I've always
liked reference books.
My parents
bought us a brand new set of World Book encyclopedias when I was a kid. I can only imagine what
that must have cost. It was a fantastic
gift.
I would
routinely pull a volume off the shelf – any volume, it didn't matter which one
-- lie on the floor and flip through the pages, stopping at entries, photos or maps that
caught my interest.
I don’t know
if this was because I lacked the attention span for longer stories or I just couldn't sit still and watch television. But I learned a lot of things about a
lot of things. If there’s a Trivial Pursuit tournament, you want me on your
team.
I still am
more likely to curl up with a reference book than a story, which leads me to
today’s entry for March is Mostly Mets Reading Month.
March 3: “Mets
by the Numbers” by Jon Springer and Matthew Silverman
Published in
2008
Jon and
Matthew – who also are very nice guys – take us through Mets history through
uniform numbers. It's an awesome book, and not just because they asked me to contribute a photo of my Mercury Mets jersey and cap (Page 129).
Pick a
uniform number, and they’ll tell you which player wore it and when it was on
their back.
That’s interesting enough. For instance, only pitchers wore No. 41.
I was wearing my 1969 Mets jersey to a baseball card show once, and former
Dodger great and original Met Clem Labine pointed and said, “You’re wearing my
jersey!”
I sheepishly
pointed out that my prized flannel was a Tom Seaver jersey. Labine proclaimedthat he wore No. 41 first.
And the book tells me that Grover Powell, Jim Bethke
and Gordon Richardson also had 41 on their backs before Seaver wore it all the
way to Cooperstown – and the Citi Field wall, where it is today off-limits to
any other player, pitcher or otherwise.
What I like
best is that Jon and Matthew use the digits to tell us about the people who
wore them, and why they are special in the Mets universe, be they stars like No. 5 David Wright or the people passing through.
I reached
for the book this week when I heard the sad news that Jeff McKnight died after
battling leukemia for 10 years. McKnight was never a star player, but he was
blessed to wear a major league jersey for six years.
He also
holds a special place in Mets numeral history: He’s the only player to wear
five different numbers. As Jon writes on his essential Mets by the Numbers
website:
“While on the one hand his feat is an odd curiosity, five uni
numbers is also something else entirely. It’s not the kind of record that a
player who is secure in his big-league status can possibly generate, and at the
same time, it’s a testament to McKnight’s persistence and versatility,
finding a way to be needed even as his teammates were needier.”
You can read the whole entry here. Then go grab a book.
Sometime next season the Mets will call up a stud prospect like Steven Matz or
Noah Syndergaard. You’ll look at their uniform and wonder which exclusive numerical
club they just joined. Jon and Matt have
the answer.
The rest of your reading list, so far:
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