Banner Day Back (Split from the Uniform)

[MFS62]

Along with the new uniform announcement was a list of 50th anniversary promotions.
Banner Day will be back.

http://newyork.mets.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20111116&content_id=25983192&vkey=pr_nym&c_id=nym

Yayyy!

Share your thoughts and memories.

Later

[metirish]

So , as a fan that never got to experience banner day what can I expect?, what went in to making the banner?, what material?what to celebrate?, big ,small?

[Ceetar]

metirish wrote: So , as a fan that never got to experience banner day what can I expect?, what went in to making the banner?, what material?what to celebrate?, big ,small?

Likewise. Also, this will probably an after game activity, like Dyna Mets Dash? (they don't call it that anymore do they?) Will anyone actually stick around to watch?

[Benjamin Grimm]

Hopefully they can make it a pre-game thing.

[G-Fafif]

It will be pregame.

Just what it looks like in the film clips and photos. Large signs (often bedsheets), held by one-, two- or more-person entrants who march around the warning track, presumably offering support to the home team and overstating the home team's ability to compete for a world championship immediately. Celebrity judges in days of yore graded on creativity and originality, or something like that. An Emerson clock radio always seemed to be the prize.

Marty remembers the lengthiness of it all here.

[metirish]

This is great from Noble

The Mets and Phillies played a doubleheader at Shea Stadium on Aug. 1, 1972. It was deemed Banner Day. After the eighth inning of the first game, public-address announcer Lauren Mathews urged those who planned to participate in the parade to assemble beyond the center-field wall. They did. And there they stood when Don Money led off the ninth inning with a home run against Jon Matlack that tied the score at 2. Eighteen scoreless half-innings passed until Cleon Jones singled to score Tommie Agee in the 18th. Then the Banner Day celebration went on as planned -- for 44 minutes -- even though it was a tad rushed. The vendors ran out of beer in the third inning of the second game. The hot-dog reserve was gone two innings later. But help did arrive. Phillies starter Steve Carlton had the good sense -- and good enough stuff -- to dispose of the Mets in one hour, 45 minutes in the second game. After the doubleheader, I approached Carlton in the visitors' clubhouse, fully aware of his standing embargo; he didn't speak with reporters. Nonetheless, I approached him, prompting an incredulous expression from his teammate, Tommy Hutton, and, hoping for a few words, I thanked Carlton for his dispatch with which he had handled his nine innings. Instead, Carlton responded with a perfunctory nod. Hutton pulled me aside. "You know he doesn't talk to you guys," he said. I said, "I know. But all I said was 'Thanks for doing it quickly.'" "Oh," Hutton said. "We'd already thanked him."

[Ceetar]

G-Fafif wrote: It will be pregame. Just what it looks like in the film clips and photos. Large signs (often bedsheets), held by one-, two- or more-person entrants who march around the warning track, presumably offering support to the home team and overstating the home team's ability to compete for a world championship immediately. Celebrity judges in days of yore graded on creativity and originality, or something like that. An Emerson clock radio always seemed to be the prize. Marty remembers the lengthiness of it all here.

Any chance you and/or Shannon get to be judges? ;-)

[MFS62]

Usually held between games of a double header.
They used to award prizes for best one-person, two-person and group banners.
Mostly made of poster board stapled to sticks (not really a banner) or bed sheets on poles.
Color/ design your option, mainly Mets colors. Let's Go Mets was a common theme. Some graphics.
If your banner was considered "off color" you were asked to leave the parade.

It was started as a result of fans hanging banners over to facade of the upper deck at the Polo Grounds in 1962. (One famous one that got onto tv for a moment while the camera was panning the crowd was "Fuck O'Malley". The director quickly changed cameras.)

Later

[metirish]

MFS62 wrote: Usually held between games of a double header. Later

not as many double headers nowadays though right?

[MFS62]

metirish wrote: MFS62 wrote: Usually held between games of a double header. Later not as many double headers nowadays though right?

Right.
Sigh.

Later

[Ceetar]

May 27th before a 1pm game against the Padres

[Guest Mets � Willets Point]

I think we have our CPF picnic date!

[Edgy MD]

Amazin' Avenue has Jean Shepherd on the Mets and the banners.

I can't afford the time to listen now, but def later.

[G-Fafif]

The New York Times has yours truly on the Mets and banners.

[MFS62]

G-Fafif wrote: The New York Times has yours truly on the Mets and banners.

Worthy of "all the news that's fit to print".
Very worthy.

Later

[ashie62]

Somebody has to at least try to get a Rusty "King of Queens" banner out there.

[Guest Mets � Willets Point]

This article reminds of the optimism and support of the team that initially attracted me to Mets fandom. Even when the Mets were bad there was the ability to see the best in them and on a greater level celebrate humanity in all it's failings and feel greater joy in the infrequent successes. It seems that in the six years since Carlos Beltran struck out in Game 7 that a lot of fatalism, nastiness, and even some Yankee fandom type entitlement has crept in and made it harder for me to enjoy being a Mets fan.

[Ceetar]

[Ceetar]

[Ceetar]

[bmfc1]

A clever organization would have streaming video of the banners.

[Edgy MD]

Who's the alien with Keith and RJ?

[bmfc1]

Your Banner Day finalists:
http://newyork.mets.mlb.com/nym/ticketing/banner_poll.jsp?partnerId=aw-5965328640306723812-1061

Hard to see as you cannot enlarge them. I voted for "A" and refused to voted for "C" as Terry Collins is the sunshine.

[Guest metsguyinmichigan]

Those are amazing. I hope this becomes an annual event again!

I voted for B, the Piazza homer. Just don't like the Wizard of Oz.

[Guest themetfairy]

Mt. Flushmore was my favorite.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Wait. A banner celebrating a play 11 years ago wins?

Hmmmmm

[Guest metsguyinmichigan]

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Wait. A banner celebrating a play 11 years ago wins? Hmmmmm

Hey, out of the three choices Edgy gave me.....

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

I went to the link and it said that piazza one won. I don't wanna be critical of it, but it just doesn't strike me as a winner.

[G-Fafif]

Well done graphically if...I don't know, a little bit of a downer despite the historical theme of Banner Day 2012. I believe the Mets organization and a wide swath of Mets fans are in love with that home run in part because there's an implied us over the MFYs to the event. It's the one post-9/11 thing "they" (in the form of fawning HBO documentaries and the like) can't take away from us.

I do like that a player who was never a Met during Banner Day's original incarnation winds up the focus of the winning banner of Phase II of the promotion. Found myself thinking as the parade went by how great this would have been when the Bobby V Mets -- 1999's edition in particular -- were in full bloom. How many Greatest Infield Ever banners? How many Mojo Risin' banners? How many banners saluting the likes of Turk Wendell?

Would have been great circa 2006, too.

[Guest themetfairy]

This was one of my favorite pre-Banner parade shots -