Artist Thomas Sarrantonio was an avid Mets fan as a teen in the late 1960s. He went off to school and lost the bug somewhat, but he does still play softball on Sundays in the Hudson Valley (sometimes with me!). His once beloved Mets books, bought and devoured in 1969 and 1970, remained for years in his beautiful artist’s studio. So he did what others have done when it is time to get rid of stuff like this: “Let’s get Matt to take them.” I gladly accepted the donation of a dozen Mets books from that era. I’ve written a few books on the team I grew up with—coming of Mets age after the glow of ’69 had dulled to something like a communicable disease in the late 1970s. One caveat: Tom expects book reports! This was one area I excelled in at school. So now I pull these books off the pile in my office in the order I randomly placed them on the shelf. Keep in mind there are 100+ other unread books piled in my office. This could take some time.
*I changed the normal series title for this book from “Party Like It’s 1969” to 1962 because of the subject matter and the fact that after 31 games the 1962 Mets, a brand-new club en route to becoming the worst team in post-1900 National League history, had a better record (12-19) than the current Mets (10-21).
Can’t Anybody Here Play This Game? (New York: Ballantine Books, 1963)
Jimmy Breslin hits different. I don’t know what that actually means, but then I never quite understood the meaning of his catch line, “It’s a good drinking beer,” in his Piels beer commercials. In the foreword for Can’t Anybody Here Play This Game, a re-issued 1970 paperback honoring the inept franchise turned world champions, Breslin explains that before he wrote the book, the Daily News columnist was in hock and had his home phone cut off and car repossessed while living in a crowded home in Baldwin, Long Island. After this hit (different), the copy boy turned columnist became a national figure. In 1969 he ran for city council president, working with mayoral candidate Norman Mailer on a ticket where the city would secede from the state. We all may be fortunate he lost.
But the man can turn a phrase. Inside a lot of jokes at the expense of Casey Stangel and the fledgling Mets, he showed the softer side of the Ol’ Perfessor, team president George Weiss, owner Joan Payson, and, yes, Marv Throneberry. Thanks to Breslin, “Marvelous Marv” eventually got his own beer commercials—and a better brand of beer than Breslin got. I had a Lite Beer from Miller at the Mets-National game the other night—the 14-2 drubbing in the rain to mark my first Mets game of this challenging year. The beer was the best part of the experience.
What I appreciate about Breslin is that, unlike some writers, he does not play loose with the truth while trying to get yuks. There are genuine laughs aplenty here. Breslin, who died in 2017 at 88 (Casey lived two years longer—just saying), goes to pains to get the facts and figures to back up the laughs. I’m sure plenty of players hated him for the book, but Casey, Mrs. Payson, Marv, and even Weiss came to realize that Breslin helped create a brand that would capture hearts for decades to come. People still love the team to the point of exasperation, even when the Mets are eliminated from contention, which is often.
The Mets are still on draft in New York, while plenty of other local teams are only available in cans or bottles. And you always want your drinking beer from the tap.