Magazine Cover Derby Round 1.03

[Benjamin Grimm]

http://leaptoad.com/mets/covers/images/magazines/MCD.png>



Vote for the cover that you like the best. Voting will run for seven days.



The Movin' Mets

Sports Illustrated, May 5, 1968.

http://leaptoad.com/mets/covers/magazines/19680505_SI.jpg>





Baseball's Toughest Pitchers

Sports Illustrated, July 21, 1975.

http://leaptoad.com/mets/covers/magazines/19750721_SI.jpg>





New York Mets' Ron Darling

Ellery Queen, May 1988.

http://leaptoad.com/mets/covers/magazines/19880500_EQ.jpg>





Happy Days

Sports Illustrated, February 25, 2008.

http://leaptoad.com/mets/covers/magazines/20080225_SI.jpg>

[Benjamin Grimm]

I think that Ellery Queen cover may be the strangest of the bunch. I actually thought this might be a Photoshop image, but I verified that it's real.



Stories by and about Steve Allen?



https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Steve_Allen_Show_4100.jpg>

[Lefty Specialist]

Classic Seaver with the drop-and-drive delivery. And why the hell was Ron Darling in a mystery magazine? Strange.



I'm a sucker for the simplicity of old SI covers, though. Swoboda staring into the future with no batting gloves.

[whippoorwill]

Is Ellery Queen still published? I'd like that.



Another toughy. I like the Ron Darling one and the Santana one.



Never knew Palmer had such a strange offbalanced looking windup

[Edgy MD]

Lefty Specialist wrote: Classic Seaver with the drop-and-drive delivery. And why the hell was Ron Darling in a mystery magazine? Strange. I'm a sucker for the simplicity of old SI covers, though. Swoboda staring into the future with no batting gloves.

Yeah, the Ellery Queen is compelling as heck, but Swoboda looks like a hero and a half there. A western sheriff who is half indian/half white man, who gets his white citizens grudging respect for coming back from his military service with short hair and whitey ways, along with powerful arms but a personal restraint about using them. He nonetheless solves crimes by flashing back to the lessons he learned when he when he was a long-haired semi-rejected child on the Indian reservation, at the foot of the elders, listening to their venerable wisdom.



"The Moving Mets" it is.

[MFS62]

Have to go for the Ellery Queen cover because of its uniqueness.

And I can imagine that Ron Darling may have read more issues of that publication than the one in which he was featured.

Later

[Guest 41Forever]

I've never seen that Ellery Queen cover. That's pretty cool. It's fun when our guys pop up in odd places like that.

[Centerfield]

https://www.sicovers.com/content/images/thumbs/0002122_johan-santana-of-the-mets.jpeg>



That SI cover of Santana is weird. With the background it looks like he has no legs. Here's an image with a bit better resolution, but it's still hard to see the legs. I get what SI is trying to do there, but I don't know that I would have gone with that image for the cover.



Anyway, it doesn't matter. Swoboda is the obvious choice here.

[kcmets]

Put me down for Rocky!

[batmagadanleadoff]

So I'm trying to figure out how you organized the brackets based on what you've already told us. Does this mean that the Swoboda cover is the third oldest cover in the tournament?

[Benjamin Grimm]

Yes.

[Frayed Knot]

That SI cover landed three weeks after Swoboda took an 0-fer-10 (including leading off an inning six different times with an out) w/5 Ks in the Mets' 24-inning 1-0 loss in Houston.

Agee also took a double-digit oh-fer that night (although w/only 4 Ks) hitting right before Swoboda in the lineup and often making the final out in all those innings which allowed Rocky to lead-off the next.



So while that year's Mets may have been movin', they weren't movin' very fast.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Yes.

Thanks. So I go ahead and tell you that I'm sure I have Met themed covers that I'd guess you've never seen before, and then you go ahead and whip out that Ellery Queen that I don't remember ever seeing. And if I did ever see it, I've forgotten it.



Naturally.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

The contrast between Swoboda's utter stillness and concentration in that photo and the "Movin' Mets" headline had to be a topic of intense production room debate; and I'm glad Team Juxtaposition won.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

I like the Ellery Queen concept and photo but there's entirely too much clutter on the cover itself; gigantic logo, and so many big teasers you don't even know why Darling is even on it. I'm not sure that's the mystery they wanted to be conveying, especially while giving so much else away.

[A Boy Named Seo]

Weird Darling holding a bomb almost got my vote, but that Swoboda photo is perfect. You couldn't get that feel in 2019 with the fanciest camera and a thousand filters.

[Edgy MD]

Based on the big teasers about Steve Allen and Miss Manners, neither of which imply anything mysterious going on, I'm guessing Ellery Queen's target audience was evolving at the time from "people who love a good mystery" to "people who are about 91."

