I have been sporadic in posting on metsilverman.com for good reasons—things have been really busy! I have, however, been following the Mets somewhat closely this year after taking last year off. I got into a habit early in the year of following games I could not watch by looking at comments on Facebook. That was actually fun at first: “Ha. Ha. I thought the Mets were down 5-2 based on the 400-level bitching on social media; they’re winning, 5-2!” The constant complaining about a good team has stopped being entertaining.
We are past one of the major MLB milestones of the year: July 4. And the Mets reached it in first place! All this despite an unfathomable number of injuries from the scrubbiest of scrubs all the way to Jacob deGrom. I know that many people don’t like the Mets manager. Luis Rojas is no John McGraw. He’s not even Felipe Alou, but he is the son of that wise manager of the Expos and Giants, giving him a baseball pedigree that few in the game (and even fewer sitting at home) can claim. That Rojas was one of the few management guys that Sandy Alderson didn’t fire upon his return says that people in the know are pretty sure Luis is major league caliber.
But the Mets have been wrong before. Countless times. In my quest to continue to love the game despite the best efforts of commissioner Robert Manfred, I have been watching old games to try to get back my baseball mojo. This time I stumbled on a random Mets game from 1979 just to see if the reality was as bad as experiencing that year in person. The short answer: Hell yes!
Murph and Ralph Take Us Back to Mets Hell
The 1979 team could not hit a lick, the pitching was mediocre, the team had absolutely no power, its third baseman told anyone who’d listen that he didn’t want to be there, and the bullpen was in the opening stage of a turnover that would culminate in the team’s ultimate resurgence… in five years! The 1979 Mets had their fewest fans over a full season and somehow missed 100 losses (they lost 99). Ownership was as bad as it would be in the 20th century—the 21st century is another matter. The 1979 Mets had no money, and they played like it. The pitching staff was so depleted they did not even have any young arms left to call up; so the Mets resorted to washed-up stars like Dock Ellis and Wayne Twitchell, (star may be pushing it with Twitch), both of whom were soon sold off and never saw the big leagues again. The Mets also purchased lefty Andy Hassler, who had several good years left, but he vamoosed as a free agent as soon as possible.
Still, the lineup from the game in question against the Giants at Candlestick Park on May 5, 1979, was better than the lineup I saw in person during a doubleheader at Citi Field against the Rockies on May 27, 2021. Here’s a comparison:
May 5, 1979 May 27, 2021 (Game 1)
Frank Taveras, SS Jonathon Villar, 3B
Alex Trevino, 3B Francisco Lindor, SS
Lee Mazzilli, CF James McCann, 1B
Steve Henderson, LF Billy McKinney, RF
Willie Montanez, 1B Tomas Nido, C
Joel Youngblood, RF Brandon Drury, LF
John Stearns, C Jose Peraza, 2B
Doug Flynn, 2B Cameron Maybin, CF
Craig Swan, P Marcus Stroman, P
You should note that both versions of the Mets had a catcher playing an unfamiliar infield position and each lineup featured a recently acquired player: Frank Taveras from the 1979 Pirates (still so new that he did not have a name on the back of his jersey in the first year the Mets felt obliged to tell fans which nobody was which), and Billy McKinney from the 2021 Brewers (a player Milwaukee didn’t have room for on its roster, yet he hops a flight to New York and bats cleanup in his Mets debut). One Mets team above was tied for last place (tied, it should be noted, with the “We Are Family” Pirates, who would win hearts and a World Series come October), and the more recent Mets club was in first place. Lesson of the day: Be thankful for what you have; you could be in Mets Hell—even if the guy making out the lineup was a future Hall of Fame manager in Joe Torre (not for what he did for the Mets, of course).
Bob Murphy was doing TV. The following year he switched to radio for good—for very good. Murph’s 1979 TV partner was Steve Albert—not to be confused with Marv, Al, or Kenny Albert. Steve-o broke up the golden-throated triumvirate of Murph, Ralph Kiner, and Lindsey Nelson. Lindsey had opted out of Flushing, its penny-pinching ownership, and its lousy team to join the Giants. Wish they could have piped Lindsey in to work that day with Bob and Ralph on Channel 9.
And then the game started at Candlestick Park. It was raining, which may be the most noteworthy part of this game. (In the first 21 years San Francisco had just 17 rainouts.) Ralph got to use some of his intentional weather quips. “Out here they call this mist—it missed Oregon and wound up in California.”
The Mets went down harmlessly in the first, but the Giants scored three times off Craig Swan, who’d won the 1978 NL ERA title and somehow would win 14 games with the punchless ’79 team. As Murph offered, the only category the 1979 Mets led the National League in—besides walks issued—was mustaches (this is not an official stat). Maybe they were trying to disguise themselves. Richie Hebner, a Mets killer while playing on the team, may have been at his happiest as a Met in San Francisco with a bad back that allowed him to watch rookie backstop Alex Trevino to play third base. Willie Montanez, the team’s resident hot dog and .160-hitting power source, showed off his snatch catch antics. And circle the calendar, because Lee Mazzilli Poster Weekend is coming up. Boys, tell your sisters! Please!!
Murph called Jack Clark, Jackie Clark so often that Steve Albert started doing it. Then Steve spilled a soda all over his scorecard. To their credit, neither Ralph nor Bob discussed kidnapping Lindsey from Candlestick’s press row and smuggling him back to Shea.
Torre’s managing brilliance took another day off. He intentionally walked light-hitting Rob Andrews to pitch to Giants rookie hurler Phil Nastu, who grounded to short and Taveras committed his second error of the day, allowing the fourth Giants run to score. To complete an awful afternoon, the newly-acquired Taveras reached base on a Giants error and was promptly picked off first; Alex Trevino then tripled and was stranded at third on a nice stop by Darrell Evans. John Stearns finally got the Mets on the board, and even then the original Dude had his hands up in the air wondering why the runner was held at third base.
A seventh-inning rally was created by a very unlikely source: pinch hitter Bruce Boisclair. He singled and came around to score on another hit by the young Trevino. Then it was Joe Altobelli’s turn for questionable managing. After Doug Griffin started Mazzilli off with a ball, the Giants manager yanked Griffin for Gary Lavelle. Now turned around to bat right, the Amazin’ Maz clobbered a pitch over the tall wire outfield fence and the game was tied. It was the 11th home run of the year by a Met… in their 22nd game.
Unfortunately, or mercifully—I can’t quite decide—the bottom of the inning was not recorded properly, so I missed Jackie Clark (that name is contagious) launching a two-run home run off Mets rookie Jesse Orosco. Messy Jesse got the first of his 167 decisions (80 losses) that day at the Stick in the seventh appearance of a career that would last into the 2000s and result in a record-setting 1,252 games pitched. Trevino fanned to end the game—the only strikeout by a Giants pitcher all day. (The Mets also did not draw a walk.) The Giants fanned five times in the game. Compare that to the 18 strikeouts per game we are seeing in 2021. I would like to compare this figure with the number of K’s I witnessed in the first game against the Rockies in May 2021, but that was only a seven-inning game. I wish Murph, Ralph, and Lindsey were still with us, but I’m glad they do not have to see this inane rule bending.
Soooo…. it sounds like it may be time to watch another old game.