Dipping Into The Archives Vol. 34

2005

The 2005 Mets were branded as The New Mets. Not only was that logo prominently featured on the cover of the yearbook, but it appeared throughout the book as well. The “fresh new era” attitude can be seen on the cover as well. Mike Piazza, in what turned out to be his final season in a Met uniform, takes center stage. But he is surrounded by several of the faces whom the franchise expected to be crucial in the coming years. There are David Wright & Jose Reyes, about to spend their first full season side by side on the infield. There is Willie Randolph, newly hired manager. And there are Pedro Martinez & Carlos Beltran, major pieces of one the larger free agency splurges the Mets have made.

Often when teams make a managerial change they turn a 180 from the previous regime, and that was the case here. Art Howe’s biggest issue was that his calming presence made him appear dispassionate in a losing atmosphere. Willie Randolph was the exact opposite; he seemed to have just the right amount of intensity & the team clearly responded to his leadership. After a string of losing seasons, the club rebounded to finish an encouraging third place in the NL East.

The Martinez and Beltran signings were both huge deals. Martinez’s age made him a bit of a risk, and it is true that he was frequently injured during his Mets tenure, but his signing sent a huge message. It let everyone know that the team was fully in business. It’s definitely plausible that without Martinez’s presence Beltran would not have even considered signing with the Mets.

Beltran went into free agency coming off of one of the greatest postseason runs the sport has ever seen. He had established himself as a star in Kansas City, but as perennial cellar dwellers they did not have much of a national presence. That all changed with a midseason trade to Houston. Many fans saw him for the first time in that year’s playoffs and he went on an insane run, hitting 8 home runs in only 12 games. Needless to say, he was in demand when he hit free agency, and the Mets won that bidding war. Unfortunately he struggled at the bat in that first season, and a lot of fans weren’t able to get past that first impression. He provided outstanding defense, but his initial offense was sub par. He would more than make up for that in the following years.

In addition, the club also traded for first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz in the offseason, and in the yearbook the club included him in a lengthy feature which spotlighted the new Mets. I have to admire the way the PR staff attempted to build him up.

If new players come in, that means that veterans must depart, and two of the last remaining standbys from the late 90’s/early aughts team left in the offseason. Both John Franco and Al Leiter were gone, and as I mentioned earlier this was Mike Piazza’s Mets finale. The Wilpon era Mets had shown an annoying tendency to slander players on their way out; bad feelings were too common. Piazza was an exception. This was the final year of his contract, and as the season progressed both sides were in agreement that it was best to move in a different direction. That meant that he would be able to have a proper sendoff in his final home game. He bounced around the league a bit in the final two seasons, but he was cemented as a True Met, with a number retirement and a Mets cap on his Hall of Fame plaque to come.

There was big news in the broadcast booth, as this was the last year that Mets games were telecast on Fox Sports Net. SNY would sign on the following year, and with that Gary Cohen would move from the radio booth to the television side. At the time part of the reasoning was that the team wanted a play-by-play man fully committed to the Mets. Both Dave O’Brien and Ted Robinson had network responsibilities in addition to their Mets work, and the club had to do a lot of juggling in the booth, unsure of who would be available for any specific series. Making Cohen the sole #1 paid off big time. I’m clearly biased, but I’m not alone in saying that the Gary/Keith/Ron team, which debuted in 2006 and still exists to this day, is as good of a crew as exists. The GKR team up also meant that Tom Seaver would no longer be part of the broadcast team. You could sense that his heart wasn’t much in it his last couple of years; he was focusing more and more on his vineyard in California. He always was and always will be The Franchise, but this was when he really began to spend the bulk of his time on the west coast.

The yearbook publishers took the time to honor Bob Murphy. Murph had been with the team since day 1, and retired following the 2003 season. He passed away in 2004. The connection fans feel with their broadcasters is a special one; the day to day rhythm of a baseball summer is part of what makes the game so wonderful. Bob Murphy gave generations of Mets fans so many happy recaps.

I’ll end on a better note with the highlight of the season. When the Mets faced the Yankees in May, pitcher Dae Sung Koo stepped to the plate to face Randy Johnson. To call that an unfair matchup is an understatement. It’s bad enough to have a pitcher face someone as dominating as Johnson, but this was also a lefty against lefty matchup. Yet, somehow Koo hit a double against Johnson, which was his only hit of the season because of course it was. Not only that, but he went on to score from second on a bunt. Some things you just can’t make up.

