Damn Yankees by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Damn Yankees

Page 145

Stengel explained, "You have to have a catcher or you'll have a lot of passed balls."

The return of Casey Stengel to spring training received considerable publicity, and when the Mets played the Yankees in an exhibition game, Stengel played his best pitchers while the Yankees treated it as a meaningless game, and the Mets won, 4–3. The team won nearly as many games as it lost in spring training, but Stengel warned; "I ain't fooled. They play different when the other side is trying too." The Mets lost their first nine games of the regular season. In the meantime the Pirates were

10–0, meaning the Mets were already ten games out of first place. Some light appeared in May, when the Mets won 11 of 18 games to reach eighth place in the ten team league. They then lost 17 in a row, returning to last place, where they would spend the remainder of the season.

However, the perfect link with the public was formed, and it grew stronger as the team grew zanier. The Mets appealed to the younger generation of fans and became an alternative to the boring, stuffy Yankees who always won. The Mets were the cutest of losers. As the losing continued, a particular fan favorite was "Marvelous" Marv Throneberry, who was a "lightning rod for

disaster" in the 1962 season, striking out to kill rallies, or dropping pop flies and routine throws to first base. During one