batmagadanleadoff

It'd be nice if this inning could start with a Mets runner on second base.

As Channel 11 sportscaster Jerry Girard once said about Wayne Gretzky: 'He's just been named player of the week ... for next week' Jerry Girard was great, wasn't he?

d'Kong76 wrote: I'll always love the 1974 cover.. Me too. I'll go so far as to say that it's my favorite Mets yearbook cover of the 70s and perhaps, my all time non-illustrated Mets yearbook cover favorite. I'll have to give that last claim some more thought.

SteveJRogers wrote: Also its clearly a “Decades before Photoshop Photoshop” job since I doubt they’d raise the banner prior to Game 3 of the World Series, on an October evening! What does this mean? And how do you know that the picture is from game three of the WS? And if it's evening, why is the sky so blue? And how come you're not complaining that there was no right field flagpole at Shea Stadium and that the flags flew in center field? Or that the field looks like a ghost town with not a single player on it? Is that the ultimate game of shadow-ball taking place on a diamond? And are you gonna deduct points from this post because I used an em dash?

Phillies 20 Marlins 1 Well, that score explains it. Because I was looking at the standings and noticed that the Marlins, this season, were already outscored by 31 runs and by a ratio of more than two to one and thought to myself, "holy shit is this team bad. Small sample size and all, but you know what? The Marlins may actually be that bad.

My first thoughts went immediately to Ricky Trlicek and Pedro Beato. But in the end, I settled on Chick Galloway, roaring 20s shortstop of the Philadelphia Athletics..278/.327 with a coupl'a HRs. Plus a stint on the DL when he climbs up to sit on and and then falls off of the Citi Field flagpole after leaving a speakeasy in a drunken stupor.

I like the concept, the idea of the shirt design; the execution, not so much. I don't think that Mr. Met looks enough like Mr. Met, to my liking. Of course, that's the designer's catch-22. The more the batter resembles Mr. Met, the likelier it is that the Mets will be able to claim copyright and trademark infringements.

I hated that kid and that cover, too. So much so, that I didn't buy that yearbook, just on the basis of that ugly cover. It was the first time that I didn't buy a Mets yearbook in the same year of its publication since I became a fan. (Though I'd end up acquiring it many years later to fulfill my completist sensibilities).

Conforto goes from maybe missing all of 2018 to returning in the first week of play and homering off of Strasburg in his first game back.

Ceetar wrote: big bomb, pitch down and out of the zone. Strasburg has given up a home run on literally 1/4th of flyballs. Three HRs in five games. Could this be the return of "The Babe Ruth Show", starring Yoenis Cespedes?

Zvon wrote: Benjamin Grimm wrote: There's something strange about center field in that photo. It's oddly truncated. I'm not at all sure what's going on. That's an architects drawing. That's right. That was a conceptual drawing of Flushing Stadium that was circulating since 1962, appearing in media, promotional materials, Rheingold sponsored schedules, etc.. Given the lead time needed to publish a yearbook in 1964, that rendering might've been the best the organization could've come up with.

RealityChuck wrote: Neither is particularly good, but Mullen is a pretty mediocre artist. He should not have been doing covers. I think that this is crazy talk.

If Willard Mullin came back to life and went back to doing his thing, illustrating and getting his political cartoon style pieces into the sports section of one of the NYC tabloids, the philistine Wilpons would never think to have him do the current Mets yearbook covers.

-- the infield is pretty much the same: Zimmerman at 1st, [--->]Howie Kendrick at 2nd, [<---]Trea Turner at SS, Anthony Rendon at 3rd, and Matt Weiters behind the plate. Ahem. [/clears throat]

Zvon wrote: [tweet]https://twitter.com/AnthonyDiComo/status/981355573651345413[/tweet] Didn't have his best stuff last night? What the hell is that supposed to mean? Harvey hasn't had his best stuff in almost five years, now.

I'm not a fan of those early '80s illustrated Mets yearbook covers. I generally love good artworked covers and I lament the near extinction of an illustrated magazine cover these days, where the formula for most every magazine today seems to be to slap a photo of a celebrity on the front. But those early '80s Mets covers miss the mark. To my eyes, there seems to be something off about those covers. It's in the execution. Those covers come off as amateurish. Also, this era marks, for me, my first loss of interest in Mets yearbooks. As Greg alluded to earlier (I think), these yearbooks began an irreversible trend of distancing themselves from the template of earlier Mets yearbooks -- the ones I cut my teeth on -- which I think mark the high point of Mets yearbooks. Player summaries that were kid friendly yet didn't insult the intelligence of an adult -- and I know this from reading those same yearbooks decades later. Compelling photographs that captured the warmth, the camaraderie, rivalries and quirky moments of a typical baseballf season. Pictures with so much to tell. The future soulless action shots that would all but replace these snapshots into the lives of baseball players were, by comparison, distant and emotionless.

Looking back with hindsight, I'm surprised the '98 yearbook cover didn't celebrate the Introduction of the Mets horrible black uniform tops.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: If this Yearbook Cover Derby has nothing else going for it, G-Fafif's daily comparisons of the two competing covers is always worth the price of admission. Maybe even worth twice the price of admission! I've been meaning to write the same post for several days, now. He's just killing it on these yearbook threads. When this contest is over, his posts could be edited to make one helluva magazine article, assuming people still read those anymore. The imagined piece would, ideally, appear in a Mets yearbook -- the yearbook about yearbooks -- if only the thin-skinned Mets could absorb some smart criticism.

Gil's good luck rabbit was a regular in the manager's office in September of 1969. The rabbit, a fan mail gift to Gil, was a stuffed doll and not a living, breathing animal. I'd like to think that Gil named the gift "Salty the Rabbit", after the last manager to manage the Mets before Gil's arrival, but I'm not so sure on that last point.

Is that "Salty" for Parker?

seawolf17 wrote: That's why I hate the possibility of "legislating against the shift." NO NO NO. If the defense wants to shift, let them; you just try to beat them and they'll stop. The bosses running the game today, with their lunatic extra inning idea in the lab, are likelier to legislate to ban bunting against a shift, if anything. And bunting? Batters should be check swinging against the shift. They'd be on second base when the dust settles.

Bobby Bonilla was such an unlikeable and humorless douchebag, I might've voted against that cover even if it was nicer than the '87, just on principle.

Frayed Knot wrote: Zvon wrote: #worstUMPever? Not as long as Angel Hernandez continues to draw both breath and a paycheck. Well yeah, because he umps as if the only thing he's drawing is s paycheck.

It's a good thing that Rusty didn't sign his name with an "x".

Could've been better. If I didn't read the press articles, I never would've figured out on my own that the patch said Rusty. Just great. An illegible signature as a tribute. This forum could've come up with 30 better ways to do this.