The Superstars Spin-offs

Once The Superstars became a ratings success for ABC, it stood to reason that the network would find new ways to exploit that format. The classic Sunday afternoon winter lineup would begin with some version of Superstars, leading into The American Sportsman, and finally the Sunday edition of Wide World Of Sports. Since original recipe Superstars only consisted of the 4 qualifying rounds + finals each year, additional editions would be necessary to fill out the schedule.

One example was Veteran Superstars. This one consisted of recently retired athletes, so we got to see the likes of Bob Cousy or Don Maynard competing. These men had lost a step or two, so the intensity of the competition was even more low key. Further low key was the attempt to stage Celebrity Superstars. In this case let’s just say that the quality of stars varied. There were a handful of then-current television actors such as Kevin Dobson, but we also had the likes of George “Goober” Lindsey, and strangely enough, sixty something Oleg Cassini. And the inaugural victor? Robert Freaking Duvall! This wasn’t struggling actor Robert Duvall, this was mid-1970’s Robert Duvall. This was when practically every movie he appeared in was an all-time classic. How he wound up participating in The Superstars is an all-time mystery.

It was also this time when ABC developed a Women’s Superstars competition. The timing wasn’t right for that yet; Title IX was only a few years old, so there wasn’t much of an infrastructure for women’s sports at the time. The early editions were filled with former Olympic athletes, along with plenty of golfers and bowlers. Eventually that early generation of female basketball stars would compete - Ann Meyers won it three years in a row - but since there were relatively few household names in the competition interest in this edition lagged behind the others. Similar to the way that Wayne Grimditch would have lived in obscurity had it not been for The Superstars, Mary Jo Peppler - the first female champion - was the only volleyball player from the 1970’s whom the average sports fan would have been able to name.

The issue with these assorted offshoots was that they were essentially Superstars-lite. More successful was the version that diverged from the basic formula, and that was Superteams. Instead of individual athletes competing against each other, Superteams consisted of rematches between the previous year’s World Series and Super Bowl participants. They would face each other in the semifinals and the baseball & football winners would then meet to determine that year’s Superteams champion.

The competition consisted of 7 events; the winner would be whichever team won 4. Most of these were relay races - tandem bike relay; running relay, etc. along with an outrigger canoe race, and since there could be no Superstars without an obstacle course, that was contested with cumulative time determining the winner. It would culminate with a tug of war. Since prize money was determined by how many events each team won, the tug of war would still be contested even if one of the teams had wrapped it up early.

The tug of war would prove to be the perennial highlight. It would obviously behoove the baseball team to clinch before the tug of war. There were total weight limits, so the football team couldn’t simply enter their entire offensive line and have them dig into the sand. Even so, football teams had an innate strength advantage for that event, but the baseball teams were still able to acquit themselves well. In fact, the first champs were the 1974 Dodgers after they beat the Vikings in the tug of war. I clearly remember Vikings players dragging an exhausted Ron Cey into the water pit after it was all over. In the most famous case, the 1977 Cowboys & Royals found themselves in a stalemate that lasted for more than an hour. Neither could budge; finally the organizers declared it a draw and anointed the 2 as co-champs.

Fans of baseball history may have noticed something in the preceding paragraph. The Royals did not make the 1977 World Series, what’s the deal? Well, in the previous year the Yankees lost all 7 events against the Reds, and George Steinbrenner went on to prohibit his players from participating in extracurricular events such as this. His stated reason was to prevent injury, but let’s be honest, he couldn’t handle the embarrassment of losing so badly. Keeping the Yankees out of the fun wasn’t as big of a cultural sin as forcing Oscar Gamble to cut his Afro, but this wasn’t cool.

Television is a copycat medium, so it stood to reason that CBS & NBC both searched for their own trash sports. We’ll take a look at their less successful versions of the form next time.

You Win An Emmy! And You Win An Emmy!

There are stories that are bonkers, and then there’s whatever this is. The story is behind a paywall, so for those who can’t access it, the short version is that for years ESPN had been submitting fake names of producers on College Game Day for Emmy consideration. Then after winning they would reengrave those trophies and award them to on-air talent.

