19
2013
Sifting Through Some Old Mets Relics And Memories Makes Me Believe in 2013
An article by 
Tucked away in the mountains of Tehachapi, Calif. rests a modest cottage. Living in that cottage are John and Jill Nelson. These are my parents.
In any given room, you can find the typical conventions of any old west-style household. There are paintings of horses on every wall, candle holders made from welded horseshoes on the dining room table and small pieces from alfalfa-hay flakes scattered across the 70s-style brown carpet.
If you look deep enough in the closets, underneath the abundance of dust, you’ll find something any true baseball fan has: memorabilia. In my parents’ case, the majority happens to be New York Mets memorabilia.
This offseason has dragged on for what seems like an eternity. The Mets continue to be written off, but this is something my parents have been used to hearing for as long as they’ve followed the Mets—something that’s been engrained in the way I’ve followed the Mets my whole life. I’m sure it’s something we all recognize.
See, my parents haven’t always resided on the West Coast. For a large chuck of their lives, they lived in Fair Lawn, N.J.—in Bergen County, which is right on the border of New York and New Jersey. They both worked for the Associated Press in New York.
My father is originally from Federal Way, Wash. so he indirectly adopted the Mets through my mother, who grew up in Kenilworth, N.J.
Whenever I visit my parents in Tehachapi, they tell me stories from when they watched and covered the Mets. They have a more impartial perspective because they are both journalists. You can tell when they talk about the Mets though, there’s just a hint attachment. I recently got a chance to visit them and they dusted off all their memorabilia and told me the stories behind it.
This 1969 poster from Jock Magazine cost 60 cents and measured about 3 feet in length.
Since the anniversary of Gary Carter’s passing, I’ve been asking them a lot about Mets teams of old. I want to share some stories and memorabilia with you. It’s my hope that we can put aside the Mets’ current foibles and focus primarily on something the Mets have done throughout the franchise’s history: defy the odds.
This offseason reminds me of the season preceding 1969—the “Miracle Mets” season.
My mother got this Daily News issued button and the poster seen above during the Mets’ World Series run in 1969. The Mets clinched the division on Sept. 24, 1969 with a win over the St. Louis Cardinals 6-0.
It was also fan appreciation day. My mother and grandfather were both in attendance. My mother was 16 years old. She remembers fans climbing the foul poles and everyone rushing onto the field to grab a chunk of grass after the Mets won the game. On the way home, she recalls almost everyone riding the train holding a piece of grass. It would be nice to see the Mets get that kind of support from the fanbase again. There was a time when, despite how bad the Mets were, fans still showed a lot of support.
1986 NLCS Score Book
By the time 1986 rolled around, my father had become an established writer for the Associated Press. My older brother had been born so my mother became more of a fan. She went to a lot of games in ’86 and kept many things along the way.
Box score from Game 3 of the NLCS against the Astros at Shea Stadium
As we all know, the Mets beat the Houston Astros in the ’86 NLCS in six games to move on to the World Series. My mother attended Game 3 (as you can see from the handwritten box score). The Mets won the game 6-5 with a walk-off home run by Lenny Dykstra. She said when Dykstra hit the two-run homer in the bottom of the 9th inning, the stands in Shea Stadium shook back and forth.
Two-page spread of the NL Champion Mets featured in The Record on Sunday, Oct. 19, 1986
During the ’86 World Series, my father wrote an evaluation of each team’s roster for the AP. He picked which team had the upper hand at each position. These evaluations were distributed to newspapers across the country that didn’t have traveling baseball writers and didn’t have as much knowledge about each team. When it came to third base, my father picked Ray Knight to be the better player over Wade Boggs. Every paper that the comparison was distributed to ran it except for one publication based in Boston. The paper refused to publish it unless Knight was replaced by Boggs. My father refused and the paper didn’t run his piece. When the World Series was over, Knight was named World Series MVP.
My mother’s score card from Game 6 of the 1986 World Series
Both my mother and father were at Game 6. My mother was in the stands with my grandmother and my father was in the press box covering the game for the AP.
Back then, my father used to dictate the games over the phone back to the AP office. When Keith Hernandez made the second out of the 9th inning, the Series seemed all but wrapped up for the Red Sox. After Carter’s two-out hit in the inning, my father recalls telling the AP office, “Hold on. Something crazy is about to happen.”
It’s indicative of the way the Mets play. We saw it a lot in 2012 when the Mets piled up all those two-out runs.
My mother was sitting on the first base side in between home and first. She remembers Red Sox fans sitting a few rows in front of her going crazy after the second out of the 9th inning. After Wilson’s grounder to Bill Buckner at first, she claims that even if Buckner had fielded the ball, Wilson would have beat the throw. When the ball rolled passed Buckner, she recalls all of Shea Stadium going completely silent for a split second.
As Knight rounded third base seconds later, she said Shea blew up like someone had set off dynamite from under the seats. When she looked down at the Red Sox fans a few rows in front her, they were no where to be found.
I love hearing these stories whenever I get a chance to go home. It makes me think that we shouldn’t count the Mets out in 2013 just yet. In fact, history tells us that the Mets have a penchant for surprising everybody. I like it when we fly under the radar. They play better with a chip on their shoulders. With all that being said, I feel something amazin’ is in the works.
Ya gotta believe!… Do you?
