2004 LEAF CORNERSTONES TOM GLAVINE/MIKE PIAZZA This card is a tale of one city, and two players. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, you see… Mike Piazza’s appearance in a Mets’ uniform seemed initially like a strange apparition. Offensive players of his caliber did not just show up at [...]
1962 SALADA JUNKET BOB MILLER What strange currency is this? Better yet, which Bob Miller is this? Is it Bob L. Miller, the RHP who went 1-12 with a 4.89 ERA for the '62 Mets? Or is it Bob G. Miller, the LHP who went 2-2 with a 7.08 ERA for the '62 Mets? Bob [...]
1994 SIGNATURE ROOKIES BILL PULSIPHER Ah, the promise this card once represented. First off, it's a genuine autograph numbered to 7,750, which actually seemed pretty cool and limited back in 1994. And of course, it's the left-handed vertex of Generation K, that pitching triforce that was supposed to bring the Mets a decade of pennants [...]
METS IN SPECS It's a special Back-to-School edition of Card of the Week, wherein we take a quick squint at the history of Mets players wearing prescription glasses on Topps cards. 1962, 1963 Ken MacKenzie Ken looks like he should live in Williamsburg, drink PBR, and listen to a lot of Animal Collective... 1965, 1966 [...]
1984 TOPPS TIFFANY DOUG SISK “Hate” is such an unpleasant word. As an able substitute today, let's use the word “dislike.” I am at heart a loyalist. My allegiances don't wax and wane based on mere turns of fortune. So across the years, I have not disliked many Mets. Sure, the team has had the [...]
1984 7-11 KEITH HERNANDEZ Here's a little relic from the Renaissance... In the summer of '84, 7-11 sealed these plastic coins in the base of Slurpee cups. If you shook an empty cup, you could hear the disc rattle around like a knock-hockey puck. The fronts of the coins feature a dual “flicker” image that [...]
1990 LEAF TIM TEUFEL We all have our favorite Mets' mannerisms. As a child of the '70s/'80s, here are some of the player tics and techniques that I would emulate in the Shea Stadiums of my backyard and my driveway and my mind: • Tom Seaver dragging his right knee across the downslope of the [...]
1986 DONRUSS BILLY BEANE “Moneyball” opens in September, and this bit of Billy Beane hagiography is the first film ever to revolve around a minor character in '80s Mets' history. But Hollywood being the recycling plant that it is, there are a few more such projects on the way: “Tucker: The Man and His Dream” [...]
1967 TOPPS TOM REYNOLDS Did you ever wonder about the force that drove apart the “Tom” and “Reynolds” at the top of this Tommie Reynolds card? The 1967 Topps set is in general a clean, well-designed issue, and this odd gap seems out of character. So what strange, supernal powers were at work here? A [...]
1979 TOPPS LEE MAZZILLI I am one of those people who favor an inclusive MLB all-star game, with at least one representative from each team selected to participate. And it all comes down to my Metsian DNA. Many years during the late '70s/early '80s, I would sit glued to the game waiting to see if [...]
1985 TOPPS TOM GORMAN It became a yardstick of sorts. Did you possess the right mixture of fanaticism, masochism, and sheer love of the theater of the absurd to make it all the way through to the end? Perhaps we should add to that list “a profoundly impaired social life”-- after all, it was the [...]
1985 TOPPS DWIGHT GOODEN I caught some of the Yankees' Old-Timers Day ceremony over the weekend. It was not a moment of apostasy-- I just like baseball history. And unfortunately, my team has not given me a regular, institutionalized Old-Timers Day since back in the early '90s. They say it died of unpopularity, and out [...]