SABR

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

The material was excellent, and it was a shame they slotted him in so small a span of time. I stuck around to hear one other talk, as well as Warner Wolf's routine (otherwise known as a keynote speech). The other speaker, a Yankee fan, gave a comparitively disjointed, disorganized talk about Ryne Duran, handing out photocopies. If this was typical (and I remember it this way ,too) then Johnny's powerpoint presentation kind of taught them a thing or two about building a thesis. I'd to hear them make cases (we call them "agendas" around here) and support them instead of so much ragtag rambling. But Johnny-boy made his case.

Wolf was a tiny ball of energy, and impressed me with his command of stats and trivia. Wolf mostly talked about growing up in DC and memories, quite detailed, of Griffith Stadium. He gave his rap without notes, and obviously without preparing anything. He alluded to one bit of Johnny D.'s, for example, to go off on "Great GM stories" of the past, messing up a detail or two on Dimaggio's holdout in 1937-8 and at one point callling the Senators' catcher Earl Battey "Johnny Roseboro." But he was pretty good. If he had a thesis it was something like "You think you Brooklyn and NY Giants fans had heartache? I was a Senators' fan--case closed."

I think I can answer Edgy's question, if I understand it, about the star-studded rotation: Only to children and raging Metsophiles was the future greatness of the staff crystal clear. When Devine left the Mets after the 1967 season, when I was still a child and a raging Metsophile, all they really had was Seaver who had had a good rookie year. But we'd seen too much promise from previous burnout rookies, including Bill Wakefield and Dennis Ribant (who'd been traded for Cardwell, as JD pointed out) to make too much of Seaver. As to Koosman, he was nothing special in the winter of 67-8. Ryan was a mere pheeeenom, less highly regarded in my nascent brain than Les Rohr or Jerry Hinsley or Grover Powell or any of the hundreds of young Met arms who had come to nothing) and Cardwell was just another so-so innings eater of the type that they had filled their staffs with from the start (Jack Fisher, Bob Shaw, Tracy Stallard) which, as JD pointed out, he pretty much continued to be after coming to the Mets. The only differrence there was that he was an innings-eater on the World's Championship Mets, but he wasn't anything more than a useful arm. No need for excitement at all.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

I'd sort of agree with that answer. If you go by press reports, the Mets were impressed with all of their prospects equally, be they guys like Les Rohr who never succeeded, or guys like Seaver who did.

In Seaver and Gentry, they'd acquired two polished prospects who advanced to the Majors quickly but I'm not certain they learned anything from it. Koosman's success sort of took them by surprise: Devine tells the story of how he was nearly released in 65 or 66 but wasn't only because he owed the team $$.

That Murphy is in the Mets Hall of Fame while Devine is not is tragic. While Murphy is the guy who arranged for Hodges, and made the Clendennon trade, if he was so great then why was he bypassed for the GMship when Weiss retired? Why for that matter was Bob Scheffing, who was also in the org at that point?

In retrospect, it seemed that the Mets worked very hard to acquire this group of guys between 1963-1967, and as soon as they finally all came together, they just kind of stayed there for the next decade. It was as if the Mets basically said, "Great job, us!" and walked away.

I don't know how to web-er-ize a powerpoint, but suffice it to say it was bullet points from the speech, accompanied by headlines I'd cut n' pasted and a few photos I found.

I was fortunate to go on first, as the long speech by Wolf (who I agree was better than anyone expected) whacked the schedule after that, and things were kind of chaotic and uneven. The room was also uncomfortably warm.

Just before Wolf went on I'd mentioned to KC and Bret that I'd seen him speak in 1979 at a banquet and the only thing I remember him saying was "I AM standing!" -- a reference to his shortness. Sure enough he opened with that line this time too.

Once again, the balance of the meeting veered more to the side of old-timerism than research. There was a Duren presentation, then an announcement that a longtime member was seriously ill. While obviously appropriate at the event, and sad news, the announcement itself was uncomfortably long. The same speaker later gave an equally long obit on Vic Power, sans anything but extemporaneous speaking. A presntation scheduled for the afternoon session was postponed after things went too long.

There was an authors panel where writers of 5 baseball books spoke for 10 minutes and took one question apeice: An author of a Japanese baseball oral history (which I purchased); an Ebbets Field book; a psychologist who wrote about athletes falling from grace; Goldman of Baseball Prospectus who discussed a jumble of projects (Stengel, the BP annual and Mind Game) and a bio of the real-life Dottie of 'League of their Own' fame.

A guy from West Point did a nice presentation on the history of NY teams playing exhibitions at West Point: This included some cool photographs and stuff that's probably difficult to find otherwise. Another guy did a presentation on Spalding's 1888-89 trip around the world and mentioned the parellels to the upcoming WBC (jingoistic, overly hyped). This could have better had the speaker prepared something rather than reading aloud from his manuscript.

