RIP Vic Ziegel

Good-bye to one of my favorites from my formative sports-reading and sportswriting years, Vic Ziegel of the Daily News.

“The Long Island Press no longer exists. (So what else is new?) When I was still in college, I showed up at the Press several nights a week – eight splendid bucks a night – to take high school basketball results over the phone and write a few paragraphs of roundup, nothing too fancy.

“There were about a half-dozen of us living in this fast lane. One night, much like all the other nights, the scores starting running together. And to keep awake, and because I’m a cunning, vicious SOB, I urged my fellow eight-buckers to repeat the same phrase in the lead of our basketball roundups. The next day, on the high school page of the Long Island Press, in a half-dozen league stories, and another on non-conference games, it was reported that Chuck Lastname or Danny Lastname or Gerry Lastname led his team to victory by ‘performing yeoman work under the boards.’

“Seven times, yeoman work under the boards. And I was back the next night, accepting congratulations, another eight bucks heading my way. What did I learn? That you can get away with a few things in this world. That nobody cares what kind of work you do if you work cheap. That if I ever fell off a roof and landed on my head I could still edit stories about high school sports for the Long Island Press. That people would laugh when I repeated the story.

“Very seductive, the sound of laughter. And so I discovered, in my yeoman period, that if I wanted to continue hearing the pleasing sound of laughter, I could keep writing sports. At least until I discovered what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. Nothing seems to have changed. I can still be found in the sports section, still trying to earn a smile. Makes me think, nights in Pittsburgh, Louisville, the Iona-Siena game, that maybe I did fall off that roof.”

—Introduction to Ziegel’s Sunday Punch: Strawberries, Raspberries, Steinbrenners and Tysons – A Famed Sports Columnist Takes His Best Shot at Sports’ Big Shots, 1991

(h/t to evesmag.com; I have this book buried somewhere in my attic, and damned it I can’t find it, though I can recall the “yeoman work under the boards” line as if I read it yesterday. I never had the gumption to try that prank when I was writing high school wrap-ups. Thanks to evesmag for saving the story online.

More, from the Daily News:

“‘I loved Vic Ziegel. I really loved him. He’d tell you a lot of good stories,’ horse trainer Nick Zito said Friday at Saratoga. ‘I remember him telling of the time he interviewed Mike Tyson at the Indiana prison. He was a New York guy.’”

The Long Island Press no longer exists. (So what else is new?) When I was still in college, I showed up at the Press several nights a week – eight splendid bucks a night – to take high school basketball results over the phone and write a few paragraphs of roundup, nothing too fancy.

Mad Men and the Mets

With Mad Men kicking off its fourth season on Sunday, it’s time to celebrate the Mets-Mad Men connection.

Mad Men takes place at a point in history, to cite a 2008 New York Times Magazine article, when ad men were rock stars of an era, when “the creative revolution in advertising was taking off.”

The Mets were born in 1962, in the heart of the Mad Men era (and the year in which season two of the series takes place). They were New York City’s new team in the National League after the Dodgers and Giants left town, and much of their essence, which survives today, is — at least in part — a product of early Sixties advertising. The “Meet the Mets” song, as much an effort by J. Walter Thompson as it was of the Mets’ execs themselves, has that fun, zippy feeling of the early, swinging part of that decade.

The Mets even garnered passing references in two episodes of the show, both from junior executive Ken Cosgrove. He tries to use the lure of Mets tickets (“great seats for probably a terrible game”) for a date with Jane, the new secretary — and future second wife of partner Roger Sterling — in season two (1962), then drops by Pete Campbell’s office with an offer of Mets tickets, which Paul Kinsey takes him up on, in season three (1963).

Even the Mets acknowledged the connection as much (or merely latched onto a popular show, or both), with a promotion last year related to Mad Men at their new, new modern stadium.

Jimmy Breslin, in his own way in his 1963 book “Can’t Anybody Here Play This Game?,” links advertising and the Mets’ birth:

“As noted earlier, it took more than baseball people to create the Mets. One of the biggest culprits, for example, is a beer company called Rheingold. This company, based in Brooklyn, put up, on the advice of an advertising agency, $1,200,000 per year on a five-year contract to sponsor the Mets on television and radio. The bid was made and accepted in the fall of 1961. The Mets had not yet signed a player. By December, the Mets had signed players and the Rheingold account was taken away from the ad agency and placed with another organization, J. Walter Thompson. …

“‘We didn’t like losing the account at all,’ one of the admen said over a martini.
“‘How come you lost it?’
“‘Somebody gave the client a bad report.’
“‘What was it?’
“‘They told the sponsor who was going to play third base for the Mets.’”

