1986 Mets to get the ESPN 30 for 30 documentary treatment

[Edgy MD]

Having just watched the second installment, Lenny was fire, as the kids' say.



I got the idea he (a) insisted on being paid for is contributions, ( insisted on getting the money up front and in cash, © spent it all before the cameras started rolling, and (d) told the interviewer "nobody needs to know about this."

[Edgy MD]

"Get Metsmerized!" got more play in this documentary than it ever did in its own time.

[seawolf17]

Edgy MD wrote: "Get Metsmerized!" got more play in this documentary than it ever did in its own time.

Underrated in its genius.

[Frayed Knot]

Edgy MD wrote: Having just watched the second installment, Lenny was fire, as the kids' say. I got the idea he (a) insisted on being paid for is contributions, ( insisted on getting the money up front and in cash, (c) spent it all before the cameras started rolling, and (d) told the interviewer "nobody needs to know about this."

I got the idea he was a one-time prize fighter who lost often via early knockouts and was now suffering the long-term consequences.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Punch drunk Lenny.

[Edgy MD]

Frayed Knot wrote: Edgy MD wrote: Having just watched the second installment, Lenny was fire, as the kids' say. I got the idea he (a) insisted on being paid for is contributions, ( insisted on getting the money up front and in cash, (c) spent it all before the cameras started rolling, and (d) told the interviewer "nobody needs to know about this." I got the idea he was a one-time prize fighter who lost often via early knockouts and was now suffering the long-term consequences.

Sure, but to be fair, I've gotten that idea for at least 25 years.

[Edgy MD]

Johnny Lunchbucket wrote: I'da liked to hear a little more from Orosco and Danny Heep than we got, which wasn't anything

Just finished #3. I don't think we've gotten any HoJo appearances either. They did a chapter on how his homer sunk the Cards, but I'm not sure his latter-day self had anything to say about it.



Davey mostly had a four-man pen that year, but Orosco and McDowell are the only relievers to appear in the story, and only McDowell provides commentary. Sisk, Niemann, and Anderson aren't even rumors, and it's a shame, because Sisk was a story, and Anderson was also. Anderson actually might have been two stories.



Teufel (mentioned but, I think, never heard from) and Santana (seen but never mentioned) also fall by the wayside. Santana has an incidental part in the Houston series just seeing him waving at balls that seem playable. Houston had a fast rug, but he wasn't playing particularly deep. He kind of looked like a 39-year-old Derek Jeter out there. The complement for Santana was usually that he was a really "smooth" shortstop, who had a fluid motion and made plays look easy. Even back then, it seemed like a backhanded way of saying he wasn't very rangy, but it sure seemed moreso in those old films.



For his part, Billy Hatcher seemed to fail to track down a few important, catchable balls also.



Either I'm misremembering or there's been some revisionism over the mound conference in the Greatest Game Ever Played (GGEP). Keith and others (Knight? Davey?) report him threatening to fight (or kill) Orosco if he threw another fastball. I remembered it as him threatening Carter if he called another fastball.



I'm getting old.



The parallel story they tell about the revitalization of the City is really subtle, because there's a good side, and a real shit side, and it really speaks to so much of what followed — Giuliani, Trump, the Central Park Five, Letterman's jump to CBS, 9/11, The War on Terror, Trump again (who really should be a character here, and maybe a contributor), the Rise of Hipster Brooklyn, Hurricane Sandy.



You can even see the rise of the 1990s Yankees in the seeds of the 1980s Mets, without too much squinting. That's a sobering thought, but ... .

[G-Fafif]

Sisk fell out from the pandemic. Hojo didn't respond to requests.

[Edgy MD]

Thanks.



A little outsider POV might have worked also. The Mets were a national phenomenon, and perhaps even bigger than that. It would have been interesting to see how things looked from North Carolina or Michigan.



The African-American commentators are fascinating, because to the last, they seem to be trying to say that (a) I ate, breathed, and slept with that team and loved it; and ( there was something racially problematic in the culture that built up around it.



They all seemed to be saying both and struggling to reconcile it themselves as the camera rolled.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

You're darn right on Hatcher-- the footage they show is damning. I think we have all heard the Hernandez-Orosco story told both ways

[Frayed Knot]

Not in the doc obviously, but Carter always denied

a) that Keith was dictating pitches to him or to anyone

using the "No way I'm making the last fucking out" comment.



Both may be accurate, but both also speak to Carter projecting/protecting his image so maybe not.

No catcher is going to want to agree/admit that someone else on the field not only knew better than him as far as pitch selection goes but also that he would passively cede that kind of authority onto

his turf? No doubt that Keith said something along those lines but each party probably remembers the specific wording and direction plus the degree of suggestion/demand from their own perspective.

The second comment, at least the specific phrasing of it, goes against Gary's squeaky clean image giving him incentive to clean it up a bit. On the other hand, this was the guy who, when Mookie took

a ball to the face in ST, reacted with, 'Oh gosh darn it Mook'

[Frayed Knot]

Edgy MD wrote: Frayed Knot wrote: I got the idea he was a one-time prize fighter who lost often via early knockouts and was now suffering the long-term consequences. Sure, but to be fair, I've gotten that idea for at least 25 years.

