Magazine Cover Derby Round 2.04 "Amaysing Mets" vs. "Knight Cap"

[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 Amaysing Mets

Sports Illustrated, May 22, 1972.

Winner of http://thecranepool.net/phpBB32/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=28281Round 1.25

http://leaptoad.com/mets/covers/magazines/19720522_SI.jpg>





Knight Cap

Sports Illustrated, November 3, 1986.

Winner of http://thecranepool.net/phpBB32/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=28325Round 1.31

http://leaptoad.com/mets/covers/magazines/19861103_SI.jpg>

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

Another match where I supported neither of the representing contendahs

[Benjamin Grimm]

So you were the one vote for "Ron Darling Tries Harder"?

[Guest 41Forever]

Seeing Willie Mays in a Mets uniform makes any day a little brighter!

[Centerfield]

I think the Mays thing is just a function of age. If you were there, it's special to you. I wasn't. So I can't figure out why watching a washed up Mays play out his last days would be anything special. Maybe for converted Giants fans?



I mean, if an old Mike Trout finished his career with a 130 games in a Mets uniform and put up a mid .700's OPS, I think it would be ridiculed more than revered.



On the other hand, the '86 cover isn't great, but it's one where the Mets win the World Fucking Series.



Kinda ok picture of Mets winning the World Series against old man scratching his head. Knight Cap for me.

[dgwphotography]

=Centerfield post_id=10876 time=1558617603 user_id=65]
I mean, if an old Mike Trout finished his career with a 130 games in a Mets uniform and put up a mid .700's OPS, I think it would be ridiculed more than revered.

[Benjamin Grimm]

=Centerfield post_id=10876 time=1558617603 user_id=65]
I think the Mays thing is just a function of age. If you were there, it's special to you. I wasn't. So I can't figure out why watching a washed up Mays play out his last days would be anything special. Maybe for converted Giants fans?



I mean, if an old Mike Trout finished his career with a 130 games in a Mets uniform and put up a mid .700's OPS, I think it would be ridiculed more than revered.

[HahnSolo]

That all may be true, but a) the cover photo really isn't all that great, and b)is an icon coming to the team as big a deal as say, winning the World Series?



I'm on team Knight Cap. The Rich Gedman look is a bonus.

[Guest 41Forever]

I think the Mays thing is just a function of age. If you were there, it's special to you. I wasn't. So I can't figure out why watching a washed up Mays play out his last days would be anything special. Maybe for converted Giants fans? I mean, if an old Mike Trout finished his career with a 130 games in a Mets uniform and put up a mid .700's OPS, I think it would be ridiculed more than revered. On the other hand, the '86 cover isn't great, but it's one where the Mets win the World Fucking Series. Kinda ok picture of Mets winning the World Series against old man scratching his head. Knight Cap for me.

You have to realize that Mays was huge in New York, and he and the team were ripped from the fans when the Giants and Dodgers moved to California. The departure of those teams left huge, gaping wounds. The Mets, in many ways by design, were to heal those wounds and carry on the tradition of National League ball and those Dodger/Giant legacies. It wasn't a "washed up old guy" signing with a new team. It was the homecoming for a hero who was arguably the best all-around player in baseball history to the city where he came of age and was adored.



It was in many ways like the Seaver return in 1983. A great injustice was corrected. I don't care about a mid .700 OPS. It's Willie Mays in a Mets uniform. He his it 660th home run and played in a World Series as Met. His on-field retirement speech is the stuff of legend.



Yes. it's a function of age.

[G-Fafif]

There is no hypothetical contemporary parallel for Mays returning to New York in 1972.



If the Angels announced they were leaving Southern California in 2020; if hundreds of thousands if not millions of Angels fans were left with an inescapable void; if Trout built on his legend for the let's say San Antonio Angels for at least another decade and was universally considered one of the handful of best not to mention most beloved players ever; and then, in the early 2030s, if an American League team in Southern California that eventually replaced the Angels came along and arranged to have legendary Mike Trout come back to fill the void that had remained for so long...then maybe you'd have something sort of close. But not that close.



Willie Mays was a cultural icon beyond Trout or any player who plays today. His significance was established in the 1950s, in New York, when New York had three ballclubs, a lost era by 1972, when all you had were yellowing newspaper and magazine clippings and some black and white footage that couldn't be called up on a whim. The symbolism of New York recouping him -- Mrs. Payson making it her mission since 1962 to have him back -- was irresistible to anybody who remembered pre-1958 New York or anybody who was raised on those stories. Baseball was a far bigger deal in 1957 than it was in 1972 and this was a welcome reminder of what it all meant. Baseball was a far bigger deal in 1972 than it is now. Parochialism held more sway, because to not have your favorite player locally meant barely seeing him at all. There was no MLB TV, et al. Willie maintained a high profile because he was Willie, but other than All-Star Games, occasional Game of the Week appearances and, between 1962 and 1971, series against the Mets, you simply weren't seeing him outside of commercials and magazine covers. To have him again, in New York, on the National League team that wore the same NY on its cap was mindblowing, especially in the pre-free agent age. The way he returned -- with the home run to beat the Giants in New York -- made the whole thing transcendent.