To be fair, it appears as if few, if any, of those who were handed awards were aware of the scheme, and many of the ill-gotten prizes have since been returned. In addition, eligibility rules have since expanded so that the names of on-air talent may be submitted as part of the team. But this is an awful look for ESPN, as well as an embarrassing moment for all of the famous folk who were collateral damage here. They now all have to deal with unwarranted guilt by association.

The Worst Time To Boo

When the Chicago Bulls announced their inaugural 13 inductees in the team’s Ring Of Honor, fans immediately began popping popcorn. I can only imagine what Michael Jordan’s reaction was when he heard that rather than go in separately, he would have to share his evening with peons. As we learned from The Last Dance, he has a tendency to take things personally. In addition to the lingering resentments that the Last Dance stirred up, it has also recently come out that Jordan’s son is engaged to Scottie Pippen’s ex-wife. Try rereading that sentence a few times and making sense out of it. Basically, the evening promised to be AWKWARD!

As it turned out, neither Jordan nor Pippen attended the ceremony on Friday evening, but the night still turned ugly. When Jerry Krause’s name was announced, the audible boos from the crowd drowned out the cheers, and the atmosphere was made worse by the TV camera immediately cutting to Krause’s sobbing widow. Now, I get that Krause was never the most popular figure in Chicago, and he was portrayed as the chief villain in The Last Dance. Plus, sports fans are not always rational beings. But come on. If there’s one event in which fans should let bygones be bygones, it would be a night in which many figures from the team’s most glorious era are being honored. Or to put it another way, if your actions reduce an elderly widow to tears, it might be time to reassess your life choices. The ultimate irony is this. The display brought out a plethora of people defending Jerry Krause. The ugliness of the evening may wind up repairing Krause’s legacy when all is said and done.

Thinking Outside Le Boite

The 2024 Paris Olympic Games are slightly more than 6 months away and the organizers are planning to do something fascinating with the Opening Ceremony. It’s an interesting attempt to deal with the portion of the ceremony that is the most time-draining, mind-numbing, yet necessary segment - the parade of nations. It’s thrilling to watch the delegations from so many countries march into the stadium and to see them exuding so much joy, but it also takes forever to complete, especially in the summer games.

As long as that takes, however, NBC simply must air that in its entirety, and not just because it always produces their two standby jokes - pointing out that the athletes from Bermuda are in fact wearing Bermuda shorts & then chuckling over the pronunciation of Djibouti. NBC’s audience contains viewers from every participating nation, no matter how small. It would be a slap in the face to not show the flags & participants from each and every country.

One of the worst moments came when CBS broadcast the 1992 games from Albertville. That date is important, it was the first games since the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the collapse of the Iron Curtain. 1992 was the first games with a unified Germany in decades. In 1992 the breakup of Yugoslavia had begun; as a result Croatia and Slovenia were competing as independent nations. By 1992 Czechoslovakia had peacefully split into 2 separate nations. And although many of the former Soviet republics were competing together under the banner of the Unified Team, the Baltic nations of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were competing under their own flags. The changes to the world were seismic.

Yet CBS badly dropped the ball. I forget which nation it was - it was early in the alphabet, so most likely Croatia - but you could see that flag in the tunnel as their athletes were next to enter the stadium. But CBS cut to commercial at that moment! And when they returned the parade had skipped ahead several nations and the network failed to recap what had happened while they were away. So viewers missed the chance to see history; the first Olympic appearance by their nation since forever. I’m sure they must have been heavily criticized; since then every nation’s entrance has been shown. When the network cuts to commercial they simply pick up where they left off when the broadcast returns.

For the Paris ceremony organizers are attempting something different. Rather than an endless march into the stadium from nation after nation, each delegation will take part in a boat parade that will travel down the Seine, and instead of the Olympic Stadium the exit point will be at the Eiffel Tower. It won’t cut down on the running time of that portion of the ceremony, but the backdrop should create a wonderful visual, breaking up the monotony. This isn’t set in stone yet; security concerns are obviously an issue. But if they are able to pull this off it’s estimated that as many as 600,000 spectators can witness the event.

Closing Laughs

After a lengthy delay due to the writer’s and actor’s strikes, the Emmy Awards finally take place tonight. Or, as they should be called, The Last Chance To Give Rhea Seehorn Her Proper Reward For Portraying Kim Wexler. That sounds like a mouthful, but it’s accurate. In a just world, the academy wouldn’t just hand her a trophy, but a few retroactive ones as well. Perhaps we can discuss this further on Wednesday. See you all then.