Last looks at Topps' rivals in Mets cards

The folks at Topps must have felt too threatened by the first couple Fleer and Donruss sets, but it didn’t take all that long for the rivals to get better. By the time Upper Deck and Score joined the field, Topps was the choice for loyalists, but not necessarily those who demanded quality above all else.

This is not to say that everything issued by the newcomers was first-rate. But there were some glorious moments of Mets on cardboard, as we wrap up our look at favorite non-Topps Mets.

1990 Donruss Dwight Gooden and Sid Fernandez

The 1990 Donruss set has no business being as good as it is. Splattered paint, bright red borders, the drabbest possible backs, “error cards” and massive over-production is not a recipe for a classic issue. But somehow it works. This is one of my favorite sets.



Donruss filled this with great action cards, like this Dwight Gooden, and nice portraits, like El Sid.
1998 Donruss Don Darling.

Not the best Donruss design, but I like this Darling portrait because we get a great view of the script New York the Mets wore on the road uniforms for only the 1987 season. Am I the only one who likes that uniform?

1998 Studio Dwight Gooden, 2003 Al Leiter and 2004 Mike Piazza







I wasn’t too keen on the idea of a black and white set when Studio made its debut, but some of those portraits are beautiful. And Donruss soon found different ways to showcase the portraits, with backgrounds of lockers, cap logos, patches, stadiums and cityscapes.

2004 Donruss Team Heroes Kaz Matsui


Remember how excited we all were when the Mets signed Matsui? Our own Ichiro! Well, that didn’t turn out as we hoped. But I like this card showing Kaz after his introduction press conference posing in Times Square.

1999 Fleer Turk Wendell



Fleer had some great designs. The 1999 set wasn’t one of them. But I love this portrait of Turk and his tooth and claw necklace. Certainly one of the more colorful Mets, Wendell was actually a pretty good reliever, too.

2001 Fleer Ultra Todd Zeile


Ultra was Fleer’s answer to Topps’ Stadium Club, and was usually a decent set. Everything seems to work in this action shot of Zeile, with the pinstripes, the foul line and lots of Pete Flynn’s manicured grass.

Upper Deck Vintage Tom Seaver


UD tried to tap into the Topps devoted fan base by aping some of the company’s best designs for its retro Vintage sets. This set copies the 1965 design, and it gets points for showing Seaver from the 1983 homecoming season, which can’t be saluted enough!

2001 Upper Deck Legends Tom Seaver


Sometimes UD even used one of its own designs for veteran players. I don’t think I’d seen this nice, relaxed Seaver portrait before this issue.

1992 Upper Deck John Franco


I used to argue that that Mets should retire Franco’s number. Now I’m not so sure, but he should most definitely be in the Mets Hall of Fame.

2001 Upper Deck and 2008 Upper Deck David Wright


Now, I do think David Wright will earn his way on to the wall with Casey, Gil, Tom and Jackie – and someday Mike. This posed portrait is a little odd because he’s wearing a jersey with a 2000 World Series patch, a series he didn’t play in. In fact, he was drafted with the pick the Mets earned for losing Mike Hampton, one of the stars of that postseason


I like that Upper Deck used this photo from the All-Star Game, snapped after Wright hit his home run.

Wait, companies other than Topps made baseball cards too? Here are some of the best Mets

Now that we’ve counted down the Topps top 60 of all time and even added a bunch on to that, I think it’s fair to acknowledge that there are some amazing cards that were, in fact, not produced by Topps.

At the risk of completely beating the baseball card theme to death and then some, I want to point out some of the sweet Mets cards by other companies, all of which have since been banished. And it’s better than reading more about Oliver Perez and Luis Castillo.

This isn’t a countdown and is by no means exhaustive, but just some of the finest work from Topps’ vanquished rivals – part one.

1991 Score Dream Team Frank Viola and 1992 Upper Deck Bret Saberhagen.



Sweet Music Viola and Saberhagen were the two most heralded Mets hurler acquisitions prior to Johan Santana. Viola delivered, by and large, becoming the last Mets pitcher to win 20 games. Saberhagen, arrived in New York with two Cy Young Awards on his mantle, and well, didn’t add a third.