And Willie remained a lot of people's favorite player. There are people who stayed Giants fans because of Willie, at least until May of 1972 and they became Mets fans to stay. This was also in the era when the absolute greats were applauded when they showed up as visitors. You wanted the Mets to beat the Giants when Willie was a Giant, but Willie drew applause even if he did something that might have wound up helping the Giants beat the Mets. Maybe especially if he did something great because the appreciation for what Willie did never fully faded.



It was a different time, for sure, with a backstory all its own. In the great sweep of franchise history, perhaps it can only be viewed as sui generis, though I don't believe you had to be there. You just have to be willing to understand that there was a world before you were a part of it and follow its trail toward the world you know. The magazine cover with the old man scratching his head captures that one-of-a-kind moment. What it lacks in artistry it makes up for in evocation, just as Casey Stengel on the cover of Sports Illustrated evokes the beginning of a wild ride we are still on today, not just some washed-up manager who is about to steer a wretched collection of castoffs to the worst record of modern times. One didn't have to be around in March of 1962 to appreciate today what that club, that manager and that cover communicate still.



As for the 1986 cover, a better picture would probably make this segment of the competition moot.

[Benjamin Grimm]

What G-Fafif said! For a variety of reasons, the players of today are never likely to have that aura of legend that players from the early- to mid-20th Century had. We see too much of them. We know too much about them. And baseball isn't what it used to be. It no longer stands out as much as it once did now that our culture has so much additional white noise.

[dgwphotography]

That G-fafif guy should be a writer or something...

[batmagadanleadoff]

For as far back as I've been reading him, Prince has been writing the most heartfelt, most moving pieces on Willie Mays the Met that I've ever come across. I don't agree that Mays's Met uniform number should be retired -- officially or unofficially -- but I can recall reading a very persuasive Prince piece on the topic years ago that definitely moved my needle in the direction of retirement, even if it didn't convince me altogether.

[batmagadanleadoff]

=batmagadanleadoff post_id=10918 time=1558629350 user_id=68]
For as far back as I've been reading him, Prince has been writing the most heartfelt, most moving pieces on Willie Mays the Met that I've ever come across. I don't agree that Mays's Met uniform number should be retired -- officially or unofficially -- but I can recall reading a very persuasive Prince piece on the topic years ago that definitely moved my needle in the direction of retirement, even if it didn't convince me altogether.

[batmagadanleadoff]

I think the Mays thing is just a function of age. If you were there, it's special to you. I wasn't. So I can't figure out why watching a washed up Mays play out his last days would be anything special. Maybe for converted Giants fans?

To each his own, but we're voting on covers, not on Mays's Mets batting average. And the Mays cover is fabulous. Mays captured in a broad smile. A natural, sincere honest to goodness smile evoking sheer happiness. Not one of those phony smile for the camera smiles. The Mets uniform wordmark dominates the lower half of the cover. And the headline: "The Amaysing Mets" is brilliant. So brilliant, that no sub-heading (e.g., "Willie Mays of the Mets") is needed because the headline tells you everything you need to know -- and with just three words. This is a crisp cover that conveys its message instantly with minimal effort.

[G-Fafif]

Worth nothing re the "...ing Mets" portion of the coverline is the Mets were off to a hellacious start of 17-7 after Mays's debut. I don't know what SI's editors had in mind for the cover prior to that Sunday (their deadline day), but the Mets might have been on their front burner already.

[Centerfield]

=batmagadanleadoff post_id=10922 time=1558630101 user_id=68]
And the Mays cover is fabulous. Mays captured in a broad smile. A natural, sincere honest to goodness smile evoking sheer happiness. Not one of those phony smile for the camera smiles.

[Edgy MD]

I voted for Mays.



By the way, he had a fine partial season for the Mets in 1972. And he was coming off a 1971 season that was, up until that time, the best season ever for a 40-year-old. A week before that cover came out, he put the team ahead for good with a homerun in his Mets debut.

[seawolf17]

I voted for Mays too, even though he's before my time. As much as I loved the moment that the Knight cover represented, it's kind of a bleh photo.

[Edgy MD]

=G-Fafif post_id=10887 time=1558620261 user_id=55]There is no hypothetical contemporary parallel for Mays returning to New York in 1972.

[Benjamin Grimm]

There's also Babe Ruth going to the Boston Braves.

[Edgy MD]

Nice.



But Boston didn't lose their team along with their larger-than-life supastar.

[Edgy MD]

Maybe Montreal will get a new team and Bartolo can play two seasons with them.

[Benjamin Grimm]

http://leaptoad.com/mets/covers/images/magazines/2_04w.jpg>

[Edgy MD]

Nobody's more excited about this victory than the teenage members of Van Halen.



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