Yearbook Cover Derby Round 1.10 1977 original vs 2003

[Benjamin Grimm]

1977 Original Edition



2003

[Edgy MD]

When do we get to see the positive of the 2003 cover?

[Benjamin Grimm]

That 2003 cover may very well be the worst of the worst. I can't imagine what they were thinking.

Art Howe may have lit up the room during his interview, but it seems that whoever composed this cover didn't think that Art, or anyone else for that matter, was worth highlighting.

[Frayed Knot]

I look at the 2003 Yearbook and ask myself, 'How much more blue can this be?', and the answer is, none, none more blue.

[stevejrogers]

Koosman 20th win celebration over whatever that blue mess is.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

I never got all the hype about Kooz's 20th win being all yearbook coverworthy. In this period the Mets thought their yearbooks were media guides. Maybe they were.

But I suspect they did this because they highlighted a Seaver round number accomplishment before. Also not a thrilling cover topic.

What is the 2003 thing? I can't even see it.

[Zvon]

I was more a Kooz fan than a Seaver fan in those years so that '77 cover was very special to me. I had been rooting for Jerry to get 20 wins for six years, and I just knew he would before he faded. I hadda believe! This was emotionally big for most fans of the early to mid 70's.

If they piped the blue images in this negative blue it might have looked pretty kool.

[MFS62]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: That 2003 cover may very well be the worst of the worst. I can't imagine what they were thinking. Art Howe may have lit up the room during his interview, but it seems that whoever composed this cover didn't think that Art, or anyone else for that matter, was worth highlighting.

Which inspired my song parody "Total Eclipse of the Art".

Later

[Lefty Specialist]

Well, I only saw one yearbook, so I voted for 1977.

[G-Fafif]

The vibe around Kooz's 20th may have been the last genuinely warm moment to emanate from the Mets family as we knew it from 1962 onward. The announcers talked about it like everybody's son had done something to make us all proud. Not that baseball wasn't always a business, but at heart, under Mrs. Payson (and, presumably, her heirs in the year after she died), the Mets felt like a family affair, wherein everybody who wasn't traded or released was part of that family -- even the cranky, stuffy uncle who pretentiously stuck an initial in front of his name. "M. Donald Grant? Oh, you mean Uncle Don? Oh, he handles the books for mother. Don't worry about him. He's not very sociable, but she seems to trust him."

Perhaps it was fitting that the 20th win and its attendant hubbub happened in the last month of the last season before there was free agency. Jerry Koosman was always a Met, was always going to be a Met, the team was always going to be owned by benevolent millionaires who were going to send champagne to the clubhouse to toast one of their players when that player did something special, just as they'd send gifts from Tiffany when players' wives would give birth or bouquets for other occasions. They'd invite the kids to play a game with their fathers on the field, and invite the former players to put on uniforms and play a game with each other, and the regular players would always be good enough to win at least a few more than they lost. We were all part of the big Mets family and we knew we could count on each other.

When I first saw the 20 collage, it was as an inside page in the revised edition. It seemed more appropriate inside than outside, but Kooz was one of us, and 20 was a huge deal for a starting pitcher who'd never gotten there before and we all celebrated together. It was a great story as '76 ended. Why not celebrate it to start '77? What else was there that wasn't generic? The Mets had gone on a tear in August and September, but were so far behind the Phillies, it didn't matter. Kingman had chased Hack Wilson, then ended up behind Mike Schmidt. Lee Mazzilli belted a couple of big home runs down the stretch, but we weren't officially in a youth movement. Nobody was acquired in the offseason. Seaver...management isn't too sure about Seaver anymore. How about Koosman?

One player's noteworthy if not landmark accomplishment as focal point of the cover of the next year's yearbook? A well-liked, long-tenured player, to be sure, but hardly its most salable star? The fact that they did that for Jerry Koosman was, in Metrospect, wonderful. They wouldn't do a cover quite like that again. The Mets weren't a family quite like that again.

***

Back when the Mets reached out to bloggers, they would have a preseason off the record dinner without about two dozen of us representatives of the quasi-media, held in the room they use for press conferences. Adorning the walls in there are framed, blown up covers of past yearbooks. Many of them are in the hallway leading to the clubhouses, but the ones from 2000 and beyond are in this room. As the dinner was winding down, one of my blogging colleagues -- or blolleagues -- had one final question. He pointed to the 2003 cover and asked, "Who signed off on this?"

Looks like Kooz just got another win.

[Edgy MD]

Maybe that was just one layer of the CMYK film and the other layers got lost on the way to the printer.

[Benjamin Grimm]

This may be our first unanimous poll.

I agree with the above. It was nice to see Jerry getting his due. It's a shame that this cover was short-lived, and replaced by that awful Torre cover in the revised edition.

[A Boy Named Seo]

I imagine 2003 was given to a young, hot shit designer who had some sweet concepts, was well on his way to getting this yearbook done, then got hooked on coke and quit/was fired after turning up to work looking like hell after a long Airstrip kinda night. The Mets realized way too late that no one else had worked on the cover, so the day it was due they turned it in as-is and tried to pitch it as "futuristic minimalism". I'm picturing some Michael Scott-type working in the Mets office (a real stretch, huh) hiring some Ryan Howard-type (BJ Novak, not the first baseman) to coke this terrible mess up.

[Guest d'Kong76]

Both are kinda meh, went with 1977 and The Kooooz.

[RealityChuck]

I much prefer the blue design to a group of awkwardly stages photos. It at least looks like the actually hired a graphic designer that year.

[Zvon]

RealityChuck wrote: I much prefer the blue design to a group of awkwardly stages photos. It at least looks like the actually hired a graphic designer that year.

Ugh. Shutout spoiled! Up Chuck & smacks one out with 2 out in the 9th! Ohhh, the drama!
But Kooz still wins the game. Kinda parallels his career.

d'Kong76 wrote: Both are kinda meh, went with 1977 and The Kooooz.

meh. MEH! Waterlogged snapshots of Kooz laying in the street get more than a meh!

[fimg=300]https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/f4/7f/b3/f47fb318d4a363cc07356ba57101df3d.jpg[/fimg]
"Meh?! There's no meh in baseball!"

[stevejrogers]

Obviously Grote congratulating Kooz was a must, but just weird seeing Stearns so noticeably far from the celebration.

[Guest d'Kong76]

Zvon wrote: Waterlogged snapshots of Kooz laying in the street get more than a meh!

I don't know what that means, but I doubt '77 Orig has much more YCD
punch after this round's landslide victory.

[Zvon]

d'Kong76 wrote: Zvon wrote: Waterlogged snapshots of Kooz laying in the street get more than a meh! I don't know what that means, but I doubt '77 Orig has much more YCD punch after this round's landslide victory.

That supposed to mean that Kooz should never draw such a lowly reaction for any reason. Just a bad joke but the sentiment was good.
*adjusts tie*

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

as noted previously the scoreboard caputures the last weeks before Stearns and Mazzilli would swap uni numbers. Boxscore shows Krane was in for Torre, who'd been pinch-runned out. Boisclair pinch-hit for Vail in the 4th inning, not sure why, but Bruuuuce later hit a 2-run homer

Mazzilli
Millan
Milner
Kranepool
Boisclair
Stearns
Staiger
Harrelson