But both posed with big apples to show at least the appearance of devotion to our favorite city. Viola’s a New Yorker by birth and Saberhagen, well, likely did what the photographer told him to do.

True story: When people work for my newspaper for 10 years they are asked to pose for a photo that is used to make a little cutout figure that lines the walls of the cafeteria. I noticed that one employee posed in his Mets jersey with a big apple, a shot that might have been inspired by these cards.


2007 Upper Deck Endy Chavez

Endy’s NLCS Game Seven act of superhuman fielding is possibly the most glorious catch in Mets history, with apologies to Mr. Agee and Mr. Swoboda. Too bad Yadier Bleeping Molina had to go and ruin things. Topps used the photo for one half of a postseason card, but Upper Deck gave the moment the attention it deserves.


1984 Fleer Darryl Strawberry

To their credit, the folks at Fleer knew how to keep a design nice and simple, and not detracting from the photo. Sadly, the photos were often kind of lacking. But this card of a youthful Straw in his first full year is darn near perfect.


1986 Donruss Gary Carter

No design was too busy for Donruss, however. Sometimes it worked well, and the 1986 set was one of the company’s best. For some reason, the photos seemed particularly crisp. I love the lighting on this action shot showing Kid at the tail end of his swing, watching the flight of the ball before chugging down the basepath.

2008 Upper Deck Goudey Tom Seaver

I like retro sets, in theory. But some of the ones that have artwork instead of photos are pretty nasty, almost as if the task was delegated to Mrs. Jackson’s third-graders on finger-paint day.


But when the companies decide to make a set special, and not just something to justify the inserts, the results can be spectacular. This Tom Terrific card from Upper Deck’s Goudey set hits the mark and then some.

2007 Upper Deck Goudey Carlos Beltran and Carlos Delgado




Upper Deck had a good run with these sets. A year before the Seaver gem, the company used most of the artwork in the backgrounds. The Beltran card recalls the old-school ballparks. The Delgado card goes one step beyond, with the pose, the smile, the sun illuminating his face.

Every signature tells a story: Duke Snider and a pair of really nice rings

You can’t really get to know someone while he’s signing an autograph at a card show, but sometimes I think you can get a glimpse at what a person is like.

Reggie Jackson was famously a jerk when I met him at a New Haven, Conn. show as he banged my prized Hall of Fame ball on the table, said, “Let’s go! Let’s go!” then rolled it down the table.

Maybe Reggie was having a bad day. But we’ve all read stories that make us think Reggie has a lot of bad days.

Then there was an afternoon in Trumbull, Conn. when Duke Snider was appearing at a small show. This was back when these events were fairly new and autographs weren’t more than a couple dollars, even for some Hall of Famers.

We lost Snider Sunday at age 84.

Snider, of course, was doubly special. He was he part of the famed New York centerfield trio of “Willie, Mickey and the Duke” saluted in song by Terry Cashman.
But, more importantly, he was a Met.

The team’s All-Star in 1963, Edwin Donald Snider hit just .243 for the Mets, well below his .295 career average. But hit 14 homers and drove in 45 on a team that didn’t have too many runners to drive home.

But truth be told, the 1963 season was more of a curtain call for Snider, beloved as a Brooklyn Dodger and one of the players dragged out to Los Angeles, where he never really duplicated his MVP-caliber statistics.

So Snider was one of the rare players I’d be able to ask to sign both the Hall of Fame ball and my glorious Mets book.

We approached him at the usual hotel conference room table, where the white-haired gentleman sat with Sharpies. My wife and I arrived near the end of his signing time, and there were not too many folks left, giving us a little time.

As he signed, I mentioned that my Dad grew up in Brooklyn and watched the Duke at Ebbets Field, which brought a smile, though I’m sure he had heard that all day.

I noticed the massive ring on his finger.

“That’s my Hall of Fame ring,” he said, taking it off so I could get a closer look. This was in 1988, and Snider was elected in 1980, a ridiculously long wait for such a player.