Well he always was a bit hard to comprehend because a) he's a moron, and he usually had a monster wad of chaw in his mouth (at least the part that wasn't constantly falling out).

Now is a bit different and his mouth appeared to be empty during the interviews. This time he sounded either drunk, punch-drunk, or quite possibly both.

[Edgy MD]

I heard "God dug it!" when Mookie got hit.



There are other times when you hear him substitute in a meaningless alternative for a profanity, which kind of undercuts Lenny's story of Carter pinning him up on the wall and F-bombing him.



Latter-day Lenny's like the anti-Carter. Gary was mentally programmed to substitute in a G-rated syllable for a profanity, and Lenny is mentally programmed to substitute a profanity back in for everything else. It's maybe one of the few parts of Lenny's programming still working.

[MFS62]

Johnny Lunchbucket wrote: You're darn right on Hatcher-- the footage they show is damning. I think we have all heard the Hernandez-Orosco story told both ways

The way I had always heard it was Hernandez telling Carter ,"If you call for another fastball, I'm going to shove it up your ass."

That seems logical, because a pitcher wouldn't throw a pitch the catcher wasn't expecting, so the catcher would be crossed up.



I had never heard that Hernandez said anything directly to Orosco.

Interesting.

Later

[Edgy MD]

The footage of Mookie's injury is still stunning, by the way.

[Edgy MD]

Keith may be ambiguous about who he directed his threats to and how forcefully they were directed, but he was dead right that Orosco's next three pitches were terrific sliders.



Ronnie was saying in the booth a couple of days ago how losing your velocity is not just about velocity, but a sign that a pitcher was losing his snap on his breaking pitches too. Orosco somehow lost one without the other, at least for three pitches.

[Willets Point]

I watched this over the weekend and while I tend to be an overly-nostalgic person to begin with, I was still surprised out how much emotion in made me feel.

[Edgy MD]

I would have liked more epilogue. I wanted the last hour of Lord of the Rings, perhaps with a different chapter on the later fates of each figure.



And by "each figure," I include Stanley Jefferson and Randy Myers. In fact, I'd've wanted them offering commentary as well. Tim Corcoran and Bruce Berenyi too. I tend to think some of the most valuable perspectives come from folks who are in the circle but not of the circle — like Zeppo Marx or Marilyn Munster.



But in that spirit, they got good material from Ed Lynch and Billy Beane. Interesting that they both became GMs. And how about George Foster showing up in the press box in Game Six telling the reporters to sit tight because the game wasn't over? If I had ever heard or read that, I had forgotten.



Basically, I wanted the four-part series to be about 12 parts, which I guess is a way of saying they did a really good job.

[Willets Point]

I feel that Bob Ojeda and Kevin Mitchell offered some of the best commentary among the players, as well as Davy. I thought they did a good job on exploring Daryl, Doc, and Keith's family and addiction problems, and I'm impressed with how candid and introspective they all are today. I could've done with less footage from "Fear Strikes Out." I'm also surprised that Keith never went into managing after watching this. And Hadji needs a spin-off series.

[Edgy MD]

Keith was like a kid in a therapist's office.



"I don't want to talk to you about it."



"That's OK. But do you want to talk to Hadji about it?"

[Willets Point]

OMG, that's probably true!

[LWFS]

Edgy MD wrote: I would have liked more epilogue. I wanted the last hour of Lord of the Rings, perhaps with a different chapter on the later fates of each figure... Basically, I wanted the four-part series to be about 12 parts, which I guess is a way of saying they did a really good job.

I wanted more epilogue, too. And not just in a Met-gluttony way... in terms of completing the narrative. Honestly, I EXPECTED more epilogue. Like, if this was such a great team, why wasn't there more staying power? Hell, why wasn't there ANY staying power, really? Give me Gooden's rehab stint, Ojeda's clipper accident, Straw's LA move... and then the "fates of each figure" business.



Dykstra-- who gave me a Sean Astin-"Picture of Dorian Gray"-version vibe, personally-- was THE show, along with Keith. When juxtaposed, their comments on the same players/incidents were near-perfect complements. His last little bit, though-- "the winning a Series in New York" business-- was a lot more haunting-cum-chilling than I would have expected.

[Edgy MD]

Did I briefly see Diamond Dad in this?

[LWFS]

Yyyyyep. (MetFairy mentioned it on FB when the thing premiered.)

[Fman99]

Still haven't watched this yet. I know, I know.

[Edgy MD]

Could've use less Billy Joel content.



Possibly up to 100% less.

[bmfc1]

=Fman99 post_id=78838 time=1632913767 user_id=86]
Still haven't watched this yet. I know, I know.

[Willets Point]

But it was a time to remember. Anyhow, the ballpark DJ at Shea in the 1980s was always pumping out songs by Long Islanders like Billy Joel and Cyndi Lauper, so it's kind of appropriate to have them in the movie.

[bmfc1]

The use of Tears For Fears was excellent.

[G-Fafif]

Before 30 for 30, before “A Year to Remember,” even, Channel 9 produced the first full-length 1986 Mets documentary. A snippet was used in OUATIQ.



Steve Albert and Steve Albert's evil twin host.



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