Dipping Into The Archives Vol. 4

1974

The cover for the 1974 yearbook (still only 75 cents!) is a fairly simple celebration of the surprising 1973 pennant winners and highlights of the season make up a lot of the content. (Don’t worry, I’ll spare you all the photo of a locker room celebration that featured a shirtless Rube Walker.) The club largely walked back the ‘73 team, which backfired as the team slid back to fifth place in 1974. The only ‘69 player shed from the roster this offseason was Jim McAndrew; there are still 10 remaining players from the miracle squad.

Arguably the most symbolic play from 1973 was the ball off the wall play, which was captured here. Slightly less memorable was the scary George Theodore/Don Hahn outfield collision. 1974 was The Stork’s final major league season; too bad his final appearance in a yearbook depicted his low moment.

1974 was a different era indeed. It’s nice to devote a full page to family photos; it’s a tad patronizing to describe George Stone’s wife as pretty. What is the team trying to imply here? That the other Met wives were plain? That Stone married out of his league?

Mets fans of a certain age will always remember the Bud Harrelson/Pete Rose fight from the NLCS. Rose remained one of the biggest Shea Stadium villains throughout his career.

I love this photo. The image of Tom Seaver with a smudge of dirt on his knee from his “drop and drive” motion is indelible, but as you can see Jerry Koosman had that as well.

This was one of my bigger memories from the 1974 season. I was on a European vacation with my family that summer. You may be surprised to hear that it wasn’t very easy to find baseball scores in Europe in 1974, so I really missed my Mets those 3 weeks. Upon my return home the first thing I did was turn on Channel 9 and I got to immediately witness Benny Ayala becoming one of the few men to hit a home run in his very first major league at bat. He didn’t keep up that pace, but for a brief moment he had the highest home run per at bat ratio in history.

The team did rebound a bit in 1975, but the Dawning Of The Dark Decade was imminent. You want a hint as to what was in store? Take a look at the prospect page. Bruce Boisclair had the best career from this batch; he’s best remembered for the way Bob Murphy loved to say his alliterative name.

SNL Season 6 Recap

Writing about season 6 gets more difficult with each passing week. How many different ways can I say that an episode wasn’t just unfunny, but painfully so? Such is the case yet again with episode #8. By this point in the season everyone involved had to have been fully aware of how disastrous it was. Were they even still trying at this juncture? Case in point - Joe Piscopo’s sportscaster appeared not once, but twice this week, a sure sign that they were unable to come up with any new premises.

Unlike many of this season’s hosts, this week’s selection of Robert Hays was reasonably timely, only a few months removed from the release of Airplane! He duplicated the general vibe he used when he portrayed Ted Striker, but it resulted in blandly disappearing into the sketches. On a related note, it’s become very noticeable to see how seldom the hosts would appear. Nowadays the host is prominently featured in almost every sketch; back then there were long stretches in which the host was absent from the stage.

This episode aired on January 24, which was not only days after the Reagan Inauguration/Iranian Hostage Release but also the eve of Super Bowl XV, therefore much of the material focused on those current events. Once again, I’m hard pressed to nominate a show highlight - so much lather, rinse, repeat of the deficiencies seen in previous episodes. Premises that die on the vine, Update jokes that are met with stony silence, yet another Rocket Report that only served to show that Charles Rocket should not be doing man on the street pieces. OK, I’ll reluctantly semi-praise one sketch. There was a bit set at a funeral, in which the regular organist was replaced by the Madison Square Garden organist. Naturally, instead of playing funeral music he was playing classic arena tunes, much to the chagrin of Rocket’s priest and Denny Dillon’s widow. In a sign of how far out of favor he had fallen, Gilbert Gottfried portrayed the corpse.

One big news is that Eddie Murphy came on stage late in the episode to announce that he had been officially promoted to a regular cast member. With only 5 episodes to go in the season (hurray!) I can only hope that his screentime will increase accordingly. So far he has only shown small splashes of his talent, but the charisma is already fully evident.

This week’s musical guest (once again edited out of the Peacock stream) was Joe “King” Carrasco and the Crowns. With the season having only lasted 13 episodes, we’re already approaching the home stretch. I can see the end in sight. Next week’s host is Sally Kellerman. Once again, no disrespect intended, but she was the best they could get in 1981?