Snider noticed that my wife was with me, and must have figured that we were newlyweds because a woman at baseball card show is rarer than a 1972 Topps high number Jim Fregosi traded card. Only a newlywed would attend such a thing, at least happily.

“You have a nice ring, too,” he said to my wife, who immediately perked up.

“Would you like to see it?” she asked?

“Sure!” Duke replied, and made the appropriate approving sounds.

It was an unexpected surprise, and we got a pretty good idea of why Snider was beloved in Brooklyn.




Sitting across the room was Indians slugger Joe Carter. Now, Carter was a very, very good player but had no connection to the tri-state area or was a Hall of Famer. I have no idea why the promoter booked him, and at this point in the day there was no one waiting for his signature.

Carter eventually would finish with 396 homers, just shy of Snider’s 407. And he owns one of the greatest home runs in World Series history. But he was just entering his prime when we encountered him.

Having spent our money acquiring Snider’s signature, we had nothing to spend on Carter, nor anything for him to sign, given his lack of Metness or Cooperstown credentials.

But we went over to his table to shake his hand and welcome him to Connecticut. While he didn’t ask to see my wife’s ring, he cheerfully talked baseball with us for a while.

He didn’t have to, considering that we were not paying customers. But, like Snider, he was friendly beyond all expectation. For that, unlike Reggie, he’ll always have a fan.

Billy Joel's "Last Play at Shea" shows he's one of us

There's a funny moment on Billy Joel's live CD recorded on the night 1999 turned to 2000.

“There's some classical shit in there,” Joel said at the conclusion of “The Ballad of Billy the Kid.” “Tried to cop a little Copland.”

I laugh because the line captures why Joel is the embodiment of New York, showing off its beauty and coarseness at the same time.

I remembered that line today as I played by “Last Play at Shea” DVD, a Christmas gift from my wife that arrived this week. I thought it was a concert DVD of the highlights of Joel's two gigs at Shea Stadium in 2008.

I was wrong. It's so much more.

There's plenty of music, for sure. But the documentary is better described as parallel biographies of the performer and the ballpark, and, by extension, the Mets. It's magnificent. I spent most of the afternoon all weepy.

People here in the Midwest don't get Billy Joel. I've seen him perform several times at the Palace of Auburn Hills, and the shows don't compare to the nights I've watched him at the Nassau Coliseum, one of which was captured on video.

The people watching in the shows in the Detroit suburbs enjoy the hit songs, but they don't come with the shared experiences as the man from Levittown. They can't picture the old hotel on the beach he's singing about in “This is the Time,” they think “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant” could take place in a place like Olive Garden because they don't have places like Musicaro's here. They don't picture the fishing boats in “Downeaster 'Alexa'”

They don't get the Mets, either. These one-team cities don't understand how a person could totally embrace one team from your town and be repulsed by the other.

Watching “Last Play at Shea,” I was convinced that Joel was the perfect person to perform the grand stadium's final concerts.

His Mets loyalty has been questioned. He's mentioned the Yankees twice in songs, and there's the VHS of him performing at that place in the Bronx. But notice that they had to draw a picture of him wearing the Yankees cap, and he looks uncomfortable even in that. I suspect the label made him do it.



Because Joel whether he realizes it or not, has more in common with the Mets. Bruce Springsteen – not even a New Yorker, I might add – gets the love from the critics and the Super Bowl performances and the Oscars.

But Joel, as the documentary shows, is like the Mets in that Billy has had his ups and downs, and the ups are very up and the downs really suck. We can relate to that.

He's the boomer who came of age in the 1960s in “We Didn't Start the Fire,” the defensive guy in “My Life,” and the guy out of step with the trends in “It's Still Rock and Roll to Me.” We like orange and blue and giant apples, all right? The Mets are flawed, but we love them just the way they are.

The other team reeks of entitlement and thinks it will win the World Series every year. Billy said in the documentary that he's always surprised when one of his songs becomes a hit.

The movie has all kids of scenes of Shea beauty and magic, from the metal panels to the neon players, from 1969 to 1986.

It's got interviews with Tom and Sir Paul, the very best to perform in the building. And it's even got the best Mets blogger in there to pull it all together.

