We Want a Hit!: The Mets in Popular Culture in 2023

[Edgy MD]

In the premier episode (“Buffy”) of the great American sitcom Family Affair, which originally aired September 12, 1966, manservant Giles French (Sebastian Cabot) gently interrupts the bath of his employer, high society-but-rugged hydroelectric engineer Bill Davis (Brian Keith), in order to present the week's social calendar: “Tomorrow, the horse show at the Garden with Miss Forrester; Wednesday, the races at Aqueduct with Miss Carstairs; Wednesday night, optional — the theatre with Miss Davenport, or the Mets against the Dodgers at the Stadium?”



Such is the faith Mr. Davis has in his “gentleman's gentleman” that he invites Mr. French to anticipate his response. “How do we feel about that?” he asks from the tub.



“We suggest the Mets against the Dodgers, Sir,” French knowingly replies, to which Mr. Davis gives his smiling assent.



The Mets hosted the Dodgers nine times in 1966, but never on a Wednesday evening. Considering Mr. French's scrupulous attention to matters of the calendar, this would suggest that the events depicted in the episode occurred in an earlier season or an alternate universe.



https://embarrassingtreasures.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/vts_01_7-vob_000255159.jpg>

[G-Fafif]

In the words of Mr. French, holy fuck that's good.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

Why the fuck did an engineer have a manservant?

[Edgy MD]

Apparently bouncing around the globe to be the lead engineer on dam projects in developing countries was lucrative as hell.



But I decided to study literature, for some reason. LOL!

[metirish]

It will be hard to top this obscure Mets bit of culture

[whippoorwill]

Johnny Lunchbucket wrote: Why the fuck did an engineer have a manservant?

And a four or five bedroom apartment

[metirish]

It will be hard to top this obscure bit of Mets culture

[G-Fafif]

Thursday night at 8 ET, Hallmark Channel repeats "Hearts in the Game," about prospective New York Mets star pitcher Diego Vasquez. Let's just say the baseball element of the plot seems realistic if Jeff Wilpon was still running the show.

[Edgy MD]

Talent for the Game not only featured the wonderful symmetry of An Angels insignia that allowed prints of Edward James Olmos to be printed forward and backward, it also positively burst with Metly acting performances by Lenny Randle, Phil Lombardi, and Tony Tarasco, all billed as "'Angel' Baseball Player," as part of a roster of several generations of then-active and retired players somehow making up a roster despite decades of difference in their ages.



https://baseballcoachinglab.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Talent-for-the-Game-1991-Movie-Poster.jpg> https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/1/18/Talent_for_the_Game_%28movie_poster%29.jpg/220px-Talent_for_the_Game_%28movie_poster%29.jpg>



Among the players appearing is Steve Ontiveros, though I honestly can't say which one of the two Ontiveroses it is.



Also, I feel like that ballpark in the background of the film poster is Shea Stadium with the seat colors of the decks changed around, and other design foolery.



Also, the pitching phenom that is the implied salvation of the Angels is apparently ambidextrous.

[Frayed Knot]

I'm not going to allow myself to contemplate the processes which led to a line of dialog from a mid-1960s sitcom surfacing in late April 2023

[Edgy MD]

I watched the show.

[Frayed Knot]

That was one of the possibilities I didn't want to contemplate.

[Edgy MD]

Big Shot Guy Number One at Toots Shores, December 1961: The Pirates are gonna repeat. It's not what I want, but it's what's gonna happen.



Big Shot Guy Number Two: No, it's gonna be the Yanks.



Big Shot Number One: Without Stengel?



Big Shot Number Two: Good riddance to Stengel. Don't quote me on that.



Big Shot Number One: Word is, he's talking to the Mets.



Big Shot Number Two: The Mets? What's a Met?



　　— The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Season 5, Episode 3: "Typos and Torsos"

[bmfc1]

For context, "Big Shot Number One" is "Jimmy" and given that they are at Toot's Shor, it's 1961, his physique, and he's talking about the Mets, it's Jimmy Breslin. https://postimg.cc/hXDhd4bW



https://postimg.cc/sv9vxGW4

[batmagadanleadoff]

Speaking about "what's a Met?", when the Mets first set up mail and phone lines for fans to buy tickets for their inaugural season, some fans requested tickets to the Metropolitan Opera.

[Edgy MD]

For context, "Big Shot Number One" is "Jimmy" and given that they are at Toot's Shor, it's 1961, his physique, and he's talking about the Mets, it's Jimmy Breslin. https://postimg.cc/hXDhd4bW https://postimg.cc/sv9vxGW4

Good call.

[whippoorwill]

Not so popular culture but still.



At work the other day, a coworker's mom came in to pick up her daughter's paycheck. In conversation she said ‘Liz' plays softball and hit for the cycle the other night.

She admitted she didn't know what that meant and had to ask.



Anyway I was looking for a mention of it in a local paper the that night (did not find it) and saw the team had played Montoursville, head coach, Tom O'Malley and I thought ‘ hmm he used to be a Met'.



It really is the same one, btw

[TransMonk]

Mark Cahna: The Atlantic Coverboy



[fimg=400]https://i.imgur.com/sysM1xX.png[/fimg]



There's a Citi Field spread from the May 7th game in the print article as well.

[Edgy MD]

We have an entry for future Magazine Cover Derby action!

[batmagadanleadoff]

The year's almost three quarters in and so far, no 2023 pop posts. Till now.



On the latest episode of HBO's quirky How to with John Wilson, Wilson attends a Mets/Nats game at Citi Field that is eventually rained out. While there, he meets the Mets fan Pin Man, who invites Wilson back to his residence, where they hang out and watch old Mets clips on homemade VHS tapes.

[TransMonk]

Interviewer of the VP at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute Leadership Conference.

[Lefty Specialist]

The judge deciding Trump's fraud case has a Met history that goes waaaaaaaay back.



Engoron first made headlines in 1964, when he and three friends won the grand prize in a "Banner Day" contest where the New York Mets, then just two years into their existence, invited fans to parade across the field carrying banners painted with creative messages about the team.



In an early sign of Engoron's irreverence, the message was a take off on a popular political quote from the era: "Extremism In Defense Of The Mets Is No Vice." Engoron was just 15 at the time.

[Benjamin Grimm]

From Newsday, August 24, 1964:



http://leaptoad.com/mets/clippings/004400.jpg>

[Edgy MD]

In "Juiced!" — the opening episode of Season Two of Atypical — the installment opens with a flashback to 2004 in which the family dad Doug Gardner is shown rocking a rather tasteful blue Mets hat.



The fictional Doug gets some serious fictional points, as he's not only supporting the Mets, but supporting Art Howe's fourth-place 2004 Mets. He's giving it up for Matt Ginter.



I checked to see if Michael Rapaport, the actor behind Doug, has similar loyalties, and yeah, he does!



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