G-Fafif

HBTTT!

After 70-92, it's not like there's no room at the inn. I wouldn't pencil Fonzie in for the Opening Day roster (as much as I adore him) but I'd love to see him get a shot, as much for the ol' You Never Know as for sentiment's sake.

Google Books has most every Baseball Digest available in fairly wieldy navigation form. Plenty of issues from the '70s and '80s. I discovered BD in 1972 and at one point owned every issues from 1974 to 1988. go to: books.google.com Enter: Baseball Digest (first choice that comes up) Click on: Browse All Issues You'll find: A listing of every decade from 1940 to 2000 Click on: Any decade you like; you'll find thumbnails for every available issue in that span Go: Nuts

Just returned from a Citi Field Bar Mitzvah (kid turned 13, not the place). Mrs. Fafif and I were invited by a young man who read my book and mysteriously identifies with me. We accepted not only from gratitude for the nice note he sent but out of curiosity for what it's like to be at the ballpark in mid-November. It's weird. That's not a reflection on the kid, his family or the affair, all of whom and which were wonderful. Just weird being inside a place I got to know pretty well in warmer if more frustrating times. I thought seeing a ballpark in what is essentially winter would be good for the soul. It felt eerie mostly. I can report the bullpens have been dug up to solve (or perhaps make worse) the can't-see problem the visiting relief corps had in 2009. The affair was held in the Acela Club which is a very nice if Met-free space. Kid got his picture on two of the three DiamondVision boards as well as the high-def screens inside. His video also appeared there, which alone would have to be a highlight of any young (or old) life. Mr. Met made an appearance. He's a pro in the best sense of the word. No Shake Shack, but some fine food, including falafels, deli and helmet sundaes. Game Six served as video wallpaper. I still fill with dread watching Dave Henderson homer. Mets staff remains Mets staff. We showed up a half-hour early. Most of the guests were coming from Connecticut after temple. So we were the first ones and security would not let us in the building despite the wind and spritzing rain. The family paid for 1:30 so nobody was getting let in 'til 1:30. I'm surprised somebody didn't search my bag. Found myself chatting with a Phillies fan friend of the family. Seemed to like being beaten by the MFYs more than a Mets fan expressing a little empathy his way. I retract any goodwill I showed him while noshing.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: BLACKED OUT! DirecTV blocked it! The show is "unavailable in my area." WTF? Was there a conflict with Comcast's presentation of "The 1971 Phillies: Historically Sucking For A Little While Longer"?

1971's highlight film, "The Winning Way," debuted as the first installment of Mets Yearbook last night. Every bit as good as anticipated. It's like they took a can opener to my subconscious and emptied the contents into the TV. Great things about it in no particular order: --Bud Harrelson, wearing civilian clothes, speaks in a relaxed and candid fashion about being an All-Star and why the Instructional League, which he's never played in, is a good thing (which is to say it looks like a hostage tape) --The Mets are counting on young Ken Singleton, Mike Jorgensen and, if he ever stops being fooled on pop flies, Tim Foli --Jim Fregosi is coming! Jim Fregosi is coming! --Wayne Garrett missed most of the year in the armed forces --Ralph Kiner is showing the kids in the aforementioned Instructional League how to hit --Mets don't hit home runs in 1971 like they didn't hit them in 2009 --Gary Gentry's kid is awesome on Family Day --Banner Day and "Emblem Day" are big winners --Groovy production music (and I don't use the term with irony) --Lindsey Nelson twice uses the phrase "Where it's at" --Seaver wins his 20th on the final day --Minutes of glorious context-free great plays and bad plays, proving that you get it all at beautiful Shea Stadium --Beautiful Shea Stadium --Don Hahn is not known for home runs, according to Bob Murphy (which was somehow supposed to be flattering) --Ed Kranepool had his best year ever --Long man Charlie Williams gets advice from Joe Pignatano --People come to Shea for all kinds of reasons, including one guy who goes to "get away from my mother" The film has been restored so it looks ready to be presented to the Kiwanis of Lindenhurst. The audio is crisp. Our three announcers are in great voice. Dick Young takes a credit as consulting director or whatever conflict-of-interest sinecure he had going. Repeat airings are scheduled for Sunday at 6 PM and Wednesday at 9:30 PM (though live sporting programming may fiddle with those plans). Thursday at 7:30 next (11/19) is the 1984 film.

Awards for Wainwright, Molina, Rollins, Victorino...what Mets fan wouldn't be thrilled?

This was one of my first eBay purchases given that the comic was mysteriously given only to those 14 and under. Ohmigod, nostalgia for the 2000s!

