Honoring and Studying the History and Culture of the Mets
Readers of this blog might enjoy this interview I did yesterday with Mike Silva at New York Baseball Digest. It was the lead-in to an interview with Jacob Kanarek, who is publishing a book called “From First to Worst” about the Mets in the Seventies. Mike and I talked about the Mets in the Seventies, a depressing but interesting topic, and then we talked about the need for the Mets to pay more attention to their own history and fan culture, a topic which, I notice, is getting more and more attention on Mets blogs and forums.
In my interview with Mike, I mention that I am, along with another Hofstra professor, submitting a proposal for a conference that will commemorate the Fiftieth Anniversary of the New York Mets. At this conference which will be hosted by Hofstra (pending approval, but the odds are good), we hope to bring together as many current and former Mets, executives, management, journalists, bloggers, fans, and students of the game as possible. So, even if the Mets don’t start doing more to honor and study the history of the team, some of us can start doing our part. I certainly hope that the promised museum of the Mets in Citifield will be worthy of the team and will be accessible to the fans.
June 6th, 2008 at 4:32 am
Sounds like a great idea for a conference! My 10 year old has already made me promise that I will take him, even if it means missing some school if all or part is during the week. Hey, we have our priorities!
June 6th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
Great idea!
Hey Dana, did you see the little piece SNY did with Keith and Kevin Burkhardt re-visiting scenes of Keith’s youth? Really wonderful, I thought. Especially the shots of a little, crew-cut Keith with lots of teeth missing, cracking up laughing. Just perfect.
I heard that Mike and the Mad Dog, in their terminal bilateral schmuckitude, scoffed at the thing. I read it on the net, actually– I don’t listen to M&MD for just such reasons. They said nobody wants to see such a thing unless it is about Joe DiMaggio. Or say, Derek Jeter, I suppose. That’s the Ptolomaic, Yankee- centric view of the universe. Who do they think is watching Mets Games on SNY? Yankee fans?
June 6th, 2008 at 8:56 pm
It should be done.
I participated in something similar two years back for Bruce Springsteen. At the time I first heard about it I winced, but then, at the urging of people like Dave Marsh, I not only attended, but I presented a paper. Artists don’t have the same view of their legacy that their fans do, and it’s important that all sides have a chance to express and commemorate it.
In the case of the Mets, they’re doing an abysmal job. I keep finding myself agreeing with our blog-father Steve at the Kranepool Society who wants to know when the Mets are going to let people say goodbye to Shea. What about a day we can all walk on the field - collect admission for charity. Have the Mets Fan photographers there. Let people say goodbye to the place, get a photo of the retired numbers from the field level.
But I digress.
This should happen. Here, here.
June 7th, 2008 at 6:28 pm
Great idea. I found the link to your blog on Mike’s Mets.
I’d come in from Minnesota for that.
JK
June 7th, 2008 at 7:30 pm
PS Dana, speaking of Kanarek’s book, that looks like a must-read for me.
The seventies were my teen years, and I remember, a time of utter confusion and perplexitude (I made that up!) about the Mets. I was not sophisticated about the business of baseball– at that time, most of my friends and I were not. We didn’t have cable, the net, fantasy baseball, talk radio, and all the myriad ways in which I see kids now plugged into the game. All we had were Lindsey, Ralph and Murph on the air, and people like Dick Young and Phil Pepe in the papers. It was all so de haut en bas.
There was so much I couldn’t understand! Why was Dick Young so nasty? Why could the Mets win a pennant in ‘73, and take the mighty A’s to seven games– then spend the rest of the decade in chaos? What was with the stick up M. Donald Grant’s butt? Didn’t he want to win? How could he trade Ton Seaver and Rusty Staub? The Yankees had that weird, obnoxious owner, but they were becoming a juggernaut!! Why! Why! Why??
June 8th, 2008 at 3:22 am
I’m glad people are interested in this. Caryn, yes exactly. The impact Springsteen has on people’s lives, the impact the Mets have, all of this is worthy of study and exploration, and not just by academics but by everyone who has some kind of interesting perspective. I’ve posted the proposal on the blog so that people can see what we have in mind at this point. JK, number 36 is always welcome at everything Mets-related. Theresa, Tom Seaver and Jerry Koosman argued that Dick Young became rabidly pro-Grant after Grant hired his son-in-law. Grant was one of those (and there were many back then) who felt towards baseball players as plantation owners felt towards slaves, literally. They felt that the repeal of the reserve clause was destroying a sacred American institution, that ballplayers should not be paid as if they were entertainers generating enormous revenues but as if they were lowly employees who should earn about the same as the people they were playing in front of. This was a very widespread belief, among owners and among older fans. It’s hard to believe now, but it’s true.
June 8th, 2008 at 3:51 am
Oh, and Mets Mom: I’ll write him a note.