Blasts from the Past

[Benjamin Grimm]

Lorinda deRoulet wrote: Our policy remains the same on big money and long term contracts, but we might make an exception in the case of Pete Rose. We would like Pete Rose to play for the Mets and we will pursue him and try to persuade him to join us.

I have a feeling it's not gonna happen.



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[Benjamin Grimm]

I notice that Lorinda deRoulet gets the title of "Mrs." before her name, but the men don't get a "Mr."



Now that would be seen as sexist and condescending. I wonder when they stopped doing that?

[whippoorwill]

I don't remember any Pete Rose rumors (but I'm from out of town) and I would not have welcomed them.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I do remember that. I recall talking with my friends about how Pete wouldn't be able to wear number 14 with the Mets and I suggested that he could wear uniform number 1.4 instead.



I'm sure that, looking back, Rose regrets that he was on the Phillies in 1980 instead of the Mets.

[Edgy MD]

Bobby Orr looks positively Seaverian in that shot.



Amazing that he was as good as anybody in the league from 19 on, but he was done at 26.



Also pretty cool that the two greatest Orrs both brought glory to Boston, though neither was from there. Benjamin took over just as Bobby's knees broke down.

[Edgy MD]

They also have in their possession a later from from Rose, who advised the Mets not to waste a draft choice by selecting him in the re-entry draft last week.

This would totally be on exhibit if I curated the Mets Hall of Fame and Museum.

[Benjamin Grimm]

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I remember this column by Lupica. I cut it out and saved it on the bulletin board in my bedroom. From that point, I was a big fan of Mike Lupica. (That fandom has long since expired.) After it was published, Lorinda deRoulet refused to talk with Daily News reporters. She was offended by Lupica's "vituperative" column.



It seems somewhat appropriate to read a column about the dying days of the Payson/deRoulet era now in the final days of the Wilpon era. There certainly are parallels.

[Frayed Knot]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: She was offended by Lupica's "vituperative" column.

But not by his haircut?!?

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

Yeah it takes some bravery to come out as strong as Lupica did in the moment, and the record shows he got a lot of this take right, including Torres managing career. Come out firing and being dead wrong, like Dick Young often did, is far easier it seems.

[Benjamin Grimm]

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This isn't the column that led to Seaver's demand to be traded -- we'll see that next. This is the preliminary round, published on May 8, 1977.



Interesting that the three-year contact that Seaver signed for 1976 through 1978 includes "possibility penalties for poor performance". (It's the four P's!) I don't think I've ever heard of an MLB contract (at least, since the players unionized) that would allow a player to make less than his base salary if his performance suffered. Especially for a player of Seaver's stature. In the time before free agency, holdouts only offered so much leverage.

[Edgy MD]

Absolute news to me is that Ray Sadecki had retired and was staying with the team under a "quasi-coaching status."

[Benjamin Grimm]

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Here it is: The Dick Young column that chased Tom Seaver out of New York. Chances are, Seaver probably would have opted for free agency after the 1978 season (or would he have had to "play out his option" in 1979?) and might very well have been scooped up by George Steinbrenner.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

I mean that was the thing Seaver said was the last straw, I'm pretty sure he would have been traded anyway

[G-Fafif]

Two weeks to go to the deadline. Perhaps bringing Nancy Seaver into the discussion can calm things down.

[Benjamin Grimm]

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[G-Fafif]

These News clips remind me of 1) their shoddy to nonexistent proofreading in the 1970s (N. Donald Grant); 2) the habitual smudging out of cap logos for players no longer with the team indicated by their head shots.

[Edgy MD]

My big takeaway is "Norman, like Henderson, is black."



Thanks for that scoop, Jack Lang.

[whippoorwill]

Who is that stupid plaid dressed hillbilly woman supposed to be?

[Benjamin Grimm]

It's Basement Bertha. Bill Gallo'd long running character.

