Mets management has, amazingly, heard and heeded some complaints from fans. Responding to a lack of Met-itude at CitiField, the team is working on a number of enhancements to give the new stadium more of a personality and sense of history. In addition to finally establishing a physical location for a Mets Hall of Fame, they’re also spiffing up the park’s exterior with banners and murals of Mets greats of the past.
Best of all, they’ve enhanced the already great Fan Walk with commemorative plaques, each of which feature a famous moment in Mets history that happened at the now-demolished Shea Stadium. Pics of these circulated on various blogs earlier this week, and they made me regret my decision to not buy a Fan Walk brick even more than I already did (my financial inability to do so notwithstanding).
But just like matter itself, the Mets’ stupidity can neither be created nor destroyed. So when they actually manage to get something right and do something cool, it has to be countered by something dumb and ham-fisted, In this case, it’s an easily fixable error in the plaque dedicated to the Mets’ thrilling, come-from-behind win in game 7 of the 1986 World Series (first pointed out by Mets Police, which also gave us the awesome pics linked above).
If you read the text, you’ll see the last sentence of the synopsis says “Sid Fernandez earned the win with exceptional relief work”. El Sid did relieve Ron Darling in that game, and his 2 1/3 hitless innings were arguably the biggest reason the Mets were able to rally from an early 3-0 deficit in that game. However, Fernandez did not technically earn the win–Roger McDowell did.
An easy mistake to make? Sure, but also an easy mistake to correct. Two minutes of research could’ve prevented this from ever being cast in bronze. It’s not like the Mets have so many world championships whose details need to be fact checked.
But sadly, that’s not the only mistake on these plaques. Just take a look at these completely un-Photoshopped examples of other plaque oopsies!