The “Meet the Mets” song and the Mr. Met mascot fit in perfectly with the early Sixties. It’s something that perhaps Don Draper wouldn’t have thought of — Draper, socially climbing, image conscious, would probably have been a stodgy Yankee fan, and possibly would have dismissed the Mets ad campaign, the way he is both intrigued by and then dismisses the ultimately iconic “lemon” Volkswagen Beetle ad in the first season.

Though who knows? Would the 1960s version of J. Walter Thompson, which was involved in the “Meet the Mets” song, have had more in common back then with Sterling Cooper (though certainly not today) than Doyle Dane Bernbach, which came up with those “lemon” and “think small” ads? Or perhaps the Mets’ early campaigns fell more in the category of “traditional” (for 1962) advertising rather than DDB’s ironic VW Bug ads.

Either way, perhaps the mysterious, slowly adapting Don Draper might have come up with the Mets’ catchy, enduring ad campaign, after all. Along with the upheavals of the Sixties, perhaps we’ll see more changes in Don Draper, with a new firm to run (as set up in the final episode of Season Three) and presumably new life away from his wife and children (we’ll see, beginning Sunday night). Of course, this might come down to where you feel the Mets’ ads of 1962-1964 fall in the traditional-ironic advertising divide.

Author Dana Brand describes in his Mets Fan book, how, as a child in the early Sixties, he loved the “novelty of the blue and orange colors, and the cool, contemporary brevity of the name” of New York’s new team.

(And, come to think of it, orange surely must have seemed to be the “new” color for the Sixties. Along with the Mets, think of the orange adopted by new teams like the Astros in 1965 and hockey’s Philadelphia Flyers in 1967. Or, put another way, think of teal and purple as the new “orange” of the Nineties, with the Florida Marlins and Colorado Rockies.)

SNY’s chipper “Mets Yearbook” TV commercial — with the bobblehead doll, clips of Casey Stengel and the Polo Grounds, an easy-to-whistle tune, and the 8mm filmstrip feel — pays homage to those days.

Brand, later in “Mets Fan,” writes in a piece about the “Meet the Mets” song:

“It fits with Mr. Met (who would think him up now?). It fits with the apple that comes out of the hat every time a Met hits a home run. It doesn’t come out of the twentieth-first century … It is the tone of the team. It brings us back to the smiling sixties. It draws us into the Mets-happy universe.”

How correct he is. It is a team for the Mad Men era, both then and now. New York was changing, New York baseball was changing (even the Mets themselves, who moved from the old Polo Grounds to the modern Shea Stadium in 1964), and, of course, America was changing. The orange-and-blue Mets were, and still are, the baseball baby born of the Mad Men period.

Mets need hitting more than pitching

We saw it against Atlanta all last weekend. We saw it Thursday night against Tim Lincecum. We’ve generally seen it all year when Johan Santana pitches.

The Mets don’t need a fifth starter. They need another bat.

There was hopeful talk about getting Cliff Lee before Seattle traded him to Texas. There is vague talk about getting Ted Lilly from the Cubs.

The thing is, the Mets starters from No. 1 through No. 4 are about as good as you’re going to get for a contending team apart from the upper, upper echelon of the leagues in terms of pitching — the Yankees and the Padres.

What the Mets need, after another futile night at the plate, is another bat.

Carlos Beltran is back, yes. How will his right knee hold up, and how long will he need to get back into real playing shape, remains to be seen. Jose Reyes’ lingering injury is more of a concern every day. Without Reyes, the Mets’ engine is essentially at a stand-still.  Buster Olney at ESPN ranked Reyes the Majors’ sixth most irreplaceable player for his team, and that sounds about right. Olney was discussing Dustin Pedroia and how his injury would impact the Red Sox. Olney ranked Reyes right behind Albert Puljos, Adrian Gonzalez, Ubaldo Jimenez, Miguel Cabrera, and Joe Mauer, saying of Reyes: “When he started hitting, they started winning.” Olney might as well have added, without him, it gets a lot tougher for the Mets to win.

