Hostess cards and the betrayals of 1977

I’m in a bad place this week -- an ugly place. Which means it is a good time to talk about the 1977 season and the Hostess set.

As we said earlier, 1976 was a fun, buoyant time. We had no idea what kind of nasty storm was approaching.

Part of the problem is that I’m too loyal to people, teams and places and I always think that people, teams and places whom I give love and devotion will continue to treat me and mine well. So I spend a fair amount of time in shock and disbelief when they do not.

Yeah, I know.

So the 13-year-old Mets Guy took the events of 1977 very personally.

The team stumbled out of the gate, with manager Joe Fraizer getting bounced after a 15-30 start, replaced by Joe Torre, who became the Mets first player-manager, with the player part lasting about two weeks.

Then came the massacre, the June 15 trade deadline that found the team shipping Tom Seaver to the Reds for four players. While management was at it, it sent Dave Kingman to the Padres.

I distinctly remember watching the news on television, pounding on the floor that Charlton Heston at the end of “Planet of the Apes.”

The team spiraled down for the remainder of the season, finishing 64-98, the Mets’ first last-place finish since 1967.

Making it worse, the Yankees won the World Series and most of the neighborhood kids jumped on the bandwagon to the Bronx Zoo as Shea became Grant’s Tomb.

Not me, of course. I voiced outrage over Steve Henderson getting robbed by Andre Dawson in Rookie of the Year voting and expected Pat Zachary to be the new staff ace.

The Hostess set was again 150 cards, five of them Mets. That includes Seaver and Kingman. The others are Jerry Koosman, who suffered a 20-loss season despite a respectable ERA, Jon Matlack and Felix Millan.

The design is pretty drab – though not as drab as what was to come—with white borders and player names in a semi-circle.

Looking back, I realize that heading to Cincinnati was painful but probably the best thing for Seaver, who piled up wins, pitched his no-hitter and would have been handed a fourth Cy Young Award had writers not gotten swept up in Fernando Mania.

Hopefully I’ll look back at the events of this week in the same way.

A great injustice on display with the No. 7 Topps card of all time

It’s a remarkable rookie card to be sure.

One of the two players is in the discussion as the second-best Mets pitcher. The other guy was traded for an accordion player.

And check this out. Between the two pitchers on this card, there are 546 wins, 8,270 strikeouts, seven no-hitters – and not a single Cy Young Award. How is that even possible?

One of them joins Tom Seaver with a beautiful plaque in the Hall of Fame -- the one in Queens. The other is in Cooperstown with Tom, but he’s wearing the wrong cap.

In all seriousness, the gulf between Jerry Koosman and Nolan Ryan isn’t that great. Ryan’s career winning percentage is .526, Koosman’s is .515, and pitched for some far worse teams, I might add. Ryan’s ERA is 3.19, Koosman’s is 3.36.

Koosman got just four votes when he was on the Hall ballot in 1991, and Ryan somehow got 98.79 percent of the ballots in his first year, and even swiped what was rightfully Tom Seaver’s slot on the All-Century Team.

Let’s look at the post-season. Koosman is 4-0, including two wins in the World Series, even taking a no-hitter into the seventh inning. Ryan is 2-2, and his only World Series appearance is 2.3 innings of Agee-aided relief.

One more cool Koosman fact: He was discovered by the son of a Shea Stadium usher who caught Koosman when he pitched in the Army at Fort Bliss Texas, he had written to his dad about Koosman. The Mets offered Koosman a contract after his discharge.

So, yeah, Jerry Koosman’s rookie card is pretty special, the seventh-best Topps card of all time. Nolan Ryan is on it, too.

Good books and impressionable kids, a Mets fan's choices for March is Reading Month madness

These first-graders could have been Mets fans by time I finished reading -- if I came with the proper book.

I was a celebrity reader at a Grand Rapids elementary school today, which might prompt some to say that they need to raise the bar on who qualifies as a celebrity.

But that’s OK, because I had a wonderful time with the first-graders.

Of course, you can’t just show up and start reading. You have to approach this in the proper fame of mind.

These are young, impressionable students.

They might not have been exposed to Yankee hype.

This was an opportunity to offer them a glimpse of the promised land that is Mets fandom.

