Dipping Into The Archives Vol. 18

1989

Once again, 1989 appears to be a season in which I did not attend any Mets games, as I don’t have a copy of that season’s yearbook. Which could be just as well. Even though it was another second place finish, it was also a particularly tumultuous year. The pace at which the organization deconstructed the championship roster accelerated significantly. By the time the calendar year was done, only 8 players remained from the ‘86 playoff roster. To be fair, many of the departures were justifiable. But still, 3 years seems like such a short period of time for such a drastic turnover of a winning team.

There weren’t many hints over the offseason that such dramatic changes were on the horizon. The only significant trade was when they sent Wally Backman to Minnesota for minor league players. As much as Backman added to the team, his best days were behind him and it cleared playing time for Gregg Jefferies. There’s the rub. Jefferies is one of the poster children for the new era of the team.

Minor league prospects didn’t usually receive the same amount of hype in the late 80s as they do these days, but Jefferies was a notable exception. Fans constantly received updates on his minor league stats, and multiple articles were written about the unusual training regimen he received from his father, such as practicing swinging the bat underwater. As a result, the veteran players looked at him skeptically. He was branded as a spoiled, selfish player who went his own way. He was never fully welcomed into the clubhouse.

A welcome change in recent years is that we see a lot less of the “know your place, rook” mentality. It never made much sense to be that veteran players would ostracize or haze a young player whom you’re counting on to win games. The Jefferies Treatment was so extreme. There was a story about someone scribbling “are we trying?” on the lineup card underneath his name. It’s no wonder the clubhouse culture took a turn for the worse, and part of me wants to chalk it up to poor team leadership.

The problem, however, is that the team leaders had issues of their own to deal with. 1989 was the final year as a Met for both Keith Hernandez and Gary Carter, as age and injuries took a toll on both players. Carter was particularly difficult to watch. His bat had slowed considerably, and it seemed as if every at bat would end with a disbelieving shake of his head as he would swing through a pitch that he used to crush. Both players’ contracts expired at the end of that season, and to the team’s credit they handled their departures in a classy way. They started in the last home game of the season, and each were pulled from the game so that they could soak in their much deserved standing ovations.

Those departures occurred at season’s end. During the year, several other key players were sent away. The one which worked out relatively well was Rick Aguilera’s trade to Minnesota. Aggy, along with young pitchers Kevin Tapani and David West did become key components of the Twins’ 1991 championship team, but the Mets received Frank Viola in that deal, and he did have some big seasons in Shea. I can’t criticize that deal too much. Another major trade was a spectacular failure.

Dealing Lenny Dykstra and Roger McDowell to Philadelphia for Juan Samuel was an ill-fated move to say the least, and Phillies fans are forever grateful for that one. Would they have won the 1993 NL pennant without Nails? Samuel had superficially impressive stats - he had 4 consecutive seasons with double figures in doubles, triples, and home runs in addition to being a prolific base stealer. But he also struck out an awful lot, and in a pre-advanced stats era most people failed to recognize how much of his production was a product of playing on artificial turf. In addition, he was a poor defensive player. In 1989 Philly moved him to center field, quickly realized he was as ill-suited to center as he was to second base, and chose to move on. Samuel’s poor center field play was now the Mets problem. Thus began an odd tradition in which the Mets tried to play non-centerfielders in that crucial position. That’s not exactly a position where you can “hide” someone, yet the likes of Howard Johnson and Keith Miller spent a lot of time in the outfield in the years to come.

To add insult to injury, at the August trade deadline the Mets sent Mookie Wilson to Toronto. That one hurt. The head says it was the right time; the mid 30s are not a great age for a player whose value largely depended on speed, and his production did predictably decline rapidly as a Blue Jay. But the heart says this is Mookie we’re talking about. How could this happen? Mookie’s departure was as sure a sign as any that the good times were over.

Finally, criticism of Davey Johnson ramped up significantly this season. Sure, it was a second place finish but it never felt like the Mets were a real threat to the Cubs. It was the first time I felt that a Johnson managed club underachieved and the Jefferies drama was a sign that he was starting to lose the clubhouse. There was serious talk about his job being in jeopardy and it wasn’t until a few weeks into the offseason that the club confirmed he would return for the 1990 season. As Rhoda would say, Davey, this is your last chance.

