Book Excerpt:
Patches, Part I: From Fair to Foul
The Mets wore a patch on their left sleeve for their first game in the major leagues. For their second game, they didn’t wear any. The Mets wore the patch with the familiar Mets skyline logo only on their road uniforms from 1962 to 1966. At the Polo Grounds their sleeves were as bare as their cupboard was of talent.
The Mets moved to Shea Stadium in 1964, coinciding with the New York World’s Fair. The club commemorated the event with a patch that featured the fair’s icon: the “Unisphere,” a 12-story, 20-ton, space-age globe made by U.S. Steel. The left side of the patch was blue and the right side orange with a diagonal white line splitting the image. It was the first patch worn by the Mets at home. It was worn on the road as well—on the left sleeve—with the skyline patch moving to the right sleeve on the road uniforms.
By 1966, the World’s Fair was over and the Unisphere patch disappeared (the actual Unisphere remains a half-mile south of Shea) and for the first time the Mets put the skyline logo patch on the left sleeve of their home uniform. That all changed in 1969. A 100th anniversary patch with the now well-known Major League Baseball logo of a silhouetted batter (said to be modeled after Twins slugger Harmon Killebrew) was worn on the left sleeve of every team in 1969 to commemorate a century of acknowledged professional baseball. The Mets ditched the skyline logo during their signature ’69 season but brought it back for the World Series. The Mets wore the skyline logo on their left sleeves and shifted the MLB logo to the right on their pinstripe uniforms.
The Mets wore no skyline logo patch at Baltimore’s Memorial Stadium, just as they had done for both home and away uniforms against Atlanta in the first NLCS. The skyline logo patch worked wonders at Shea. How else could anyone explain Agee’s catches, Swoboda’s dive, the ball glancing off J.C. Martin’s wrist, the shoe polish incident, Clendenon’s subsequent blast, the game-tying home run by lightweight Al Weis or the two Oriole errors on one play for an insurance run for the Kooz?
For the next dozen years, the Mets kept the skyline patch on the left sleeve of their home and away uniforms. All National League clubs were required to wear a red, white and blue National League patch that included a handlebar mustache, pillbox cap, plus stars and stripes on their right sleeve to honor the NL’s centennial, which coincided nicely with America’s bicentennial, in 1976. The left sleeve was crowded with the skyline logo along with a black armband for departed Joan Payson and Casey Stengel. The skyline logo remained on the left sleeve through the Joe Torre years, even as players and fans disappeared in droves. Despite slogans to the contrary, the magic had presumably run dry by 1982. The skyline logo came off.
Part II: Racing the Skyline
A blue alternate uniform plus road grays with a racing stripe led to the banishment of the skyline logo from the sleeve for 11 years. The Mets did wear a patch on their left sleeve for one year during that period: 1986. A 25th anniversary patch featured the skyline logo as the centerpiece with crossed bats set inside a diamond on a blue field. The edges of the diamond were trimmed in orange and white. The diamond had “1986” at first base, “1962” at third and the home plate area read “25th anniversary.” This was placed on top of the racing stripe. Oh, it was busy, but so were the Mets. Garment care instructions? For best results, douse repeatedly with chilled champagne.
The Mets eliminated the racing stripe and resurrected the skyline logo on the left sleeve in 1993, just in time for their worst season in 28 years. In 1994, the Mets wore two patches. The one on the right sleeve commemorated the 125th anniversary of professional baseball. The Mets boxed the skyline logo on their left sleeve for the 25th anniversary of the “Miracle Mets.” The strike wiped out two 1969 pin giveaways as well as everything else on the professional baseball landscape in year 125.
The skyline logo returned, along with the players, in 1995. Despite all the changes and additions to the uniform, the logo has remained on the left sleeve every year since then. In 1997, all major league teams honored Jackie Robinson with a right-sleeve patch. A home plate with an extended rectangle featured Robinson’s signature, along with his debut year, the current year and “50th anniversary” marking his landmark breaking of baseball’s color barrier. Shea Stadium was the sight for the national ceremony 50 years to the day of his debut. For the Mets’ 2000 season opener in Tokyo, the first major league games played in Japan, a patch was worn on the right sleeve of both the Mets and Cubs for the two games at Tokyo Dome. The same logo was stitched on the hats for those games. A World Series logo was stitched on team hats that October.
September 11, 2001 was one of the most heartrending days in history. In the wake of the terrorist attacks, American flag patches were sewn on the back of every uniform, and placed on hats and batting helmets as well. The sleeves simply read, “9-11-01.” The Mets wore this remembrance with an American flag on each side of the date on the right sleeve in 2002, along with a patch commemorating the club’s 40 years in the National League. The gold and green patch, with “Mets” in orange and blue, featured the years 1962 and 2002 along with “40th anniversary.” The ’02 season ended a lot more like ’62 than anyone would have imagined.
Two years later, Shea Stadium celebrated its longevity. The images of the neon pitcher and batter from the exterior of Shea were placed side by side, separated by a diagonal line reminiscent of the Unisphere patch of 40 years earlier. The southpaw pitcher started his motion on the left side of the patch with a blue background, while the lefty-swinging batter took a cut on the opposite side with an orange backdrop. The years 1964-2004 as well as “40th anniversary” and “Shea Stadium” appeared in white lettering. Underneath the patch was the catchphrase “Ya Gotta Believe,” signed “Tug” in honor of deceased reliever Tug McGraw. (That followed the club tradition of black armbands or special patches commemorating the deaths of Gil Hodges, Casey Stengel, Joan Payson, William Shea, John McSherry, McGraw, and Bob Murphy, plus a one-day tribute to Tommie Agee and Brian Cole.) At the 2004 All-Star Game in Houston, the Shea patch was replaced on the right sleeves of Tom Glavine and Mike Piazza with a 2004 All-Star Game logo. Tug’s motto remained, just as it always will in fans’ hearts.
The final year of Shea likewise features a tribute patch in 2008. A circle shows two sides of Shea: the gray “classic” Shea complete with the colored aluminum siding on the left, and the “modern” blue version with the neon catcher on the right. Above both is a classy yet slightly different version of the familiar skyline. The patch itself reads: “Shea Stadium, 1964-2008, Mets.” Go out like a lion, old friend.