Luckily I had two new weapons at my disposal.

First is the "2009 Maple Street Press Mets Annual." It’s not quite a book, but it’s bigger than your basic magazine, with a thicker cover and no ads. That makes it hard to describe, other than to say it's really good to have.

It’s got a little bit of everything to prepare you for the season, from individual player profiles to features on prospects.

I liked the story about the Mets’ new Triple-A team in Buffalo, and there are even schedules for the minor-league teams.

There’s a nice interview with Keith Hernandez, and some trivia concerning Shea Stadium’s firsts and lasts — included designated hitters. Think about how that could happen. The first was in 1974 and the last in 1998 — among the many indignities inflicted on Shea when the Yankees borrowed it.

But the best part is blogger Greg Prince’s contribution, which uses a series of key words to walk us through the wondrous 1969 season — 40 years ago this year, if you can believe that.

I was thinking that would be perfect for the first-graders, enthralling them with tales of Tom Seaver and Gil Hodges, Tommie Agee and Jerry Koosman.

My wife noticed my copy of "Mets Annual" on the dining room table as I prepared to leave the house.

"You’re not going to read that to the kids, are you?"

Usually when she says something like that, the "are you?" on the end is included only to be a polite. It’s a command, dressed up nicely as a question.

OK.

Well, I did get another amazing book in mail this week. Speaking of Mr. Prince, it’s his "Faith and Fear in Flushing."

Like the blog he shares with Jason Fry, "FAFIF" isn’t just a collection of stories about the team, or even an autobiography.

Instead it’s a tale of how the team provides a common touchstone for our lives to intersect. Our lives don’t revolve around the Mets, but, like family member, they’re an important part it.

Sometimes we are angry at or hurt by relatives, and they can also provide great comfort and joy. As Mets fans, we know both hurt and joy. Yankees fans just know shame. At least they should.

Alas, Greg’s book is 320 pages of glorious history and memories, and I had only about a half hour with the kids.

My options were to read really, really quickly or just hit the highlights. Option one seemed impractical, and there are probably too many highlights to pick from. Once I started, the kids, now completely absorbed in the glory, would be begging me to keep going, and the teacher would no doubt be cursing "March is Reading Month" and I’d never get invited back.

My caring wife sensed where all this was headed and become involved in the selection process.

We narrowed it down to "Skippyjon Jones in the Dog House" and "Teammates," by Peter Golenbock, which is about the day Pee Wee Reese put his arm around Jackie Robinson at Crosley Field.

Robinson is a personal hero, must be a Met in some way since Citi Field has a whole rotunda dedicated to him.

I was greeted at the school door by a new friend, who held a beautiful sign reading "Bienvenido, Mr. Murray" — it’s a bilingual school — and handed me off to another student, who took me to the library where some pre-selected books were on a table.

The librarian said that while she was sure "Teammates" was a fine book, she suggested the first-graders might better like something called "Hippo-not-amus" by Tony and Jan Payne.

The kids indeed laughed at "Portly," the young hippo who looked like Mo Vaughn without the limp and was tired of eating grass and laying around in the water and decided to see what it was like to be other animals.

As you can guess, hilarity ensued and Portly learned he is fine just the way he is. A nice message, to be sure.

We also talked about what reporters do, and how students can become better writers. The class was engaged and well-behaved, which is what I expected.

And I did sneak in a little baseball.

Help ESPN get it right

The people at ESPN got loose with a little survey listing the 10 best living pitchers. Allegedly the network asked it’s baseball analysts, announcers, writers and other contributors to compile the rankings.

Apparently they had to restrain Verducci and Klapisch because while there are only two Yankees on the list, Jeter isn’t one of them.

Oh sure, Jeter’s not a pitcher. You think that would stop those guys? "It’s the intangibles, man. He makes all the pitchers better." Whatever. Anyway, here’s the Jeter-less list:

1) Bat-Chucker
2) Tom Seaver (Yes!)
3) Sandy Koufax
4) Bob Gibson
5) Greg Maddux
6) Bob Feller
7) Randy Johnson
8) Pedro! Pedro!
9) Steve Carlton
10) Juan Marichal

What a crock. There are only two Mets on the list. And I suppose we must thank the influence of Mark from the awesome Mets Walkoffs for getting that many on there. But not even he has enough pull to do this properly.

