Either set your recording devices before embarking on the busiest travel/patdown day of the year or hurry back from wherever you’re spending the holiday, and for the love of Mike Bruhert be sure to get your bargain-hunting done early. SNY is running a SEVEN-HOUR MARATHON of Mets Yearbook, every one the network has produced, from 3 o’clock Friday afternoon to 10 o’clock Friday night.
The fourteen installments will run in chronological order. Brief teaser and refresher on contents:
1963: The Polo Grounds closes. Shea Stadium nears. Mets prospects agree the Mets are a good place for a youngster to find quick advancement. Casey Stengel is still talking.
1965: Casey finishes talking and hangs them up. Mets are still the Expressway to the Big Leagues. The winter caravan that remains a Mets tradition to this day (cough, cough!) winds its way deep into Long Island.
1966: Mets leave the basement and rise all the way to the boiler room. Ron Swoboda hits a mighty homer. Jacksonville Sun ace Tom Seaver looms as a possibility for ’67.
1967: Guess who made it up from Jacksonville.
1968: Jerry Koosman thinks to himself before the Home Opener. Buddy Harrelson tells Little Leaguers about The Good Lord. Gil wants you to know he’s doing fine.
1971: The Mets don’t hit, but they sure can pitch and give away batting helmets. Ralph Kiner instructs Ken Singleton so adeptly Montreal can’t wait to take him off our hands.
1972: Rusty! Willie! And sadness for Gil. But fine promotional dates, too.
1973: Edited to exclude NLCS and World Series footage (either for time or rights fees), but you can’t go wrong with a fresh dose of You Gotta Believe!
1975: Dave Kingman has personality. Mike Vail has star written all over him. Joe Frazier takes the reins for next year promising he’s not an evil devil (or am I confusing him with somebody else)?
1976: One helluva Bicentennial celebration in Flushing. Seriously. Stephanie saw the red, white and blue pageantry (like a million balloons) and decided it was more impressive than the final ceremonies at Shea. More festive anyway.
1978: In case you’re wondering if anybody can make stars out of Doug Flynn and Craig Swan, the answer is yes.
1980: The film starts with the hiring of a whip-smart, universally admired general manager and ends with a lot of talk about how great newly acquired Dave Roberts will be in 1981. Draw precedent-related conclusions at your own risk.
1984: The Mets stop sucking, and for 28 minutes, the message is essentially just that. Gary Carter shows up at the end to declare he’s saving his right ring finger for his World Series bauble, and son of a gun, he made good on it.
1988: Roger McDowell screws around with a camcorder, not nearly as entertaining as it must have sounded in those Mets Can Do No Wrong (except in the playoffs) days. Otherwise, Mets can do no wrong.
And there’s like a thousand more highlights from these highlight films that will, appropriately enough, be the highlight of your Thanksgiving weekend, whether you’ve never seen Mets Yearbook before, whether you’ve missed a few or whether you’ve dropped everything every time you flip by SNY and see it’s Dairylea Day yet again.
Watch it, record it, ignore everything else in deference to it. You’ve been suitably notified.