Sting is in there, too. He confesses he doesn't get the magic of Shea. But he was in “Dune,” too, so his judgment is questionable. Go play in the Bronx.

The film winds down with Paul McCartney trying to land at JFK and get to the concert in time and the Mets scrapping to hang on as the end of the 2008 season. Paul makes it, the Mets don't.

At the end of the concert we see Billy backstage, imploring Paul McCartney to come back for one more song, almost as if he doesn't want the night to end. Kind of how we all felt when we saw Cameron Maybin at the edge of the warning track waiting for Ryan Church's ball to land in his glove.

The documentary ends with time-lapse photography of Shea's demolition that builds a lump in the throat as the sections go down one at a time, each revealing more of Citi Field in the background.

But the cameras keep running right to the lights go on for Opening Night in 2009.

The new ballpark isn't Shea, but it's beautiful.

It's true, 'Tom Terrific' atop the Topps top 60

It’s not a surprise which baseball player will be depicted on the card deemed the greatest in Topps’ 60 years.

Even baseball writers, a difficult lot for sure, recognized Tom Seaver’s importance to the card collecting hobby and the sport itself. They enshrined him into the Baseball Hall of Fame with 98.84 percent of the vote, the closest any inductee has come to unanimity.

But Seaver appeared on many Topps cards during his spectacular 19-year career, as well as in a bunch of sets after his retirement. But they can’t all be No. 1.

We can immediately eliminate Seaver cards from when he played for lesser teams. Those are important cards, to be sure. Some of them appeared further down in the countdown. But Seaver as a member of the Sox, white or red, or an Ohio-based team wouldn’t be the way people remember him best.

And we can rule out any of the cards from retro sets, or sets that exist as an excuse to mix in jersey slice insert cards. Neither seems to be in the spirit of the countdown.

Leader and All-Star cards are to be enjoyed, and neat subsets like the “In-Action,” “Boyhood” and “Turn Back the Clock” are fun. But the No. 1 spot needs to be held by a base card.

That leaves a fairly small pool of cards from which to select. Let’s examine the pros of each, as well as the cons, slight as they might be, to determine our Topps champion.


1967:
Pros: The Seaver rookie is a nice card, and certainly his most expensive. It's the starting point to the magnificent career and it must give Bill Denehy a thrill to be linked forever with Tom Terrific.

Con: Bill Denehy is linked forever with Tom Terrific. Bill went 1-7 with the Mets in 1967, had three appearances with the Senators in 1968 and 0-3 with the Tigers in 1971. On the bright side, the Mets traded him to the Sens for Gil Hodges! But a card with Bill Denehy can’t claim the top spot.


1968:
Pros: We get a great headshot of Tom, who is full of youthful confidence. There is, perhaps, a slight annoyance to his glance. Some teammates might not be realizing that this losing crap isn’t cutting it. They need to straighten up, and this kid is going to lead them. Plus, we get the All-Star Rookie trophy and a funky burlap card design. The write-up on the back is wonderful.

Con: I don’t get the burlap/baseball connection. It’s the only thing holding this card back.


1969:
Pros: It’s a baseball card and it has Tom Seaver’s photo and it was released in 1969. That’s all I got.

Cons: Topps got lazy. How can it use the same photo of one of the game’s best players two years in a row? The design is dull, and the backs are pink.


1970:
Pros: A nice headshot of Tom, with another minimalist – but classy – design. As card No. 300, it was probably released after the start of the season, with the photo taken in spring training. Seaver looks relaxed, at the top of his game. He’s the reigning Cy Young Award winner; he’s got a World Series ring. The adorable Nancy is waiting at home. It’s good to be Tom Seaver.

Cons: Tom looks a little too relaxed. While it is, indeed, good be Tom Seaver, we still want to see a little edge there.


1971:
Pros: We finally get a pose that doesn’t looks like a yearbook photo with a baseball cap. The set is a classic, and we get Tom’s facsimile autograph, too!

Con: The card was from 1971, which was, perhaps, Tom’s greatest season. He went 20-10 with 21 complete games, and I don’t know how he possibly lost those 10 games considering his ERA was a freakish 1.76. You’d think this would mean Tom’s second Cy Young. But no, he lost to a Cub who had an ERA that was a FULL RUN higher. It’s not the card’s fault, but I still get all upset.