The Yankee batboy from 1956-1961 was interesting: He told a story of pocketing the rosin bag after Larsen's perfect game was over, and Larsen telling him, "you can have it, I didn't use it anyway." He mostly said that everyone was great, it's was a lot of fun, etc.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

Sorry I couldn't have stuck around (my daughter's train was due at Penn Station at noon), but I would have mentioned that Bill Veeck's follow-up book to VEECK AS IN WRECK dealt thoroughly with analyzing the whole Devine/Keane/Berra/Durocher fiasco that came up in the Q and A session. Veeck's not the most accurate of analysts sometimes, but he's usually the liveliest.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

I forgot to mention there was a guy in a Mets hat who came up to me later and asked "Are you one of those Crane Pool guys?" and I said "yeah, so were the others who were here earlier. And you are?" and he said, oh, I just saw it.

So, hi to annonymous lurkey guy.

[Guest KC]

I think when I registered last year I put down the forum as one of my
baseball projects or interests or something.

[Guest Iubitul]

Johnny Dickshot wrote: I don't know how to web-er-ize a powerpoint, but suffice it to say it was bullet points from the speech, accompanied by headlines I'd cut n' pasted and a few photos I found.

JD - you can save it as a PowerPoint Show (.pps) and just add it to your server. People without Powerpoint will be able to view it.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

OK, link will take you directly into it and it's a big file

http://www.mbtn.net/Divine.pps

[Guest ScarletKnight41]

Excellent timing - D-Dad installed PowerPoint on my laptop this past week

[Guest KC]

Works fine, I opened it on my linux desktop in open office. If it works in that
it'll work in anything ... well, let's see if WP can open it on his Apple.

(just playing, snicker snicker)

[Guest ScarletKnight41]

I just looked over the presentation - very nice JD. Thanks for sharing!

[Theoldmole]

Great stuff, JD.

[A Boy Named Seo]

Dynamite stuff, man. You presented the transitional team angle quite well. I never really knew the circumstances behind the Seaver lotto. Did the Braves even know it was a violation? I wonder if they tried to appeal the ruling or anything. They must've been rather pissed when a lottery was decided. It sounds like they did nothing shady in the least. Just dumb freaking luck.

Again, nice work.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

Seo, we worked through some of that Seaver stuff right here, and so thanks again to youse guys for your help:

http://cybermessageboard.ehost.com/getalife/viewtopic.php?t=1962&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=tom+seaver&start=0

Yes, it definitely seems that the Braves were screwed over. This was the first January draft ever and who knows how things would go. I'm sure whatever mistake they made was unintentional and Eckert's ruling was hard letter-of-the-law.

Further, if the lottery hadn't made an issue of what the Braves were willing to pay Seaver, perhaps they keep the secret of their find. What I'm almost sure happened was, their guys got a good look at TS after the June draft (in summer league or whatever) when everyone else was still working on last June's reports.

Since that thread I came across more info on the Cleveland workout and the 8,000 figure ... it all makes sense.

Matlack was the Mets' No. 1 pick in 67: He signed for 40 grand.

Edit: There's also irony in the whole thing, knowing that the $$ the Braves offered Seaver was more or less the Mets' money anyway. Weiss made about a million purchases (15 actually) from the Braves in the early years. It's not unreasonable that Weiss figured he could buy Braves guys at a discount after they purchased them new.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

Wolf also told a good story about sitting in the bleachers at Griffith and seeing Jimmy Piersall pull off the greatest defensive play ever.

With his back to homeplate, shielded from the umps but in full view of the bleacherites, Piersall swatted a bouncing ball over the fence for a ground-rule double in the bottom of the 9th. Since the score was tied and there was a runner on first at the time the ball was hit, that runner easily would have scored on the hit, but of course had to stay on 3b when it ruled a ground rule double, thus preventing the Senators from winning. The Sox went to score in the top of the next inning, and the Senators did not score. According to Wolf, when Piersall took his position in the top of the final half-inning he acknowledged the bleacherites' cries of "Cheater!" with a big shit-eating grin.

[Guest Edgy DC]

That '67 yearbook you used in the slideshow is the one I ended up buying, I think.

Limiting Murphy's credit on 1969 to drafting Garrett and trading for Clendennon is interesting. It's even arguable that Garrett was all that pivotal a player in 1969.

Was Murphy an active underling (or an uctive anderling) before his elevation?

[Frayed Knot]

]Piersall swatted a bouncing ball over the fence for a ground-rule double in the bottom of the 9th

I've never seen or heard of a fielder doing that before.
I wonder if - either then or since - there's leeway in the rulebook for the umps to use their judgement (as in fan interference) to award the baserunner more than 2 bases if they feel the GRD was caused intentionally by the fielder.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

Murphy was with the Mets from the very start. He was a native NYer and ballplayer with the Yankees, an early version of the relief ace.

He was scouting with the Red Sox before coming to the Mets. He recommended the Mets go get Ted Schreiber, a player he'd signed with them, in the Rule 5 draft in '62. He also handled the contracts on behalf of Weiss, unless things got hairy.

I have to look into it more, but a story got out when Murphy took over that the Mets had spent so much $$ on Hodges (payment to Washington and his salary), in combination with an attendance decline in 67, that there was a budget freeze in '68, which might explain the lack of activity that year. I don't think anyone was delusional enough to believe back then that everything was in place for a triumphant run in 69 had they just kept the team together.

Murphy made no trades at all in 1968, and they drafted a bunch of guys they didn't sign (Burt Hooton & Mickey Rivers among them). Weird year, especially as compared to '67.