[kcmets]

Frayed Knot wrote: That SI cover landed three weeks after Swoboda took an 0-fer-10 (including leading off an inning six different times with an out) w/5 Ks in the Mets' 24-inning 1-0 loss in Houston. Agee also took a double-digit oh-fer that night (although w/only 4 Ks) hitting right before Swoboda in the lineup and often making the final out in all those innings which allowed Rocky to lead-off the next. So while that year's Mets may have been movin', they weren't movin' very fast.

Wow! http://leaptoad.com/mets/gamedetail.php?gameno=978April 15th, 1968 - UMD

[Centerfield]

A Boy Named Seo wrote: Weird Darling holding a bomb almost got my vote, but that Swoboda photo is perfect. You couldn't get that feel in 2019 with the fanciest camera and a thousand filters.

I mean seriously, it's just a beautiful cover.

[Edgy MD]

Frayed Knot wrote: That SI cover landed three weeks after Swoboda took an 0-fer-10 (including leading off an inning six different times with an out) w/5 Ks in the Mets' 24-inning 1-0 loss in Houston. Agee also took a double-digit oh-fer that night (although w/only 4 Ks) hitting right before Swoboda in the lineup and often making the final out in all those innings which allowed Rocky to lead-off the next. So while that year's Mets may have been movin', they weren't movin' very fast. Wow! http://leaptoad.com/mets/gamedetail.php?gameno=978April 15th, 1968 - UMD

Kase, is that Ellery Queen part of your collection? I suddenly feel a need to solve the mystery of what angle got Ron Darling that cover.

[batmagadanleadoff]

How big is that Ellery mag? What's the footprint? Is that a digest sized mag like the old TV Guide or Reader's Digest or something bigger?

[kcmets]

Edgy MD wrote: Kase, is that Ellery Queen part of your collection? I suddenly feel a need to solve the mystery of what angle got Ron Darling that cover.

No, new to me. More impressive is that it's not listed in a 282 page definitive

Mets checklist I have from 2000. Great find by the CPF MCD Commish!



batmags, tell me you're not Dave Berman!?!

[batmagadanleadoff]

=kcmets post_id=4650 time=1553098761 user_id=53]


batmags, tell me you're not Dave Berman!?!

[Frayed Knot]

Frayed Knot wrote: That SI cover landed three weeks after Swoboda took an 0-fer-10 (including leading off an inning six different times with an out) w/5 Ks in the Mets' 24-inning 1-0 loss in Houston. Agee also took a double-digit oh-fer that night (although w/only 4 Ks) hitting right before Swoboda in the lineup and often making the final out in all those innings which allowed Rocky to lead-off the next. So while that year's Mets may have been movin', they weren't movin' very fast. Wow! http://leaptoad.com/mets/gamedetail.php?gameno=978April 15th, 1968 - UMD

How wild is it to be going 24 innings in the 5th game of the season!?!

Mets started that year with One game in SF (Wed), then played the next day in LA and again on Saturday sandwiched around an off-day Friday, before heading to Houston for a Sunday - Monday

two-game series in advance of the home opener (SFG) at Shea on Wednesday.



And we complain about odd schedules today!

[kcmets]

=batmagadanleadoff post_id=4654 time=1553100939 user_id=68]I don't even know who Dave Berman is.

[kcmets]

Frayed Knot wrote: Mets started that year with One game in SF (Wed), then played the next day in LA and again on Saturday sandwiched around an off-day Friday, before heading to Houston for a Sunday - Monday two-game series in advance of the home opener (SFG) at Shea on Wednesday. And we complain about odd schedules today!

Bizzare indeed, I didn't pay attention the surrounding games in the list.

[G-Fafif]

The one game in SF for Opening Day was a result of MLB postponements resulting from the mourning that followed MLK's assasination.



http://www.sportingnews.com/us/mlb/news/martin-luther-king-assassination-anniversary-mlb-baseball-response-mets-dodgers/9wd7hwwbncje1f2r0vhlkenglhttp://www.sportingnews.com/us/mlb/news/martin-luther-king-assassination-anniversary-mlb-baseball-response-mets-dodgers/9wd7hwwbncje1f2r0vhlkengl

Edited March 20, 2019 by Guest

[G-Fafif]

Johan cover still gives me a nice little surge of adrenaline, just as it did the week it was published, so I'll give it the edge over the historical significance of the Movin' Mets (the Mets being on the cover of a magazine for maybe getting good for the first time). Ellery Queen...man, that's weird, which is certainly not a disqualifier, but it doesn't quite solve the mystery for me. Seaver and Palmer is a good combo just about any week of the '70s, but I'm not here for the Orioles magazine cover derby.

[Benjamin Grimm]

http://leaptoad.com/mets/covers/images/magazines/1.03w.png>



Rankings so far:

1. Casey of the Mets (Sports Illustrated)

2. The Movin' Mets (Sports Illustrated)

3. The Baseball Battle for New York (Sports Illustrated)