Dipping Into The Archives Vol. 14

1985

Here’s a sign of how big of a change the 1985 season was for the Mets. The yearbook was no longer stapled, now it was bound. More pages, more photos, staples just weren’t enough to hold the thing together.

The massive on-field change was found in the catcher’s position/cleanup spot. Gary Carter was a perfect addition, and not just for the power he provided in the middle of the batting order. He was one more veteran to add to the mix and help mentor the young players; more importantly he was still at his peak, playing at a near MVP level. As a right handed hitter, he slotted in perfectly between Keith Hernandez and Darryl Strawberry. And it’s impossible to overstate how crucial it was to have a Gold Glove winning catcher around to mentor such a young pitching staff.

1985 was the first time I attended Opening Day. I was a freshman at Fordham at the time, so I could go the game without skipping school. And boy, was that one of the coldest days at Shea that I could remember. The game went into extra innings, and my ride back to campus decided to leave at the end of 9. I suppose I could have stayed behind and simply taken a subway back to Fordham, but I did wind up leaving early and was sitting in a car as Carter started the season in memorable fashion by hitting a walkoff homer in the 10th. I’m not joking when I say this - we were in bumper to bumper traffic on the Whitestone Expressway when Carter hit that home run and we could literally hear the cheers and see the fist bumps from all the other cars surrounding us. That was the first sign that this was promising to be a special season.

It was a memorable season; this was years before wild cards so the only path to the postseason was to win the division. The Mets and Cardinals essentially battled wire to wire, and the rivalry between the two teams was especially heated. The Mets battled, but 98 wins wasn’t enough; the Cards won the division by three games. You have to wonder how differently things would have gone had Strawberry not missed several weeks due to a thumb injury. Or if Dwight Gooden hadn’t lost those 4 games.

I kid, Gooden’s 1985 season was the kind of year to tell your grandkids about. It was a spectacular year whether you’re a fan of traditional stats or of advanced metrics. He won the pitching triple crown, leading the league in wins, strikeouts, and ERA. Retroactively applying modern analytics, he not only led the league in ERA+ by a wide margin, but his WAR reached historic levels. Gooden had the 4th highest pitching WAR of the entire 20th century, the only pitchers who surpassed his numbers were Cy Young once and Walter Johnson twice. Or to put it another way, WAR measured Dwight Gooden as having the single greatest pitching season in the post-integration era. And that’s not just nerdy number crunching. Every one of his starts was a special moment. With his explosive fastball and devastating curveball, he completely dominated opposing hitters. Every time he took the mound it came with the promise that we were about to see something special.

As a sign of how star-crossed this franchise was in its first quarter century, check it this montage of all of the Mets who had made All-Star teams by this point. It’s a pretty thin list. Even taking account the number of times that Tom Seaver made the squad, it’s a little sad that they could all fit on one page. Yeah, there were a lot of seasons in which the team only sent the required 1 representative to the Midsummer Classic. The ‘84 Mets had a quartet of stars (Gooden, Hernandez, Orosco, Strawberry) and they would continue to send multiple players to the game in the next several years, but this reflects just how bad the team often was.

A good chunk of the ‘86 team was in place (of the 24 players on the postseason roster 17 of them appeared on the ‘85 Mets. Remember, this was at the height of the collusion era. Each of the 26 owners coincidentally decided that they could play an entire season with only 24 men on the roster.) You have to feel bad for players on the team this season who just missed out on playing for the champs. For example, there was Ed Lynch, who spent a few years as a perfectly reliable back of the rotation starter, yet would soon find himself as the odd man out and was traded to the Cubs midseason ‘86. The player you have to feel most sorry for is Walt Terrell. The Mets traded him to Detroit for Howard Johnson following the 1984 season. Think about that. The 2 most dominant single season teams in the decade were the ‘84 Tigers and the ‘86 Mets. Terrell just missed out on both. On a semi-related note, it’s always fun to look back and be reminded of Some Guys that you had completely forgotten were ever on the team. In 1985 alone, remember Tom Paciorek? Or Joe Sambito? Does anyone remember that Larry Bowa joined the team in September? Larry Bowa was a Met?

And then there was Rusty. 1985 was Rusty Staub’s final year in the majors, which was such a shame. Staub was one of the most popular players to ever wear the orange & blue, it’s disappointing that he just missed out on reaching the ultimate prize. At least he went out in a blaze of glory. By this point in his career he was largely restricted to pinch hitting - he set all sorts of pinch hitting records these years. Even in his younger years he was a slow runner, by the time he hit his late thirties/early forties he was such a liability that it was advantageous to keep him far away from having to actually take the field. He obviously did own a glove because the year supplied us with a humorous event. In one early season game there were no remaining bench players late in the game so Davey Johnson had no choice but to place Staub in the outfield. In order to “hide” him he constantly switched back and forth from left to right field depending upon which side the opposing hitter hit from. The poor guy probably took more steps in one day from those constant jogs across the outfield than he had the rest of the year combined. Unfortunately, one batter did in fact hit an opposite field flare, forcing Rusty to make a running catch. Well done!