About the Author: Daniel Nelson
Dan Nelson is a junior at San Francisco State University majoring in Journalism and minoring in Economics. He was born in Fair Lawn, New Jersey where he grew up watching the Mets. Dan was also the recipient of the 2013/2014 Otto J. Bos Memorial Scholarship, the largest scholarship the SF State journalism department has to offer. You can follow him on Twitter @pacific_theme
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Nice job, Dan.
that is some good stuff they have. Thanks for sharing.
Is Metsmerized under new management or something? All these positive posts are killing me!
( Just kidding, keep’em coming.)
Thanks for your personal story and sharing some of the treasures from your parent’s collection. They raised you right.
I believe the guy on the couch.
The pitching really excites me. U have to wonder though about these young arms. If we were naking a run down the streatch these young arms would hav to be a factor. How many of them will b at an innings limit with not many innings remaining. Its not out of the question. Lets go mets.
Great story – thanks for sharing. Some of your parents memories gave me chills as I remember where I was watching when each of those games took place.
I especially love that poster they have from the 1669 Jock Magazine.
LOL…1969 obviously.
Who wouldn’t love this story? Let’s hope something amazing is in the works for this year!
Hi Dan,
Wonderful tribute to your parents and memories many of us share with them (loved that cover from Jock Magazine which I actually once had myself).
But as mentioned before, the front office at that time was made up of baseball people with a will to win. Today it is headed by a non-emotional corporate lawyer who looks at ledger books and treats players with all the compassion and respect of a statistic translating into cost effectiveness.
I have that same button and at least a few of those score books. Ask your mom if she has the Dwight Gooden poster calendar they gave away that year in April. That was pretty cool and I still have mine.
I don’t think she has that one, but the amount of stuff she does have is insane. This was just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. This post would have been much larger if I had put up a picture of everything. She has lots of newer swag like Subway Series stuff and 2006 NLDS stuff when the Mets swept the Dodgers. My mother and brother were at Game 3 of the NLDS in ’06 and said they had to take off their Mets gear just to get out of the stadium. Lol
Nice job of re-telling my stories.
I will never forget Game 6 in the 1986 Series, even though I was watching it on TV. I sat there in total disbelief. I couldn’t believe that the Red Sox were one strike away and couldn’t finish the job. Then the Rangers did it twice in 2011!
No matter how good or bad your team looks on paper, you still have to play the games. I’ve definitely learned that over the years.
Hi Kurt,
“No matter how good or bad your team looks on paper, you still have to play the games. I’ve definitely learned that over the year.”
Amen to that. It’s sad that is being lost upon so many today.
Have my own experience about game six. It was the time when all we had were VCR’s and the cost of pre-recorded videos astronomical so I decided to tape game six while editing out all the commercials. Did that with the pre-game show and thought I was really going to get something special for my video collection until that tenth inning. After the second out, I was feeling so frustrated that I had put so much effort pausing and un-pausing the recording to edit out commercials for nothing. Was tempted to stop it right then and there because I was tired – and so glad that I didn’t.
Yes, game six is available on video today – but how many also have all those post-game interviews PLUS the local News4 New York program after that with all the extensive coverage bringing back pure joy and disbelief we all had after that game? Have the same with game seven – from the pre-game through to the post-game interviews and then the subsequent news program. To preserve it, the tapes have been transferred onto DVD-R.
Those News4 New York programs are a treasure to have.
Sweet, well played Joey…and commercial free yet!
Thanks Kurt,
I just wish I had half the stuff I collected during that 1969 season. Had copies of the Daily News when we went into first place and the both the Post and News from the division winning, the NLCS game 3 and all world series. Probably would have become yellowed by this time and crumpled into dust anyway – we never preserved things back then. Still have the vinyl copy of the “The Miracle Mets” and the fascimile autographed baseball and original yearbook, however.
Do have on CD the Seaver Game, The Koozman/Agee 3-2 win over the Cubs, Gentry’s clincher and game 3 of the NLCS. Did also video all four games of the world series when replayed last year on SNY
Was surprised the scorecard for the 1969 NLCS was the one used for the season and only sold for a quarter and not some more expensive program like they do for all post-season games now.
Great memories.
I know what you mean…I am missing a lot of old Orioles ticket stubs…
Hi Kurt,
This will probably make you cry – when I was a kid I owned the 1960, 1964 and 1966 Baltimore Oriole yearbooks (I collected yearbooks from many teams).
Wow…1960…I wasn’t born yet, but that was the year they put up their first challenge to the Yankees. For a while the O’s were the only team that had a winning record against them (that has since long ended!)
Hi Kurt,
The cover of that 60 yearbook had a baseball cap kind of appearing as a nest with many “baby birds” running out from it, with a name of a player under each one. When the Mets weren’t playing used to listen to many of their night games over WBAL – their signal came in loud and clear next to WHN 1050 here in New York. Chuck Thompson was a great broadcaster.
Of course, those were the days where prior to 1965 nobody got to see an out of town baseball game on TV so to listen to out of town games was a thrill – not like today where one can get MLB Extra Innings in high definition.
Thanks for sharing the pictures and personal stories Daniel. Speaking for myself I appreciate your attempt to put aside the Mets’ current foibles and simply talk Mets. As a parent I take great enjoyment in sharing as your parents did with you stories about reliving where I was during past memorable moments in Mets history with my kids who thankfully all turned out to be 2nd generation Mets fans.
A hat tip and a Thanks again for what was a good read.