Shea Stadium Remembered by Matthew Silverman

Author:Matthew Silverman
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781493035465
Publisher: Lyons Press
Published: 2018-11-01T16:00:00+00:00

31. Strike One. Strike Two.

The continued sprucing up of Shea Stadium under new Mets ownership continued in 1981. The outfield wall was painted blue and adorned with pennants of the other National League clubs. A giant top hat with an apple rising out of it was plopped beyond the wall in center field. And warnings of nuclear fallout started appearing in odd places at Shea.

Steve Henderson, hero of the previous season and the best player the Mets got from Cincinnati in the Tom Seaver debacle, was shipped to Chicago for a surly former Met who could hit balls over that blue wall, make the apple rise, and make the “Danger: Fallout” signs seem somehow relevant—Dave Kingman. The previous year the Mets had collected just 61 home runs, the fewest in baseball, and when their small-ball magic dried up with the dog days of August, the Mets were lifeless. An article in the team’s 1980 program featuring Henderson even boasted a headline of “You Don’t Need Home Runs to Win.” The Mets had a change of heart, though, trading the slogan for the slugger. And then the 1981 Mets hit four fewer homers than the previous year, but don’t blame that on Kingman.

Seaver, in his last great season, beat Pat Zachry, the first time he’d faced the pitcher who “replaced” him, thanks to the disastrous 1977 trade with Cincinnati. Seaver’s 5–2 complete-game win on June 11 was also the last game played at Shea Stadium for more than two months.

Must we go into the reasons for the first extended play stoppage in sports history? Obligatory strike explanation: The key issue was compensation for teams that lost a player to free agency; labor would have none of it. This was a pissing contest and a watered-down compensation plan that allowed a pool of players to be chosen by teams that lost free agents finally ended the damned thing. Worse than all the games lost was the split season format agreed to when the strike was finally settled. The Cardinals and Reds wound up with the two best records in their respective divisions overall in 1981, yet neither team made the expanded playoffs. For the Mets, who crawled into the strike at 17-34, it was a new lease on life.

Joel Youngblood, the team’s lone representative in the rescheduled All-Star Game, couldn’t get a flight from Cleveland to Chicago in time for the next day’s game, so he drove five hours to Wrigley Field for the “second” Opening Day. Youngblood pinch-hit in the 11th with two on, but got under the ball and flew to center. That left it up to Dave Kingman, who clubbed a three-run blast that rolled down Waveland Avenue. Despite two months off, the Mets still played like a team that averaged one win for every three games, blowing that lead and then another in the 12th. Youngblood led off the 13th with a double and scored on a single by Ellis Valentine, a power hitter in decline acquired two

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