The Mets Museum has fewer items on display this season than in previous years, but there’s still some cool stuff to go see.
You can see how Howie Rose “put it in the books” when Johan Santana pitched the first (and only, so far) no-hitter in Mets history in 2012.
It always seems strange to see batting helmets without ear flaps, but they didn’t become mandatory until 1983. Players who were active before that date had a choice about whether to make the switch, and a few did not. According to Wikipedia, Tim Raines was the last player to use the flap-less helmet in a Major League game in 2002.
I’m not sure how many lineup cards from the 1960s survive – I don’t recall seeing any 20th century ones before. A quick look at the box score at Retrosheet shows that substitutions were not marked on these lineup cards as they would be now. (On Opening Day, the museum’s identification card had incorrectly identified the date of the game. I don’t know if it’s been corrected.)
There’s no sense of scale in this photo, but Keith Hernandez used a smaller glove than I thought.
At least in 1986, spring training invitations were actual letters. I wonder if they still are, or if teams use email now.
I hope this will be a new permanent display.
PaulHadsall.com 