Tag Archives: mets

Baseball

The Mets Fanwalk of Shame

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).

orosco.jpgIf 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!

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Baseball

The Stellar Research of New York’s Number 1

fran1.jpgWelcome bu-HACK to The Mike Francesa Program, New York’s Number 1, coming to you live from Port St. Lucie, where spring training has begin. The period called spring training is upon us. The time of year generally referred to by most baseball fans as spring training is here. Something has started to occur down here in Florida, and that thing I’m referring to is spring training. I’m at Mets camp, where apparently they’re preparing for the upcoming season, rather than throwing in the towel by Opening Day as I suggested. My first guest on the program is a fifth starter candidate and a promising young pitcher, Jon Niese.

niese.jpgThanks for having me on the show, Mike.

fran1.jpgLet me ask you a question, Jon. Didn’t you have some sort of injury or something last year?

niese.jpgUm, yeah, I did. Tore a hamstring pretty bad. Couldn’t you have just looked that up before the interview?

fran1.jpgWhere would I have looked it up, the internet? I don’t trust those calculator things. They got viruses and cookies in ’em. Now, let me ask you something else: Are you a lefty or a righty?

niese.jpgI’m a lefty. Any other questions you want to ask me that could’ve been answered by the back of my baseball card?

fran1.jpgYes, as a matter of fact. With Damon and Matsui gone, do you think the Yankee lineup will be as explosive as it was last year? How do you think Granderson’s gonna do in his first year in pinstripes?

niese.jpgTo be honest, I haven’t given the Yankees’ question marks much thought, since they won the World Series last year and I don’t play for them. I’ve been concentrating on breaking into the starting rotation and recovering from a horrific injury.

fran1.jpgDon’t get testy with me, young man. This is how it works, son. I’m the number one host on the Mets’ flagship radio station, and I’m here in Port St. Lucie visiting your team. Of course I have to talk about the Yankees!

niese.jpgYou do that. I gotta go stand over here for a while
/leaves

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Baseball

Remembrance of Promos Past

Though no pitches have been thrown in anger just yet, players are in spring training camps, and that excites me. Jose Reyes is running the bases, Johan Santana is throwing bullpen sessions, and Ollie Perez has managed to eat lunch every day without hurting himself. I haven’t seen footage of any of these things, but I know they are happening, and that knowledge soothes me.

But I got genuinely excited over something I saw yesterday. Matthew Cerrone at Metsblog posted this pic snapped at Port St. Lucie.

mets_rccola_bag.jpgWhat is that? Why it’s a stadium giveaway duffel bag, clearly sponsored by RC Cola, dating to the late 80s-early 90s. The sight of this thing was nigh Proustian in the memories it dredged up. But not of actually using the bag. Just of seeing ads for BAG NIGHT! at Shea, then seeing said bag used by classmates and townfolk for the next few years. It gave me the same feeling I get when I watch old commercials, and have phrases I haven’t thought of in years ring tiny little bells in my brain.

I wanted this to be a springboard for a post on other Shea Stadium giveaways from the same era, but sadly, the interweb information on such things is rather poor. You’d think some maniac out there would have compiled a site dedicated just to this, but you’d think wrong.

But there is some web-based evidence of RC Cola’s role in Mets history. The soda had a long, intermittent association with the team dating back to its earliest days. This was back when Shea had more small-time sponsors like Rheingold Beer and local Plymouth dealerships.

Oddly enough, they seem to have returned to this route at CitiField, where you now see ads for things like Arpielle Equipment, cash-for-gold web sites, and other second-tier businesses. Which seems kind of creepy and shady, now that I think about it.

It was a fitting partnership. RC Cola was always the shameful bronze to the gold and silver of Coke and Pepsi, while the Mets were the brand new “upstart” team in town. RC even tried to play up this connection, as you’ll see in this ad from the 1960s. A shapely young lady poses with an RC Cola in front of Shea Stadium, though the facility can barely be discerned behind her, or the giant fountain which must have once been somewhere near it (or the Worlds Fairgrounds, or the designer’s imagination). I get the destinct impression that baseball was not the focus of this ad.

mets_rccola_69.jpgOther than the duffel bag, the RC Cola promo I remember the most were these commemorative cans following the Mets’ 1986 World Series victory. Decorated in a gloriously 80s design scheme, these cans declared to the world, “I know how to jump on a bandwagon as I drink.”

mets_rccola_can2.jpgRC Cola’s association with the Mets continued into the 2000s, but ended by the time the last days of Shea rolled around (hence the Pepsi Porch at their new ballpark). I would lament this fact, but considering RC Cola is now owned by Cadbury Schweppes, they’re not exactly a mom and pop outfit, either.

Plus, I don’t wanna be one of those people who complains about the merits of essentially interchangeable junk food brands. The Wife and I once snagged fantastic seats for a Mets game, and sat next to a guy who wouldn’t shut up all night about how he hated it when Shea stopped serving Kahn’s hot dogs. I was too nice to tell the guy to leave me alone, plus he seemed like he might be borderline autistic.But my point is, if you can help it, don’t be that guy. Nostalgia’s great, being trapped in the past isn’t.