1972 TOPPS TRADED JIM FREGOSI Right now everyone’s mind is on the trade deadline so what better time to break out this classic Topps card with TRADED bolded and stamped across the groin of poor Jim Fregosi. This was one of seven cards in the last series of the 1972 set to be so branded. [...]
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 [...]
The Mets scored 14 runs Saturday without hitting a single home run. While that’s nowhere near close to the major league record of 27 runs scored by a team without the aid of a HR, it is still quite unusual and points out the team’s problem with the long ball with Ike Davis and David [...]
This is not a real card but it could have been, as Tom Seaver’s rookie card was issued in 1967 and Nolan Ryan’s came a year later. Ryan appeared in two games for the Mets in 1966 but military obligations limited him to just four minor league games in 1967. Instead, Acme Reproductions made this [...]
1981 TOPPS MARK BOMBACK During a game in the recent Mets-Phillies series, talk in the broadcast booth turned to hitters who over the years have owned the Mets. And as these discussions are wont, the topic soon shifted to Willie Stargell and his 60 career HRs against our boys. In an effort to lionize Stargell, [...]
The Marlins have always annoyed me. As a Mets fan, I dislike how they had an easier path as an expansion team than the clubs that joined MLB in the 1960s. Also, I was not a big fan of how they won the World Series and then immediately stripped their roster. But mostly I disliked [...]
1976 TOPPS FELIX MILLAN Fans today are amazed by how far Josh Thole chokes up on the bat. He had nothing on Felix Millan. If you take a look at Millan’s 1976 card, you might think he was fooling around for the camera. But this was actually how he held the bat when he was [...]
Former Mets pitcher Mike Hampton announced his retirement Saturday. Hampton played only one season in New York but it was a memorable one, as he won 15 games and helped lead the Mets to the World Series. His shining moment(s) with the club came in the League Championship Series, when he hurled 16 shutout innings [...]
1977 TOPPS JOE TORRE People like to attach themselves to greatness by claiming to be at epic sporting events. I don’t know if greatness is necessarily on the table here, but I actually was one of the 6,505 fans who saw the managerial debut of Joe Torre in 1977. Of course, we had no idea [...]
1976 TOPPS RANDY TATE It can be hard to distinguish Randy Tate from the Bobbs and Todds and Webbs and Crams and all the other single-syllabled 1970s Mets' pitchers of no particular report. He has just one major league season to his name, during which he went 5-13 with a 4.45 ERA. He was back [...]