Thursday night at 9 o’clock, revisit the original sign of the apocalypse when SNY airs Mets Yearbook: 1979. I realize we express this type of sentiment fairly regularly where this dynamite series is concerned, but it defies the laws of nature that somebody actually produced a highlight film from a 63-99 season that in no way, shape or form included thirty minutes of Mets highlights.
But of course we kid 1979 because we lived through it. We know Lee Mazzilli exploded into the national consciousness like a discount bag of Pop Rocks, and that Frank Taveras sped his way from first to second and sometimes third, and that one June night the Mets scored ten runs before making three outs. But boy, if ever a year begged you to quit loving the Mets (besides 1977 and 1982 and 1993 and 2003 and 2009), it had to be 1979. Most of New York heeded the call to ignore and left the rest of us plenty of legroom at de Roulet Stadium.
Tune in, if only so you can understand what Father Mulchahy meant when he told Col. Potter in the final episode of M*A*S*H, “Look on the bright side: When they tell us to serve our time in Purgatory, we can say, ‘No thanks, I’ve done mine.'”
Image courtesy of “Mario Mendoza…HOF lock” at Baseball-Fever.
(a 63-99 season that in no way, shape or form included thirty minutes of Mets highlights)
Easy. The whole 24 minutes of the 10 run inning and then one minute from each of the final 6 games of the season…..
I assume there will be at least 8-9 minutes of happy talk about the stars of 1980, most of which I will identify to my curious son as flameouts or never-igniteds.
Note the generic Yearbook cover. I guess no one was deemed cover-worthy or they didn’t want to show their face. My copy of the 1979 Yearbook includes, on consecutive spreads, photos/profiles of Nino Espinoza and Richie Hebner, a pretty good trick considering the former was traded for the latter. Yearbook highlight: Bobby V (released in March ’79) winning the 1978 bubble gum bubble-blowing contest.
I’m sure that we will see something about Lee Mazzilli’s bases loaded walk against Ron Guidry in the 1979 All-Star game, perhaps the year’s highlight. That, plus rare footage of Mettle the Mule.
Spoiler alert: Mets first world championship turned 10 in 1979.
That part was fine.
The 1979 season itself is what was spoiled….
I was 13 years old in 1979, and attended at least 20 games that year. Mostly, by best friend and I bought upper deck tickets ($1.50 x 2), slipped the guard at the gate to field level $2, and then our favorite usher $5. We invariably spent the game in the first row, with our feet up on the roof of the third base dugout, eating knishes, hoping for an Ed Kranepool sighting, and telling everyone within earshot that Joe Torre had no business being a big league manager. Ah, youth.
Curiously, the Mets’ 2011 yearbook is also a generic job: A panorama of CitiField on game day with nary a player, a manger nor a Wilpon anywhere in sight.