On Sunday, Daily Stache Co-Founder Michael Ganci and his father Steve were at the 92nd Street Y for the unveiling of the Mets’ All-Time team.
I’d love to explain how the night went, but I figured I’d give that honor to my dear old dad. My photos from the event are below.
Below was written by Steve Ganci
On Father’s Day night..thanks to Michael’s affiliation and some bribery to his friend who owned the other ticket, Mike and I went to the 92nd st YMCA on Lexington and 92nd in NYC to attend the taping of the NY Mets 50th anniversary show where they revealed their all-time team.
It was very exciting and well done. We were seated in an auditorium and the festivities conducted onstage, so we did not have access to the players and others. It was hosted by SNY’s Kevin Burkhardt and was announced and debated by Howie Rose and Gary Cohen. We began the show by the crowd all involved in a Let’s Go Mets! chant…they asked us to do the wave and the crowd chanted…NO WAVE!
That was hysterical ..I spotted Fred Wilpon and GM Sandy Alderson seated about 10 rows in front of us. The announcement drove home the point, at some positions,the Mets need to develop more talent…I learned from 3B winner David Wright that as a rookie he was forced to wash John Franco’s back in the shower. I would not have confessed to that. Here is the team…with the others who were considered:
- 1B) Keith Hernandez (he was there) beat out Ed Kranepool, John Olerud and DAVE KINGMAN!
- 2B) Edgardo Alfonzo (he was there) beat out Felix Millan, Doug Flynn(!) and I don’t remember
- SS) Jose Reyes (had video clip thanking all and wishing he was there)..beating Bud Harrelson, Rey Ordonez and (gulp) Rafael Santana!
- 3B) David Wright (he was there) beating HoJo, Robin Ventura and Hubie Brooks( The crowd chanted…”Sign Him”!)
- LF) Cleon Jones (he was there) beating out Kevin McReynolds, Cliff Floyd and GEORGE FOSTER!! (are you kidding me)..someone yelled out..”What, no Jason Bay?”
- CF) Carlos Beltran (video clip) beating out Tommie Agee, Mookie Wilson and Lenny Dykstra
- RF) Darryl Strawberry (he was there) beating out Rusty Staub,Ron Swoboda and BOBBY BONILLA!
- C) This one was very puzzling….Piazza won, beating Carter, Grote and Todd Hundley..but he wasn’t there…AND there was NO video clip of him..so I wondered cynically if Piazza might’ve pulled a money squeeze play or something.
- LHP) Jerry Koosman (he was there) beating Jon Matlack, Al Leiter and Sid Fernandez
- RHP) Tom Seaver..(SURPRISE!) (he was there) beating Gooden, Darling and David Cone
- Left Handed Reliever: (this was the toughest of all) Tug McGraw beating out John Franco, Jesse Orosco and Randy Myers..I would not have been surprised unless Myers had won…Tug was represented on film by country star Tim McGraw and in person by brother Hank and son Mark…Hank the older brother, told of when the scout signed Hank,he would not sign unless the scout signed Tug also.
- Right Handed Reliever: Roger McDowell (video clip) beats (hold your breath) Neil Allen, Armando Benitez (loud boos) and would you believe SKIP LOCKWOOD!
- Manager: any Met fan our age would probably be as pissed as I that Davey Johnson got the nod over Gil Hodges (Bobby Valentine and Casey Stengel also nominated)
The Mets won the 86 series IN SPITE OF Davey, John McNamara for the Sox was just dumber.How do you double switch Darryl Strawberry out of an elimination game?! Johnson lucked out in the bottom of the 10th when ROOKIE Kevin Mitchell came up to the plate as tying run in Darryl’s slot and singled to keep the inning, and Met hopes, alive
We weren’t allowed to take any pictures during the taping but after the show taping ended all the winners sat on the stage for a Q&A based on questions collected from the audience. I submitted one but it wasn’t selected. Michael took a million pictures of that. Seaver as was no surprise, was a bit of a windbag when he got the microphone in his hand but there were a lot of good poignant stories told. Cleon tried to clear the air as to why Gil Hodges walked on the field to remove him from the game but I thought his story seemed like BS.
All in all…a GREAT night for a lifelong Met fan.
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