[MFS62]

Some dynamite from the past. Adam Wainwright is trying to mend fences with New York fans:

https://sports.yahoo.com/cardinals-adam-wainwright-shares-message-190542133.htmlhttps://sports.yahoo.com/cardinals-adam-wainwright-shares-message-190542133.html



Later

[Benjamin Grimm]

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[Benjamin Grimm]

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Jack Lang wrote: The subject of the club's image and tight-fisted dollar policy was put to Wilpon and he had a ready reply without indicting the previous owners. "I think the image will be reversed when the fans know we are willing to spend large sums of money. The fans will then say, 'These people care.'"

Joe Torre wrote: "The future of this ballclub is (Frank) Taveras and (Doug) Flynn. I know Joe Morgan can hit but unless he could play third base or somewhere else I don't know if he could help us."

[Edgy MD]

Man, that's a strange quote from Torre.

[MFS62]

Edgy MD wrote: Man, that's a strange quote from Torre.

Mariano Rivera raised Torre's baseball I.Q. by 40 points.

Later

[Edgy MD]

It's really interesting that a guy who spent his career as a heavy hitter but a defensive liability at three different positions went for defense over offense almost every chance he got.

[G-Fafif]

The Daily News needs to flip that apostrophe from January 26.

[Frayed Knot]

Edgy MD wrote: It's really interesting that a guy who spent his career as a heavy hitter but a defensive liability at three different positions went for defense over offense almost every chance he got.

One of the first moves Torre advocated for as Yanqui manager was swapping out the fan favorite and offensively-minded [OPS's of 151, 144, 118 in '93-'95] catcher Mike Stanley for Joe Girardi.

Fans tended to hate the move (why is Torre bringing in all these 'Nashional Leagahs'?!?!) but Torre claimed to know how much a defensive catcher was worth to a team.



Then Posada showed up and the team began doing what they did with him: taking every minor league slugger they could find and try to teach him to catch. Jesus Montero was the next model

though he was eventually traded to Seattle in a huge challenge deal for Michael Pineda (both teams wound up losers in that one). Gary Sanchez was essentially the next Jesus Montero and

there were others of that same type in between, just none who made it.

[Edgy MD]

I tend to think that Joe Girardi has kept Jorge Posada out of the Hall of Fame — or at least any serious consideration — by starting ahead of Posada at the beginning of his career and by relegating Posada to a time-share role in the last years of his career.

[Frayed Knot]

Edgy MD wrote: I tend to think that Joe Girardi has kept Jorge Posada out of the Hall of Fame — or at least any serious consideration — by starting ahead of Posada at the beginning of his career and by relegating Posada to a time-share role in the last years of his career.

I was thinking about answering you until I had to use the search function to remember what thread this comment was in. As a result of that search I found that you said this a year and a week ago

[10/23/19]: "I always thought that Girardi kept Posada from getting serious Hall of Fame consideration, by playing ahead of him at the front end of Posada's career and by benching him at the end."





So instead of writing up an reply, I'll just cut and paste what I said in response back then:

"Posada had his only real injury season during Girardi's first year as skipper, but after that still averaged over 400 PAs per year even at ages 37, 38, 39 - so he wasn't exactly being benched.

Mainly he didn't like that Girardi started to slot him lower and lower in the lineup including, at least once, 9th at which point Posada refused to play for a couple days. Reportedly things were

never real warm and fuzzy between those two when they played either, but Posada was a 24th round draft pick and a converted IF'er trying to learn to catch (some claimed he never did) so

it was more than just Girardi's presence that kept him from establishing himself until age 26 or so.







And I look forward to talking about his topic in October of next year.

[Edgy MD]

Well, it was relevant to the strain of the conversation, so I found no problem with repeating it. Also, Torre and Staub. That's different.



More importantly, as the world's biggest Doug Flynn fan, it's stunning to see Torre endorsing Tavaras and Flynn as "the future" as late as 1980. Morgan would go on to lead the league in walks that year (Mazzilli was seventh), while Tavaras and Flynn helped Torre achieve the dubious distinction of skippering a club that would produce exactly zero home runs at three different offensive positions — second base, shortstop, and catcher. (No Mets pitchers homered either.)



Torre was a filthy glove-lover and he wasn't ashamed of it. He also moved Todd Zeile out of the catcher position, reducing the stature of his offensive profile.