grew up with (well without the video screen).

I’m so tempted to go sarcastic about the message in the lower left but I will refrain.

Here’s another pic (in color) of the scoreboard. Thanks to Corey for the links.

I really should go dig and see if there are pictures of me as a kid at a Mets game, and I really need to tell the Seaver story – maybe when the site gets a little bigger.

I was thinking about the now-removed fanbrick.  When I do the 10th anniversary MetsPolice column in 2018, that photo’s gonna be a nice rarity isn’t it?