1973
Pros: A magnificent Seaver card, with Tom in a spring training faux-action pose, glove held high as if he was staring in for the signs. It looks scary, and this is just spring training. Tom that season went 19-10 with microscopic 2.08 ERA. And unlike 1971, voters recognized that wins aren’t always the best indicator of success and gave Tom the Cy over Ron Bryant and his 24 Giant victories.

Cons: The 1973 set is beloved, and with good reason. But the design is just a little bit too stark for me to put it on top.


1974:
Pros: Lots of firsts here. Its Tom’s first main card action card, and his first horizontal base card. Tom has just unleashed a laser and we can see John Milner in the background. And the 1974 set is one of my favorites.

Cons: As nice as the action shot is, there are Mets with just iconic cards in this set. The McGraw and the Harrelson are amazing portraits; the honked-off Rusty is great. Heck, they’re almost all great. If the Tom card isn’t the best on the team, it can’t be the best of all time.


1975:
Pros: I sent this card to Seaver when I was 11. I had doubles and thought he’d like to have a copy of his own card. It never occurred to me that he might already have one. I sent him a poem I composed – eat your heart out, Robert Frost – and asked for an autographed photo. Before long, an envelope came from New York National League Baseball Club, containing my autographed photo and the card I sent Tom, and it was signed, too. (Note the signature on the card above.)

Cons: This is a neat portrait of Tom leaning on the batting cage – there’s really not another Tom card like it – but his face is almost all in the shadows. Clearly this was meant to symbolize the previous season, when an injured Tom limped to an un-Seaverly 11-11. And because I tried to copy Seaver in every way, I spent half the summer complaining that I had injured the sciatic nerve in my left hip.


1976:
Pros: This card already checked in the top 60 at No. 41. Tom is in a classic spring training, baseball card pose. There might not even be a ball in his hand, but he’s probably not going to fire a pitch from the on-deck circle anyway. I remember pulling this card in the very first pack of cards I opened that year, and decided that I’d never have to buy another until 1977. That rule lasted maybe a day.

Cons: Having already checked in at No. 41, it can’t be in the running for the No. 1 card.


1977:
Pros: A terrific card. It’s very possibly Topps’ best Seaver action card. Any Mets fan would recognize that classic delivery and know that it’s Tom from a mile away. It’s an awesome design, and the colors are perfect. In fact, the entire card is nearly perfect.

Cons: Perfect, unless you count the blunt trauma caused by the June 15 midnight massacre that I’m still not even close to being over yet. I’m working on not overtly hating M. Donald Grant with an eye on eventually forgiving them. It’s a 40-year plan. We’re in the first week. Patience. Dick Young, you get no such forgiveness.


1983 traded
Pros: Tom’s exile is over, and that alone is a glorious thing. The design calls for two photos, an action shot and headshot for the inset. It’s a nice design, the colors are right, and Tom is back.

Cons: Despite all the potential glory here, the card just seems to be a little, well, lacking. The inset shot is better than the action shot. In fact, Topps used the headshot for subset cards and leader cards. The action shot is a bit dark and doesn’t look like Tom. We can’t see the team name or his No. 41. Overall, it looks like the kind of card Ray Searage would get, not the homecoming of the franchise hero.


1984
Pros: The 1984 card is every bit the celebration of Tom’s triumphant return that the 1983 card could have been. Seaver’s at home in the Mets pinstripes. And the bunting in the background reveals that the photo was, in fact, from April 5, 1983, the emotional Opening Day. Even the racing stripes, making their debut that day, look great. The design is fantastic, too, with the team name boldly running down the side, leading to a headshot. It is a fantastic reminder of Tom second tour.

Cons: There is but one slight fault. The card came out as part of the 1984 set, after Tom was swiped by the White Sox in the infamous Dennis Lamp Incident, and we’re not all the way over that, either. It’s a reminder of what we lost, again.

