'91 in the Shade

[G-Fafif]

SNY currently showing a new Mets Classic, or as new as a game that is 17 years old can be: May 7, 1991, Darryl's return to Shea with the Dodgers.

How odd it is to see Viola and Coleman in not altogether low esteem. And Chris Donnels in the starting lineup. And Hubie Brooks in right. All weirder, somehow, than Strawberry as a Dodger.

Tim and Ralph doing the game. Tim at that point where he was becoming more tiresome and less insightful. Ralph bein' Ralph, just chillin'.

[seawolf17]

Love it! This was actually Donnels' ML debut. I was a big Chris Donnels fan.

[G-Fafif]

I saw Donnels whack two home runs for St. Lucie at Baseball City in 1989. Had high hopes from there.

[seawolf17]

Ralph just referred to Eddie Murray as the "unknown slugger" for the Dodgers.

Uh, Ralph?

[G-Fafif]

Viola became the 18th pitcher to win 20 games "in both lihgs".

That pronunciation of league drove my parents crazy.

[Guest AG/DC]

Maybe Klapish was right (if for the wrong reasons) about losing Darryl being a turning point.

[seawolf17]

Tommy Herr, Met.

/shudder

[seawolf17]

That's a pretty Metly top of the lineup for the Dodgers:

Brett Butler cf
Juan Samuel 2b
Darryl Strawberry rf
Eddie Murray 1b

UMDB says there'll be a Gary Carter sighting soon also.

[G-Fafif]

Cover story for a short-lived magazine called M Inc. (a World Journal Tribune type merging of M and Manhattan Inc.) that year focused on the Born-Again Dodgers: Darryl and Gary, Orel and Brett Butler, the '90s God Squad, as it were. Darryl was in his religious mode that season and the others, particularly Kid, were happy to take him up on it. There was an exchange in the article from Vero Beach in which Carter and Straw kept one-upping each other:

"You feel the power?"
"I feel the power!"

Tommy Lasorda was portrayed as rather out of touch with his own clubhouse. "We have good Christian boys," he said, not quite getting (according to the author) that what he had in mind and what they had in mind were different or that it was allegedly dividing the club.

That's what I think of when I think of Gary Carter on the 1991 Dodgers...that and him telling reporters late in the season that Lasorda was wrong to be benching him in favor of Scioscia in such a tight race with the upstart Braves.

[A Boy Named Seo]

I walked in and wondered what this game was and why they were showing it. They were just throwing strawberries at Strawberry and McCarver rightly chastised the asstards throwing them, but then he kinda funnily said, "Who knows what those strawberries are laden with?", like Darryl's gonna pick them up off the ground and snack on 'em or something.

I love and miss the "NO PEPPER GAMES" sign behind home plate.

[Guest AG/DC]

I was just looking for that story. The cover featured the four of them with Darryl hugging a big bible.

I didn't like it. They were treating evangelism in sports as particularly current trend, but using photos of the Cleveland Indians from the seventies. Evangilism in professional sports goes way back and I doubt the heyday (at least in baseball) was the early nineties. Billy Sunday was originally a ballplayer, after all.

[G-Fafif]

No amount of religion could have helped the Cleveland Indians of the '70s.

[Frayed Knot]

I was at this game

[G-Fafif]

Franco holds on in the ninth, with Straw the last out. I often instinctively forget that the Mets Classic or DVD I'm watching is long decided, but rarely does my gut tighten up as I watch the end like it just did.

This time, however, looking at Darryl and looking at Johnny, I'm not sure who I was doing the tighten-up for.