David Wright and Angel Pagan have had amazing years at the plate. But beyond them, and with an injured Reyes, the Mets’ lineup is lacking. Ike Davis had an inspiring stretch after he was called up, but has cooled off. Jason Bay appears to be a lost cause this year, but you need to start him nearly every day because of what you’re paying him. The catching — both behind the plate and at bat — is about as solid you’re going to get outside of Mauer.

Basically, with the personnel the Mets have around the field, there is only one spot that you can target: second base.

That’s why the Mets need to Target Baltimore’s Ty Wiggington, an infielder who can play second base and add some pop. He’s had a surprising All-Star year. Sure, he could cool off, but what are your options? Alex Cora may have a great baseball mind, but you can’t have a .222 hitter batting second. Luis Castillo is hurt, and is often ailing when he’s back on the roster. Ruben Tejada is a decent back-up option in the middle infield, but with Reyes’ lingering woes, Tejada may need to play more at shortstop.

The Mets need to get Ty Wigginton. They can get by with a committee at fifth starter. Hisanori Takahashi is much better suited in the bullpen, but he can spot-start at No. 5 every once in a while. Pat Misch, an All-Star at Triple-A, could be worth a look. Once his rehab is done, so could (shudder) John Maine (though not, please not, Oliver Perez). This is the fifth starter slot we’re talking about, remember. The one who can get skipped if the rotation and the days off align. The one that is, by definition, the worst of the five starting pitchers.

With the Mets’ lacking at the plate right now, you almost say they need to afford putting a bum out there in No. 5, if it means upgrading their lineup. The Braves upgraded, and may be the team to beat in the NL East.

Forget Lilly. Go get Wiggington for second base.

More on George

The thing is, people say, if you were a fan of the New York Yankees and you were a fan of winning, you didn’t necessarily care how George Steinbrenner treated his employees, or how George created a winner.

I’m not sure that’s true.

There was no bigger Yankee fan than me through 2001. We loved the Yankees in spite of George, and sometimes, perversely, because of George. We hated his antics. We loved his antics. I’d say losing played into how much we disliked Steinbrenner back then, but I’m not sure if winning brought us back into his fold in the late Nineties.

George’s rein from 1982 to around 1998 gave Yankee fans the rare chance to root for an underdog. Perhaps that’s why I gravitated to the Mets the last two years — except for around 1984 to 1989 when the Mets were dominant, they’ve been perennial underdogs in this two-team town.

Of course, “underdog” in the Yankees sense didn’t necessarily mean Steinbrenner had the lowest paid team. In fact, quite the opposite. And the Yankees used to be proud of pointing out that they had the highest winning percentage of any team in the Eighties (while also not pointing out that they reached one World Series in that decade, and that was because of a fluke caused by the 1981 strike).

No, my favorite Yankee teams were the ones I grew up with, the Eighties and early Nineties. Winning in 1996, and again in 1998, was like the culmination of those long (for the Yanks) dark years. After ’98, when they traded David Wells for the Texas accused-steroid meat-head, it started to become less fun. My wife and I were engaged at Yankee Stadium in July 2001. I never went to another game again. Though we gave out Yankee souvenirs (among other items) to our families at our wedding in 2002, my interest in baseball waned as my interest (and, eventually, my passion) for the Yankees waned. My interest in baseball was only reborn by two things: my son, who at a very early age, picked up on an intense interest in the sport; and my newfound rooting for the New York Mets.

Yes, George brought the winners back to the Bronx. I loved it at first in 1996 and 1998. I loved it retrospectively from 1977 and 1978. But perhaps I loved the craziness he brought with him even more.

One of my favorite books, which I know I have around the house somewhere but cannot locate, is Bill Madden’s and Moss Klein’s account of the Steinbrenner years up until around 1990 entitled Damned Yankees. It’s a recommended read for anyone who remembered those years, or who cared to remember those years, and how the good, the bad, and the ugly made for roller-coaster seasons as a fan.

One final point: for all his firings, Steinbernner had four managers in the Nineties (not including Don Zimmer’s interim stint in 1999), and only two from 1992-2007. That’s two managers in 15 years. Except for the Twins, that’s fewer managerial changes than most teams.