He May Have Committed Some Light Treason

It’s common courtesy to provide sufficient reading material in one’s guest bathroom. That’s simple Etiquette 101.

I should know better than to expect anything from the current GOP, but their collective behavior following you-know-who’s latest indictment has been something to behold. They immediately circled the wagons once the announcement was made without knowing what the indictment contained. Once it was unsealed you would hope that there would at least be one or two that would backtrack once they read the details. My God, look at this.

Nope, virtually every single one of them still has his back. This from the same group that constantly chanted “lock her up!” I guess improper handling of sensitive material isn’t the serious issue that they claimed it was.

Age Ain’t Nuthin’ But A Number

This probably applies to more to the guys out there, but how often has this happened to you? You’ve found yourself attracted to a younger celebrity, and once you realize exactly how young that celebrity is, you suddenly feel a little creepy. Supposedly there’s a formula. I don’t know who made it up, or if it’s really accurate, but the thing to do is take your age, divide it in half and add 7. Any woman above that number is OK. I bring this up now because word came out about America’s new favorite celebrity couple. Apparently Bill Murray and Kelis are now dating, and they seem to be as shocked about it as the rest of us are.

Murray is 72 years old; if you half that and add 7 it comes out to 43, which happens to be Kelis’s age. Well played, Mr. Murray. He waited until the exact moment when it was, let’s say non-icky to bring himself to the yard. Let’s see if those two crazy kids can make it in this tumultuous world. If so, there’s still hope for all of us.

A Pair Of Jokers

The current world population stands at almost 8 billion people, spread across 6 inhabited continents. Knowing that, what are the odds that at this moment 2 of the most prominent athletes in the world are both Serbian men nicknamed Joker?

Novak Djokovic just won the French Open in straight sets to earn his 23rd career Grand Slam title, breaking a tie with Rafael Nadal and leaving him standing alone with the most career major championships for a male player. Furthermore, he is still young enough to add several more to that tally and place that record essentially out of reach. Djokovic has often been a tough guy to embrace. He has neither Nadal’s flair, nor Roger Federer’s elegance. His playing style and demeanor both seem robotic; he never appears to perspire, systematically breaking down his opponent. In addition his anti-vax stubbornness never ceases to aggravate me. But credit where credit is due. Federer’s and Nadal’s records looked like they would be unbreakable; Djokovic is likely to blow past their totals. Having already won this year’s Australian Open, a single year Grand Slam exists as a possibility.

And in Denver Nikola Jokic is one game away from leading the Nuggets to the first NBA title in franchise history. He has been putting up absurd numbers the past several weeks; if he collects 14 assists tonight & Denver clinches he would wind up averaging a triple double throughout these playoffs. If anything, he still seems underrated. He could have very easily won a 3rd consecutive regular season MVP award this year; probably losing out because voters were tired of voting for him, although to be fair one could make the argument that he earned his first because the same voters had gotten tired of giving it to Giannis Antetokounmpo.

I believe that part of why he is somewhat under appreciated (in retrospect it’s insane that he missed out on the 75th anniversary team) is that he doesn’t quite look like a dominant athlete. He obviously could not succeed in the league as much as he does without an unreal level of athletic ability. Yet he shares the court with 9 other players who all appear to have been chiseled out of marble while he looks like someone mostly comprised of cookie dough. He’s a true inspiration to all of us non-Adonis figures out there.

Do Better

The news that Brittney Griner and her Phoenix teammates were harassed at the airport by one of those idiot provocateurs was upsetting on multiple levels. First off, what sort of pleasure does one derive from that type of harassment? Great, you’ve got clicks; I’m sure you’re very proud of yourself.

The incident also once again raises the question concerning travel arrangements for WNBA teams. They fly commercial; charter flights are only allowed during the playoffs and for a select number of special circumstances. In addition, the league was supposedly taking additional steps to protect Griner. Someone dropped the ball somewhere, this can’t happen again.

Ultimately, however, the bulk of the blame lies with the social media “star” at the center. There has been a disturbing tendency in recent years for some of the worst people in our society to act as dickishly as possible towards others. As long as there is an audience for this, similar incidents such as this will continue to happen. This is another example of how we need to collectively look at ourselves in the mirror and question what we have become.

That’s All For Now

Didn’t intend to close on such a down point, but that’s where we are. Let’s all make this a great week. Thanks for supporting the newsletter, and I’ll see you all again on Wednesday.