Ah, spring training, when a young man’s fancy turns to thoughts of a great season to come.
The team has provided you with new dress whites, a fresh stiff-brimmed cap, sharp blue spats– the works.
Maybe you’ll hold on to your grungy nondenominational batting glove, which saw you through the previous season in good stead…
And hey, here comes the Topps photographer. He wants to take your picture for an upcoming set. Suggests a few standard poses, among them this follow-through swing. He doesn’t worry much about shooting too wide– the production department can crop out the milling onlookers/players in the background when the time comes.
But alas, sometimes the promise of spring is nothing more than a promise, and circumstances conspire in such a way that this photo is not used on a Topps card. In fact, as fate will have it, you’ll never appear on a real Topps card in your Mets uniform. And all that remains now are color negatives like this one from that long-ago March afternoon.
Leaving a random blogger years later to pose a contest question: Who are you, long-maned Met from days gone by?
First person to leave the correct answer in the comments section below by Wednesday, March 6 wins a 1972 Topps Ed Kranepool card, graded PSA 7.
By the quality of that photo I’m guessing I wasn’t alive when the picture was taken…
Ummmm… Frank Viola?
(Clearly wrong)
Unlike last time – I think I know this one!
I’m going to give people a couple of hours to chew on it first before I post my guess.
Tom Grieve
Lute Barnes
Lute Barnes is an awesome– though incorrect– response!
Jack Heidemann – he had an SSPC Mets card but no Topps Mets card.
Check out the big brain on Brian! It is indeed Jack Heidemann.
Heidemann came to the Mets from the Cardinals in December of 1974 along with the Mike Vail, in exchange for Teddy Martinez. Vail had an outstanding season in ’75, setting what was then an MLB rookie record with a 23-game hitting streak, and finishing with a .302 average. Heidemann served as a utility player on the ’75 team, hitting .214 in limited use.
Heidemann appeared on a 1975 Topps card as a member of the Cardinals, but Topps decided not to include him in the 1976 set. (This picture was taken during spring training of 1976.) He then appeared on his final Topps card in the 1977 set, where he was pictured as a member of the Brewers.
Heidemann appeared on 5 different Topps cards over the course of his career (1971-1973, 1975, and 1977), but was never pictured as a Met…
Amazing! How do you guys know this? Can I request some obscure 80s or 90s player. Maybe a little Tom O’Malley.
I was going to guess Rod Steiger.
Roy Staiger and Rod Serling also would have been acceptable guesses.
So, can you ID Tom O’Malley based on a blood relationship, or is your connection more like my namesake relation to Harry Parker?
Oh and I would be able to spot Tom O’Malley….
Mac Scarce
I knew who this was because I remembered seeing that face on one of my old baseball cards (with another team, of course). That mustache was quite memorable. Totally forgot that he was a Met. That being said, and seeing this, I now have a recollection of actually seeing him in one of the Mets’ yearbooks (I collect them).
I’ve thought about starting a collection of Mets yearbooks– I think the only one that survived my childhood is the 1972 revised edition.