That would leave:

1972
Pros: There is much to love about this card. After several years of pretty tame designs, Topps got bolder with the 1971 set then embraced all that was the 1970s with the epic 1972 issue. It’s as if the stogy old guys in the design office were out for a week and the young upstarts took over. It’s a cross between art deco and Warhol pop art. It perfectly captures the time period.

Then you have the photo. Tom’s in his pinstripes and blue warm-up jacket. He’s pretending to be following through on a throw. But look at the eyes. The edge is back. Andy Pettitte only wishes he could look as imposing.

The shot is obviously from spring training, given the background with the distant palm trees and coach on one knee issuing instructions. Given that this is card No. 445, we can presume that the photo was taken that year.

The card back tells of the Cy Young injustice of 1971, and mentions Tom’s homer on June 24 to beat the Expos, 2-1. The h in “homered” is for some reason capitalized, but we can overlook that. The little cartoon tells us that Nelson Burbank as the scout who signed Seaver, giving me a reason to look for his photo in the yearbook.
And in a personal level, this was the first Tom Seaver card I ever possessed. It came in a trade with Jeff, parting with two Yankees to obtain the printed image of the hero.

Cons: None. This is perfection on cardboard. It’s a 2.5-inch by 3.5-inch reminder of all that is good in life. The design, the photo and the informational back perfectly capture the player and the era.

It is, without a doubt, the best card Topps has produced in its 60 years.

Topps countdown at No. 2 with 1970 card No. 1 and a miracle

The real miracle of the 1969 Miracle Mets, in my mind, isn’t that the team won the World Series.

It’s the relative ease by which the team dispatched both the slugging Atlanta Braves in the playoffs and then the mighty Baltimore Orioles in the Series.

Keep in mind; the Mets were a 100-to-1 shot to win the World Series before the start of the season. And despite the growing collection of young talent and able vets, the team had not yet to post a winning record.

Topps showed the team the love it deserved with the spectacular card No. 1 in the 1970 set, the team photo with World Champions above the players.

The photo itself is a little odd. It’s in the Shea outfield, but shot slightly from the side, with most of the players looking to the center, where there must have been another photographer. Why not use the official photo? And check out the ball and glove on the ground in the middle, between Rube Walker and Yogi Berra. Someone was getting a little artsy.

Topps did a nice job with both of the postseason subsets, too. The key moments were captured, and there are two celebration cards.

Not that Braves fans have anything to remember their team’s appearance in the playoffs. Topps used a great photo of Tom Seaver for Game 1, Ken Boswell approaching home after his two-run blast for Game 2 and highlighted Nolan Ryan’s relief appearance for the Game 3 card. The celebration card – with “We’re number one!” shows Wayne Garrett, Ryan, Tommie Agee and, I think, Tug McGraw, just out of the shower.







The Mets were a team built around pitching, but the team scored a whopping 27 runs in the three-game sweep. Braves fans certainly can’t fault Hank Aaron, who launched three two-run homers in the series.


The opposition does make an appearance in the World Series subset. The Game 1 card shows Don Buford heading back to the dugout after the home run he smacked off Seaver to start the game.

But, as Terry Cashman croons, “they made a believer of Mr. Earl Weaver in four games straight.”


The Game 2 card shows Donn Clendenon crossing home after his fourth-inning home run. Game 3’s card appropriately shows off Tommie Agee, depicting the first of his two spectacular catches.


Game 4 shows J.C. Martin’s controversial bunt that pushed across the winning run in the tenth inning. Personally, I’d rather have a horizontal card of Ron Swoboda’s dive, but I can’t complain.


The Game 5 card shows Jerry Koosman “shutting the door,” but that game had enough heroes and highlights that it could have filled a subset of its own, with Cleon Jones’ shoe, Al Weis’ only Shea homer or the big hits from Swoboda and Clendenon.


The “World Series Celebration” card – with “Mets whoop it up” as the caption – is an epic to itself. It’s a scene of clubhouse chaos. Note that Ed Charles still looks stunned that the team pulled it off, holding up an “Amazing Mets” album that came out earlier in the summer. Ed Kranepool and Tug McGraw look gleeful, and I can’t figure out which Met is mugging for the camera in the foreground. Jerry Grote or Swoboda, perhaps? But look behind Charles, as a group of stern looking reporters are interviewing someone off camera.


