SAVAGE VIEWS – IN THE BEGINNING
February 2,
2023
I was 17 when “Dem Bums” abandoned Brooklyn for the greener pastures of Chavez Ravine. I don’t remember not being a Dodgers fan. I was probably around 6 years old when I started following the team. During the entirety of my fandom, the core team of Robinson, Reese, Snyder, Campanella, Hodges and Furillo stayed intact. For a twelve year period, my favorite team was made up of five future Hall-of-Famers plus Furillo who boasted a lifetime BA of .299. Left field and third base were the only two positions not fielded by home grown talent, although Junior Gilliam came up in ’53 and was the semi-regular second baseman moving Robinson to LF and 3rd base. What’s remarkable about these seven players is that as a team they walked much more often as they struck out. Only Hodges and Snyder had careers where they struck out more than they walked.
What’s also
remarkable is that over the twelve-year period, this team, one of the best
ever, only won six pennants and a solitary World Series. I can only imagine what the payroll would be
for this historic team including Newcombe and Erskine in today’s climate.
In 1958 I switched
my allegiance to the Pittsburgh Pirates and I pretended to follow them for the
next few years. It was an entertaining team
made up of such luminaries as Roberto Clemente, Bill Mazeroski, Dick Stuart,
Bill Virdon, Vern Law and Bob Friend.
They were actually a pretty good team and in 1960 beat the Yankees in
the World Series. Unfortunately, after
losing the WS, the Yanks fired Casey Stengel.
In 1960, MLB
proposed expanding the American and National leagues by two teams. The Angels and Washington Senators were added
to the American League and Houston and the Mets were added to the National league. It was Bill Shea who was instrumental to getting
MLB to act when he set wheels in motion for a new Continental League. Joan Whitney Payson, a former minority owner
of the Giants, became the owner of the new franchise with M. Donald
Grant as Chairman of the Board.
George Weiss was named GM, after a Hall of Fame career with the Yankees. Incredibly, it was under Weiss that the Mets
drafted Steve Chilcott over Reggie Jackson.
One of the
first moves by Weiss was hiring Casey Stengel as Manager. This set the tone for the next seven years of
ineptitude. Starting with Casey at the
helm, the Mets brought on board a number of familiar names well past their prime. The list included Duke Snyder, Gil Hodges,
Yogi Berra, Gus Bell, Don Zimmer, Clem Labine and a host of others. Of course, all this was done under the
guidance of M. Donald Grant – one of the most despised men ever to run a
franchise.
The decision
to hire the over the hill gang of ex Dodgers, Giants and Yanks made watching a
game a painful experience. But we had
Casey to entertain the media by acting the clown. Then again, having Bob
Murphy, Lindsey Nelson and Ralph Kiner in the booth made things easier to
swallow.
Ray
7 comments:
Good history lesson for the youngins
Great view back. Man, I loved those 3 announcers.
Those were special days.
We still wear colors (Blue) recognizing dem bums.
Hodges death flipped the franchise on its head and then M. Donald Grunt took over UGH and us Mets fans suffered for years for that one. Whitey Herzog was set to replace Gil at some point as I remember and boy would everything have been different under that senario. We got a rerun of inepitude after the Madoff fiasco and the idiot savant Jeffy took over another giant UGH ....but now we have Uncle Steve and a state of euphoria that I really hope lasts the rest of my life....fingers crossed. Spring training couldn't come soon enough. LGM!
On another subject I just read about is Tulowitzki working with Baty in PSL on his defense which is great but reminded me of D Wright back in the day and the fact management had to tell him to cut back his practice time because he was wearing himself out by the time the games started. A practice warrior for sure but of course there are limits to everything and I wonder if that had any impact on his later injury issues.
Tulowitzki is another guy who faded suddenly and swiftly, not to mention hugely.
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