1990 would start both a new decade as well as a new era for the club. As I mentioned, there would only be 8 players left from ‘86 (Gooden, Darling, Ojeda, Fernandez, Strawberry, HoJo, Teufel & Elster) but time was also starting to run short for a few of those players as well. I do have a copy of the 1990 yearbook, so I can return to my usual format for this feature next week. But I’m not sure how anxious I am to relive the next several seasons. The 90s were rough, man.

The Fall Of Jann Wenner

Jann Wenner had his Al Campanis moment last week, as the more he spoke the deeper he stuck his foot into his mouth. He conducted an interview with the New York Times to promote his latest book, a compilation of in depth conversations he has had with assorted musicians over the years. The issue is that all of the highlighted musicians were your classic old white guys with guitars, and let’s just say he didn’t give a satisfactory answer when asked why the book omits women and African Americans. The most revealing quote is when he said that female musicians are not “as articulate enough on this intellectual level.”

What’s most problematic is that as the longtime editor and publisher of Rolling Stone he had been one of the chief gatekeepers of popular culture. And of course as one of the founders of the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame he has had a large say over the composition of the Hall. The fallout from the interview was swift. The Board Of Directors of the Hall called an emergency meeting in which he was voted out. (Reports were that the vote was nearly unanimous; Jon Landau was the only holdout.)

I’ve often felt that people have overstated Wenner’s influence over the Hall. With well more than 1000 voters, there’s only so much he can do. What he did used to have great power over is who would be on the nominating committee. Filling up that body with people whom he had power over could serve to get a lot of his favorites on the ballot, which is a big deal. But after that things are out of his hands.

Wenner showing the world what’s in his heart explains a lot about why women are so terribly underrepresented in the Hall, as well as why the inductee list grew increasingly white once most of the major R&B artists got in. Current chairman John Sykes has gone out of his way to encourage greater representation among women and artists of color, but the damage from the Wenner era has been so severe that it will take years, if not decades, to establish a more equitable balance.

As for Wenner, he dug his own grave. He appears to be the type of man who is addicted to power and influence. His recent role in the Hall has been essentially an emeritus one, but this has still got to wound him deeply. Well, cry me a river. Now that he’s out of the picture, this can only be a positive for the future of the Hall. I’ll be fascinated to see what next year’s ballot will look like.

Fall Preview

We’re seeing a notable consequence of the dual strikes - the new fall TV season is very lame. The network schedules are filled with unscripted programming and shows acquired from foreign markets. In recent years fall TV hasn’t been as vital as it had historically been anyway; the networks eventually learned that collectively premiering a couple dozen new shows at the same time and forcing them to fight for attention wasn’t the smartest business decision. We have the season premieres of returning shows, but for the most part the networks have held off on introducing most new shows until midseason.

Thinking about this stirs up another memory. I’m not sure if it’s possible to fully explain to younger people just how big of a deal the annual TV Guide Fall Preview Issue used to be. The networks would announce their fall schedules - including what would promise to be a mother lode of new hit shows - in May, but in a pre-YouTube era we had no way of seeing clips. Starting in July we would start to see promos, which would ramp up the excitement until the coveted TV Guide would reach our hands. (Speaking of network promos, is it too much to ask that they produce this sort of content again?)

The Fall Preview was chock full of vital info. Schedule grids so that we could precisely plan which shows to watch each night. Lists of theatrical movies that would make their television premieres over the next few months. Similar lists of upcoming network specials. And best of all, descriptions of all the new shows so that we could built up anticipation, certain that we were about to witness the greatest season of TV ever.

The PR people earned their keep, as virtually every new show sounded like it was gonna be great. Never mind that the majority of these new shows would not make it to a second season; many of them would even be cancelled before Thanksgiving.

TV Guide in general, and the Fall Preview issue specifically, is another one of many publications that have become largely unnecessary in the internet age. I can’t remember the last time I actually purchased a copy of the magazine.

Until Next Time

That’s all for now, thanks as always for reading. See you good people once again on Wednesday.