The whole subset is the highlight on one of Topps’ best sets, but it didn’t get much better that card No. 1.

Topps top 60, No. 3: Magical Mookie Wilson

No. 3, 1985 Mookie Wilson


Just try it. Think about Mookie Wilson and not smile.

Oh, sure. Bob Stanley and Bill Buckner might grimace a little.

But everyone else sure seems to have fond memories of the fleet centerfielder with the mega-watt grin.

Even the nickname bestowed on William Heyward Wilson by his grandmother kind of forces the mouth into a smile just by saying it.

Mookie arrived in 1980 when the Mets were still in what Glenn Close called “the quiet years” in the video. It’s only fitting that he was not only still there for the championship, but will be forever linked with its most famous moment.

Every Mets fan knows this by heart. Game Six, tenth inning, Mets down a run. Bob Costas in the Sox clubhouse, Jean Yawkey already fingering the World Series trophy.
After fouling off three pitches, Stanley threw a wild one that Mookie was able to avoid, bringing Kevin Mitchell home with the tying run.

After fouling back several more, Mookie slapped one up the first base line, where it magically got through Buckner’s legs, bringing home Ray Knight.

Get off Buckner’s case. Even if he had come up with the ball, Stanley wasn’t close enough to first to make the play and Mookie’s speed would have placed him there first anyway.

That’s because there’s magic in Mookie, and that at-bat couldn’t have happened to any other player.

He left the team in 1989 in a trade for Jeff Musselman, but Mookie still is ranked second in steals and triples, fourth in at-bats, sixth in games, hits and runs and 10th in doubles.

Here’s how unassuming Mookie Wilson is. He has a commercial drivers’ license because he thought he’d be a truck driver after retiring.

Not a chance. He’s been with the Mets most of the time since, and this year he’ll be back in uniform as the first base coach.

There are many great Mets cards in the 1985 set. The Mookie, which shows him flashing that famous grin, is my favorite.

Say hey! The Topps countdown hits No. 4 with Willie Mays

Willie Mays, I submit, is the best all-around baseball player of all time.

His career numbers already are staggering. Now consider that he lost most of 1952 and all of 1953 to military service.

Also consider that his first home ballpark had a centerfield that was so deep it was practically in another borough.

Consider again that his second home ballpark was known for its brutal weather for night games, certain to sap the life out of potential home runs.
Consider, once more, that the staggering statistics were compiled in an era known to be dominated by pitchers.

It’s very easy to argue that had any of those factors been different, Willie Mays’ homecoming to New York in 1972 is a march to home run No. 700 or even beyond.

Imagine Henry Aaron and Willie Mays both chasing down the Bambino in 1973.

Of course, the ways things actually played out was pretty spectacular, too.
Willie arrived home as a beloved elder statesman – thank you, Mrs. Payson – and hit a home run in his first game.

The following year he was picked for the All-Star team as a reserve, and helped guide the upstart believers all the way to the World Series, where he hit .286.
And, on the night he announced his retirement, he delivered the best-known farewell speech of any player not known to be dying.

“I look at the kids over here, the way they’re playing, the way they’re fighting for themselves, and it tells me one thing: Willie, say good bye to America.”


The Mets have kept Mays’ No. 24 out of circulation save for a brief accident and the short tenure of a future Hall-of-Famer. The team needs to go the extra step and place it on the outfield wall alongside Casey, Gil, Tom and Jackie. The best player ever to wear a major league uniform wore the Mets’ blue and orange. We should be proud that.

Mays appears on just two main set Topps cards. He’s part of a World Series subset in the 1974 issue. But I prefer the 1973 card.

Willie’s in a classic batting pose at Shea. He still has arms as thick of tree trunks. Willie’s older, to be sure. But he till looks mighty. And, best of all, he’s a Met.

Pause the Topps countdown to salute the newest Met in the Hall of Fame, Roberto Alomar

We need to take yet another sidebar into our Topps top 60 countdown to recognize that yet another former Mets player being inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Second baseman Roberto Alomar was named on 90 percent of the ballots to earn his spot among the immortals and undeserving Yankees.

