Tom Brennan - THE DREARY METS DAYS OF 1979

Boy, 1979 was a dreary time in many ways.  

Another OPEC oil shock that year would drive the U.S. economy into a very inflated state.  The official inflation rate was over 11%, the Fed Funds rate was at a staggering 15.25%, unemployment was very high as we slid into recession, and the Dow closed the year, remarkably, at 838, thirty six times lower than the index is today.  

On the international front, the Iran hostage crisis between the U.S. and Iran resulted in 52 American diplomats and citizens being held hostage for 444 days starting on November 4, 1979.  Dreary there, too.

Mets fans needed something to distract from the dreariness.

They didn't get it.

Instead they got a 63-99 (.389) Joe Torre-managed team.

Torre, you may recall, later won 4 World Series titles with the team across town, a dreary thought for Mets fans. 

Of course, as is historically so often the case, the 1979 pitching was not the main culprit: the team had a reasonably decent (for the time) 3.84 ERA.  

All runs (earned and unearned) totaled 706 runs allowed.

But the hitters?  Just 593 runs (a very substandard 3.66 runs per game).

The team's offensive subs in total had 1,104 at bats and just 9 HRs, 62 extra base hits, a .228 average, and a sickly .306 slugging %.  

And, in a theme common to so many Mets teams over their history, several players hit below .200.

The sub-Mendoza foursome of Ron Hodges, Bruce Boisclair, Gil Flores, and Kelvin Chapman, in fact, went just 62 for 357 (.173).  Dreary.  It never seems that the Mets' sub-Mendoza guys average out around .198 - nope, always much lower.  

Substandard subs are a true formula for sub-.500 baseball.

The starting players were not so dreary, but not so potent, either.  

They hit a solid .267, led by heart throb Lee Mazzilli (.303) and Steve Henderson (.306), but the starters managed just 305 extra base hits in 4,148 at bats and compiled just 464 RBIs.  From a run production standpoint, that is pretty dreary.

All of that added up to a Mets season ending up:

THIRTY SIX GAMES BELOW .500.

May Mets fans in the Steve Cohen era never experience such dreariness ever again.

Back in 1979, Cohen, like many fans, probably thought to himself: "If only I had the money to buy this club, things would be different."  

Some dreams do come true.

And speaking of inflation, may inflated Cohen era payrolls lead to inflated Mets win totals for many years to come, replacing dreariness with jubilation.