Jul 28 2013 05:54 PM
2 Guys Talking: Frank Taveras & The Mets ’70s Vibe
November 8, 2012 / Michael Geus
| Mike: You know, in September this year Citifield was giving off a very late 70?s vibe. Well, one of those nights I was at the game and McHugh gave up three or four runs early, and since at that point in the season we were not scoring that many runs in a week I started getting restless. So I started counting how many fans were in each section, never needing to get to ten, and before long my mind started wandering to those 1970?s days and those nights at Shea. It was a weird fun time at the park, with nutty Afros cramped under hats and brand new plastic seats to sit in! Anyway, Jimmy, one of my favorites back then was Frank Taveras, who couldn’t play but he could run. You can’t have everything. Jimmy: Yes, it felt very circa 1979 to me, which was arguably the lowest this franchise has ever sunk. And it all came from ownership, that’s the common thread. Back then it was Lorinda de Roulet. Now it’s Fred. That ’79 infield was something: Hebner, who hated it here (unhappiest Met of all time?); Willie Montanez, Doug Flynn and Taveras. What a misconceived mishmash. No wonder why we loved John Stearns so much. A couple of years ago I read a pretty entertaining book on baseball in the ’70s, which brought back a lot of memories, Big Hair and Plastic Grass, by Dan Epstein.  Mike: Fun book, I agree, let’s give it the official 2GuysMets seal of approval. Oh man, the name Willie Montanez reminds me of my ten seconds with Lorinda de Roulet. Same as today, the team had a real ownership problem as Joan Payson had passed away and her daughter had no idea what to do with the team. In the off-season of 1978 we picked up Montanez in a wild four team trade (Bert Blyleven was involved) where we basically traded John Milner and Jon Matlack for Montanez and Tom Grieve. Now I will not lie, in 1978 I was happy to have Montanez, he wasn’t very good but he was not terrible and he was a flashy player who could keep your mind off of how bad the team was. He used “the snatch” to catch the ball, had a loooooong home run trot, would flip the bat — now we see this stuff all the time but not back then. And now I’m old and cranky so it annoys me, back then I thought it was funny. For awhile.  But in 1979 Montanez cratered. He played awful and what seemed funny in 1978 seemed infuriating in 1979. One night in late July he made an error fielding a throw at first that cost the Mets a game. On our way out of Shea, in the parking lot, my friends and I saw a limo. We ran over, limos at games are now commonplace but not back then. All of a sudden I realized it was de Roulet. I started screaming at the car,
I yelled it three times at the top of my lungs until all of a sudden the car stopped. The window in the back rolled down and there was de Roulet, glaring at me. I screamed again — louder this time,
de Roulet looked me straight in the eyes and answered in a measured, cold and bitter voice,
And just like that the window went back up and the limo sped away. A few weeks later we traded him to Texas for Mike Jorgensen and Ed Lynch, not a bad deal. I have always felt responsible. Jimmy: Well done. Now go find Fred and start screaming about Jason Bay. Oh, wait. |
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