Since he can’t, we will. Now, for your enjoyment, is the proper list of the top 10 living pitchers.

1) Tom Seaver
He is way better than Bat-Chucker. Seaver never gave up six runs in the first inning of an All-Star Game. And he is the closest we’ve ever come to a unanimous Hall of Fame selection, so I’m not the only one who thinks this way.

2) Pedro Martinez
Pedro is so good that Yankee fans claim to have fathered him. You’ve heard that "Who’s your daddy?" chant. They wish. And he threw Yankee mascot Don Zimmer to the ground when it just needed to be done!

3) Tom Glavine
You know Glavine’s going to Cooperstown. I figure that one night he woke up in a cold sweat realizing that he was going to have a Braves cap on his Hall of Fame plaque and needed to get the heck out of Atlanta. Oh, it took Tommy some time to adjust to being in the Apple. But he’s back on track and all is good. And if No. 300 comes in a Mets uniform, that Hall plaque sure will look better.

4) Dwight Gooden
Koufax gets a lot of run because he had four nice seasons before his arm fell off. Well Gooden had four amazing seasons before he had kind of an injury. Of sorts. A self-inflicted one, to be sure. Ah, but 1985 was something to behold.

5) Jerry Koosman
Koosman never got the respect he deserved because he was in Tom Seaver’s shadow. Considering we’ve already anointed Seaver the greatest living pitcher, that’s not bad. He even missed out on a Rookie of the Year award — he was 19-12 with a 2.08 ERA for the last-place Mets in 1968 — because some kid catcher from Cincy put together a decent season. Kooze was so good that he won 20 with the Mets in 1976 when M. Donald was actively trying to screw up the team. Then he went and did it again with the Twins in 1979, which was really impressive. Plus, he’s got one of the coolest autographs.

The former Tidewater Tides cap, worn here by both Gregg Jefferies and Nolan Ryan

6) Nolan Ryan
The ESPN anti-Mets bias was clear on this one. The guy was on the All-Century Team, pitched seven no-nos and is well atop the all-time strikeout list. And none of it would have happened had he not had that great foundation of pitching for the Mets in the early years of his career. The Hall of Fame must have known the Yankee-lovers would have screamed had he been given a Mets cap on his plaque in Cooperstown. So they got a little sneaky and gave him an old Tidewater Tides cap. Only real diehards like you and me know this. But see for yourself.

7) John Franco
Johnny’s the greatest left handed reliever, with 424 career saves. Sure, he usually started the ninth by walking the bases loaded, then got a strike out and double play to get the save. But nobody ever said such things had to be pretty.
8) Al Leiter
It’s a sad story. Al started as a Yankee, escaped and got two rings and tossed a no-no before he staked his claim as a Met. Al pitched well when and he apparently moonlighted as our assistant GM and clubhouse lawyer, which is one of the reasons Scott Kazmir is wearing a Tampa Bay uniform. Then, like so many of us, Al suffered a relapse, seducing Carlos Delgado to become a Marlin instead of a Met then finishing his career as a Yankee.
9) Frank "Sweet Music" Viola
The fact that this Hempstead native managed to survive those early 1990s teams with his reputation in tact alone qualifies him. We endured Vince with his fireworks, Sabes with his bleach, Jeff Torborg with his professional wrestler son ...and Frankie still managed to win 20.

10) Jesse Orosco
Jesse’s glove from the end of Game 7 has yet to land, and Orosco is probably still pitching somewhere, getting that one tough out. You don’t appear in 1,252 games — that’s the most ever for a pitcher, folks — unless you’ve got something special. It can be noted that Orosco worked undercover to sabotage the 2003 Yankees, pitching 4.3 innings over 15 games — think about that for a second — and posted a 10.38 ERA before they caught on to him.

Now that’s more like it!

Hmmm. In scanning this list, it appears that each of these players spent some time with the Mets. A coincidence, I assure you. It’s not like I had Doug Sisk and Mel Rojas on there.

Maybe ESPN will approach people who know what they’re talking about before they compile such a list again.