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: The series features 27 season highlight films from 1962 through '88 that had been languishing in the Mets' archives for years. What, no '93? We cut out cable for the cost last year. I'm thinking about putting months of cable on our baby registry now. Since 1988, the only annual highlight films of which I'm aware are 1990, 1999, 2000 and 2006. I was disappointed when it sank in that they weren't doing them as a matter of course anymore (having spent all of '98 waiting for the uplifting '97 reel that was never produced). I liked the Mets' ability to twist 95-loss seasons into bastions of progress with titles like Getting Better All The Time. Hell, the NFL mandates that its teams do it every year.

This needs to be recited in schools on Opening Day 2010.

Fab news from Neil Best of Newsday: Call it offseason filler if you must, but SNY's new "Mets Yearbook," debuting Thursday night after its "Hot Stove" show, is off-the-charts cool for sports and TV nostalgia buffs. The series features 27 season highlight films from 1962 through '88 that had been languishing in the Mets' archives for years. The ones from the early years were made for promotional purposes and shown mostly to community groups; they were not designed for television and in some cases never have been seen on TV before. Gary Morgenstern, SNY's VP of programming, said the hodgepodge of films followed various formats and were of varying lengths but have been turned into half-hour shows for "Mets Yearbook." The first five - 1971, '84, '75, '68 and '63 - will be shown on Thursdays in 2009, with about 10 more in '10 and the rest sometime the following year. So far I have watched '71, '68 and '63. The '71 show includes footage of an old-timers' game in which Satchel Paige is seen pitching, and in which Bobby Thomson pitched to Ralph Branca. (You read that right.) In the '68 show, Gil Hodges is seen going over scouting reports in the locker room with his young pitching staff, including Tom Seaver and Jerry Koosman. The '63 highlights were most interesting of all, because they included extensive, full color, rarely seen footage of the Mets playing at the Polo Grounds. That includes the final major league game played there, after which Casey Stengel is shown walking off through centerfield in a scene similar to the one featuring Tom Seaver and Mike Piazza at Shea 45 years later.

Mets were considered possible contenders entering '77, though hindsight suggests that was a misdiagnosis. They had been rotting from within for a few years, to be sure, but on the surface, with their pitching, they didn't seem particularly doomed after 1976, not doomed in the way they became. They'd been finishing in the neighborhood of third place for so long, it seemed likely they'd just stick around and maybe get lucky. The late '70s were suck without borders. The final three years were just one monstrous pit. I choose '79 as the standout (or flopout) among them for it seemed like the culmination of the disaster; all that had been sown in the way of bad management was being reaped. At least there was a speck of hope entering '77 and, yeah, Steve Henderson (if not Dan Norman) gave off a flicker of potential for a few weeks. '79 was just so empty, figuratively and literally. I'll take dashed hope over no hope if that's the choice. (The '78 club, as bad as its brethren by the end, was actually decent for the first two months, 23-24 on Memorial Day -- it didn't take much to sate me.) If '09 is an aberration, somehow, and we rebound in '10, we'll look back on this as a rogue season. If it was a turning point, then I don't want to know what we've turned toward.

Though I recently declared 1979 and 1993 Co-Worst Seasons Ever, 2009 has been its own kind of hellish, to be sure. And the hell you've been in most recently tends to be hottest.

Ralph Houk played in two WS as an MFY and managed them in three more.

Mets fans' nightmare: Almost every Met getting injured and every Met playing horrible fundamental baseball, while Omar Minaya seeks to crucify Adam Rubin amid few signs of the Mets' history in the Mets' ballpark. This part here is just the coda for when you drop off through the snooze alarm.

Revelation of the evening: When Shane Victorino was sent to unnecessarily attempt to score in the ninth (presumably by Razor Shines) and there was a collision at the plate, my first instinct was to hope he had jarred the ball loose from Posada and that Victorino's head would come off in the process. "No," I reconsidered. "I need that little bastard to stay intact and be who he is for the next four to six games after tonight. He can always accidentally remove his head while sanding his deck in the offseason." I'm so used to seeing those gray Phillies uniforms wreaking havoc that somehow I felt proprietary toward the players in them. Not in a "those are my guys!" way but more like, "hey, I know those loathsome thugs...those are our loathsome thugs!" But this is strictly business. By now in past postseasons I would have latched on to somebody's storyline, provisionally adopting a team or a few of its players enough to be rooting for them or maybe their fans. I didn't feel that at all about the Phillies (let alone their fans). I just wanted them to do the job that needed to be done. And they did it. They need to keep doing it. Cliff Lee's all right, however.

Moody's off by a year regarding that World Series against Oakland.