Now there are going to be some people who will look at Alomar’s year and a half with the Mets and suggest that perhaps they weren’t the best in Roberto’s career.

These people point to things like his batting average for that time -- .266 and .262 –and note that the numbers are slightly below his career .300 average.

Being a Mets-cup-half-full kind of guy, I note that those averages are far better than the .180 he posted with the White Sox for part of 2004.

Roberto does not have a ton of Topps cards in his Mets uniform, but there are two that jump to mind.

The card from the 2003 base set shows Roberto in an action shot, looking great in his home pinstripes watching one of those 157 hits rocket into the field. Beautiful.



The other is the Heritage card from the same year, mimicking the outstanding 1954 set with both an action shot and head shot.

I couldn’t help but add two cards from other companies’ sets.



The Studio cards were usually beautiful, and there’s no disputing the grandeur of Roberto, bat on shoulders, in front of Shea Stadium’s neon players. Face it: No other stadium would look as good.



The other, from an Upper Deck set, loses points for the silver foil. But check out the photo. Alomar is so delighted to be a Met – giddy, in fact – that he has to check the logo on his cap to remind himself of just how glorious it is to be a part of the team. And can you blame him?

Did you know there are more Mets in the Hall than True Yankees? As Casey used to say, you can look it up!

Mets: Alomar, Tom Seaver, Willie Mays, Gary Carter, Nolan Ryan, Eddie Murray, Warren Spahn, Duke Snider Ritchie Ashburn, Rickey Henderson and Yogi Berra. From the front office we have George Weiss and Whitey Herzog. And, of course, Casey Stengel.

Now, True Yankees: Ruth, Gehrig, Berra. Possibly Casey.

Hey, don’t blame me because the Mets are inclusive and embrace all their players, and the Yankee fans limit their love to guys who earn their pinstripes through real or imagined Yankee glory.

To come up with this list, I looked at the Yankees who somehow got added to the Hall and subtracted the known cheaters (Whitey Ford), shameful booze hounds (Mantle), overrated (DiMaggio), people who bang my prized Hall of Fame ball on the table at card shows (Reggie), guys the owner tried to smear (Winfield), guys better known as Mets (Henderson), guys so ashamed of being Yankees that they left their Hall plaque cap blank (Hunter), guys added by the Veterans Committee decades after their playing career ended (Rizzutto, Lazzeri, Gordon) and so on.

Somehow John Franco was allowed to fall off the ballot this year, a scandal. But soon we'll be celebrating Mike Piazza's well-earned enshrinement.

Topps all-time countdown continues with Jose Reyes, swiping spot No. 5

No. 5, 2010 Jose Reyes

Is there a player on the Mets who will be watched more closely in 2011 than Jose Reyes?

When Reyes is at his healthy best, he’s the most exciting player in the game. And spacious Citi Field is practically designed to allow players with speed like Reyes to run wild.

Jose already is the team’s all-time leader in stolen bases, with his 331 swipes are way ahead of Mookie Wilson’s 281.

But look at the triples. Reyes has 83. Mookie has 62. The player in third place has 45, a little more than half of Reyes’ total. That player, by the way, is Bud Harrelson, and I wouldn’t have guessed that.

But the nearest active player is Angel Pagan with 19, or No. 13 on the all-time list. Now, that speaks highly of Angel, who has only been on the team for parts of three seasons. But it also means that Reyes is putting that record out of reach.

As the Mets debate whether to trade Reyes in is walk year or lock him up in a long-term deal, Sandy Alderson is going to be looking for more scenes like the one depicted on Reyes’ 2010 card.

Jose has just slid head first into third base. A bewildered Marlin is looking in vain to see if he got the call. But he knows the result. The umpire is making it clear for everyone else in the stadium.

Given the distance from the action and the number of people in the shot, the card recalls the glories of the 1971 set. Though a true '71 action classic would have included two more players, the third base coach and possibly a hot dog vendor.

About the only thing marring the scene is the awful Citi Field inaugural season patch. But we can live with that.