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BOOKSHELF CONTINUED [ 2 OF 3]
SIMPLY AMAZING
Don’t call them New York’s other baseball team.
Although they’re not as old and don’t have as many
championship rings as their counterparts in the Bronx, the New York
Mets have fans who are just as loyal. Now, with Amazin’
Met Memories: Four Decades of Unforgettable Moments by
Howard Blatt ’75, Mets fans — and baseball fans
in general — can relive the best memories of the team from
Flushing, Queens.
Unlike most baseball books, Amazin’ Met Memories
doesn’t offer a narrative or chronology of the team from its
earliest days. Instead, Blatt has written a self-described
“history of highs”: the 20 greatest post-season games,
the 25 greatest regular season games, the all-time greatest Mets
team. Blatt’s logic is simple: While a fan may forget how a
player was obtained or even his career stats, no real Mets fan
could ever forget Mookie Wilson’s grounder that skipped
between Red Sox first baseman Bill Buckner’s legs in Game 6
of the 1986 World Series.
“Of all the baseball books out there, not one is based on
memorable games, memorable moments,” says Blatt. Moreover,
with 17 years separating the team’s two World Series
championships (1969, 1986) and another 14 years before another
World Series appearance, Blatt believes that “the only
connection [between Mets teams] is the people who watch.”
He’s tried to tap into fans’ “emotional
connect” with the team and “personal memory of the game
and the moment.”
Although he now lives in Maryland, Blatt is a native New Yorker,
originally from the Flatbush neighborhood in Brooklyn. His father
was a Dodgers fan whose heart was broken when the team moved to Los
Angeles in 1957, but who couldn’t shift his loyalties to the
American League team from the Bronx. Blatt inherited his
father’s affinity for the National League, and the Mets were
the beneficiary.
Blatt, who was sports editor of Spectator during
1973–74, is well qualified to write about the Mets, and not
just because he’s a die-hard fan. He spent 16 years at the
New York Daily News, the last 10 as a sports writer covering
the Mets as well as the Yankees, Knicks and Nets. He’s
written 10 basketball books for young readers, including
biographies of Earvin “Magic” Johnson and Gary Payton,
and This Championship Season (Pocket Books, 1999) about the
New York Yankees’ record-breaking 1998 season, when the team
won 125 games.
After listing the greatest games in Mets history, Blatt adds a
chapter about the Mets’ 3-2 victory over the Atlanta Braves
at Shea Stadium on September 21, 2001, the first major outdoor
sporting event in New York after the terrorist attacks that brought
down the World Trade Center towers on September 11. Although the
Mets were in the middle of a run at post-season play, as Blatt
notes, the game was more “about patriotism as a response to
terror and evil” and New York City’s resilience than
baseball.
Blatt’s all-time Mets team includes first baseman Keith
Hernandez, shortstop Bud Harrelson, catcher Mike Piazza and
pitchers Tom Seaver and John Franco. His “all-time
busts” includes such forgettable players as first baseman
Marv Throneberry (1962–63), about whom writer Jimmy Breslin
once said: “Having Marv Throneberry play for your team is
like having Willie Sutton work for your bank.” There also are
lists of the 15 best trades (such as obtaining Keith Hernandez in
1983 from the St. Louis Cardinals for pitchers Neil Allen and Rick
Ownbey) and 15 worst trades (starting with a four-player deal that
sent a 24-year-old Nolan Ryan to the Angels for Jim Fregosi).
Another highlight of the book is the closing chapter, “You
Can Look It Up,” a compilation of some of the great quotes in
Mets history. Fittingly, the chapter begins with 20 pearls from the
late Casey Stengel that are laugh-out-loud funny.
Amazin’ Met Memories: Four Decades of Unforgettable
Moments is published by Albion Press
T.P.C.
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