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Yearbook Cover Derby Round 1.15 1980 vs 1999

1980

3 votes

1999

16 votes

Benjamin Grimm Apr 06 2018 05:14 AM

1980 1999

SteveJRogers Apr 06 2018 05:26 AM Re: Yearbook Cover Derby Round 1.15 1980 vs 1999

Meh to both, but 1999 gets the nod due to two HOFers and a better “ace” depicted.

John Cougar Lunchbucket Apr 06 2018 05:44 AM Re: Yearbook Cover Derby Round 1.15 1980 vs 1999

I felt like the Rockwellian image was overdone. No kid wore his shoelaces that way in 1980. And check out the slogan they trotted out once and only once: "The People's Team" Soon enough they'd stumble onto "Magic" and make it disappear. Still too severe and humorless in 99 but it may prevail.

Edgy MD Apr 06 2018 06:07 AM Re: Yearbook Cover Derby Round 1.15 1980 vs 1999

Both better in concept than execution. 1980 ... why is the kid in color and the Mets figures in black and white? Why does Craig Swan look like a late middle-aged guy climbing up his basement stairs? By 1980, the Mets should have gotten past the idea that their definitive fan was male, white, 10, and kinda dippy.

41Forever Apr 06 2018 06:26 AM Re: Yearbook Cover Derby Round 1.15 1980 vs 1999 Edited 1 time(s), most recently on Apr 06 2018 07:03 AM

The 1980 cover is my least favorite. You don't become the People's Team by proclaiming it yourself. You have to earn that. And the drawing? Yuck. I suspect they were going for something like the 1968 All-Star Game cover -- and missed wildly.

MFS62 Apr 06 2018 06:53 AM Re: Yearbook Cover Derby Round 1.15 1980 vs 1999

Let's party like its 1999. Later

Benjamin Grimm Apr 06 2018 06:59 AM Re: Yearbook Cover Derby Round 1.15 1980 vs 1999

That 1980 cover is hideous. The weird looking kid in the weird looking chair in the weird contorted position. And the three figures of Mets players look like somebody traced them from photographs. The NY insignia in the boy's cap filling the zero in the year is also weird. I don't like the 1999 cover a whole lot either. It's yet another example from that era of somebody masturbating while using Photoshop, but it's the better of the two. And the white uniforms to stand out nicely against the black background. It does seem like, in most of these polls, a lot of us are voting against the worse one instead of for the better one.

John Cougar Lunchbucket Apr 06 2018 08:19 AM Re: Yearbook Cover Derby Round 1.15 1980 vs 1999

"Masterbating while using photoshop" I'm gonna steal that line and pretend it was mine someday

d'Kong76 Apr 06 2018 08:20 AM Re: Yearbook Cover Derby Round 1.15 1980 vs 1999

That kid is freakishly disturbing. He always was. My guess is he's wrap- ping up a long sentence in Green Haven for something freakishly disturbing. Funny thing, this yearbook used to be somewhat rare years ago and a nice one fetched a little bit of a premium compared to similar years. A quick look on eBay now and there are plenty at reasonable prices. Weird, maybe I'm confusing this cover with another because it's, well, freakishly disturbing.

batmagadanleadoff Apr 06 2018 08:33 AM Re: Yearbook Cover Derby Round 1.15 1980 vs 1999

I hated that kid and that cover, too. So much so, that I didn't buy that yearbook, just on the basis of that ugly cover. It was the first time that I didn't buy a Mets yearbook in the same year of its publication since I became a fan. (Though I'd end up acquiring it many years later to fulfill my completist sensibilities).

G-Fafif Apr 06 2018 12:22 PM Re: Yearbook Cover Derby Round 1.15 1980 vs 1999

The 1980 cover always struck me as a rush job in the most literal sense. The team was sold in late January, a new GM (who oversaw everything, at least at first) took over in February, the season opened in early April. "Fellas, what are we gonna do for a yearbook cover?" was probably not among the first hundred questions asked. I appreciated the concept here, the idea that the Mets stood for good ol' baseball, but was that where their perception problems languished after the late '70s? "The People's Team" I took as a shot at the MFYs, a precursor of Curtis Granderson's pithy "True New Yorkers" are Mets fans comment and a reflection of New York being a National League town and whatever goodwill there was to be ladled from residual affection for the Mets' roots. Somewhere I have a button, bought at Shea in 1980, hailing the New Mets (25 years before Beltran and Boras). I think they were rushing around, trying to come up with something that said there's a reason you used to like us, there's a reason you used to come out to Shea, we're not the fucking de Roulets...give us and ours a try. And it was probably before Della Femina hit on The Magic is Back. The execution is pretty low-level, to put it kindly. The three players are discernible, and it's nice to think they were considered famous enough to put on the cover. Modern Day Rockwell Boy isn't appealing, however, and other than remaining unbudgingly fond of the middle portion of 1980, I can't gin up nostalgia for this nostalgic cover. 1999 is of its time and works as such. I like that they've got the four fundamentals of baseball covered by four appropriate Mets: baserunning, fielding, hitting and pitching. Three of the models chosen were state of the art at their specialties, either heading into 1999 or on an all-time basis. Leiter was the best we had for pitching. Black was, if not beautiful, certainly in style (by dint of the Mets incorporating it, that is). Perfectly fine cover for an era when yearbooks didn't stay with you. Bonus points not necessary to take this round, but bonus points for 1999 being 1999.

MFS62 Apr 06 2018 06:28 PM Re: Yearbook Cover Derby Round 1.15 1980 vs 1999

d'Kong76 wrote: That kid is freakishly disturbing. He always was. My guess is he's wrap- ping up a long sentence in Green Haven for something freakishly disturbing. [Ben wrote] It's yet another example from that era of somebody masturbating while using Photoshop

If we still had the BOC voting, those would have been a tough choice.

Later

I never figured out how to have two quotes in one post.

cooby Apr 08 2018 01:19 PM Re: Yearbook Cover Derby Round 1.15 1980 vs 1999

Little boy

RealityChuck Apr 08 2018 05:02 PM Re: Yearbook Cover Derby Round 1.15 1980 vs 1999

Much better graphics in 1999. [youtube:j14f8m2j]rblt2EtFfC4[/youtube:j14f8m2j]