As you can see, the minor league system was still producing players who would make important contributions to the 1986 champs. But perhaps the prospect who was most crucial was one who had already graduated from “on the way” to meriting his own page. Calvin Schiraldi was the major player involved in the Bob Ojeda trade, but that’s only a small portion of why he was largely responsible for a Mets World Series title. I suppose that’s a story for another year.

TV Of The 21st Century - Catastrophe

Catastrophe was a hidden gem, running for 4 seasons in the mid 10s on Amazon Prime, a few years before that became more of a go-to streaming platform. Originally created for British TV, it follows the British model - at only 6 half hour episodes per season, it’s a fairly easy binge.

Co-created, co-written by, and co-starring Rob Delaney and Sharon Horgan, Delaney portrayed an American spending a week in London on a business trip. He hooks up with Horgan’s character, and the two proceed to have a LOT of sex over the course of that week. Flash forward to a few months later and his cell phone rings with the caller ID reading “Sharon (London Sex.)” It was a wonderful visual gag that he never changed that ID over the course of the series. She called to inform him of her pregnancy.

He returns to London and not only does he move there permanently in order to remain close to his unexpected child but the couple actually marries, even though they barely know each other. A major part of the early episodes concerned their ongoing attempts to fall in like with each other, never mind love.

There were so many wonderful layers to the show, from the fact that neither of the lead characters was a particularly good person to the whole fish out of water element of DeLaney’s attempts to establish a life in London. He didn’t know anyone there, which was tough on both his professional and personal lives. Her circle of friends, family, and frenemies essentially becomes his circle. Rob was a recovering alcoholic, and the stress did not help his recovery. And Sharon was unprepared for motherhood herself.

Carrie Fisher had a recurring role in the first 3 seasons as Rob’s mother. By this point in her career, she wasn’t really acting anymore. Instead, she would essentially play herself in any acting role and it perfectly fit the tone of the show in this case. She brought a no f****s left to give vibe, letting loose with brutal honesty towards anyone else in her path. Sadly, her death occurred in between seasons 3 & 4.

Catastrophe was a huge step forward in Sharon Horgan’s career. I had seen her in a few things previously, but this one showcased her talents very well. And it also proved that Delaney is much more than the guy who made a name for himself in the early days of Twitter. The journey the two lead characters took was a good one to follow, as they gradually found their comfortable place and expanded their family. It ended on an ambiguous note. It was never a flashy show, but it was a damn good one.

Originally aired on: Amazon Prime Video

Currently streaming on: Amazon Prime Video

You’re My Blue Sky

Last week a subscriber and longtime friend was kind enough to send me a Bluesky invite code. (Thanks Pat! You’re awesome!) The timing was perfect, as it coincided with yet another example of Elon’s special skill for self sabotage - his promise to eliminate the “block” feature. Whether he can actually do that is another matter, as it appears to violate the terms of the Apple & Google stores, but things of that nature have never stopped his impulsive nature before. It’s almost as if he’s using a Producers style attempt to intentionally run Twitter into the ground. Has anyone seen him wear a cardboard belt?

My initial impression about Bluesky is that it is a noticeable improvement over the other Twitter alternatives I’ve sampled. This one has more of my favorite Twitter follows than the other platforms, and more importantly, several of them post regularly. It’s still not enough for me to fully cut the cord however. There are some good feeds, but not enough yet.

That’s one of the issues I have with Bluesky at the moment. There is a lack of sports reporters right now. The likes of Ken Rosenthal or Adrian Woj haven’t migrated over yet, so I still need to rely on Twitter for breaking sports news. I haven’t found many news reporters either. That’s a big gap that still needs to be filled. And the rollout has been progressing very slowly. It’s still invitation only; my fear is that the site could miss an opportunity if the rollout continues at such a slow pace. When Musk made that announcement concerning the “block” feature, Bluesky noticeably slowed down as it was obvious that users immediately rushed over there and overwhelmed the servers.

I don’t yet have any invite codes to share, and I’ve promised my first few to some people. But my hope is that I will eventually get enough codes that I can share with some of you. In the meantime if any of you are already on Bluesky I can be found at steveherd.bsky.social. Pay me a visit there if you’re so inclined.

Bye Bye Bye

Hopefully none of you have been shoved into a garbage can by Barbara Walters. Or if you were, are smart enough to keep the story to yourself. Thanks for reading, and see you again on Wednesday.