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105 sats \ 8 replies \ @StillStackinAfterAllTheseYears 10 Apr \ on: RIP Jerry Grote Stacker_Sports
Aw, man. I'd missed this.
I wasn't alive for the '69 Mets, or aware enough for the '73 ones. I became a fan in the late '70s (RIP Pat Zachry). But as you know, I played a lot of computer games growing up, and I was obsessed with Micro League Baseball. Naturally, I played the '69 Mets, using them to try to stomp the '27 Yanks as best I could, and so Grote and all of his teammates became as familiar to me as the contemporary players.
Grote didn't have the numbers to win games like Jones or Agee (especially with the metrics used back then), but I had that entire lineup memorized, and read about them all obsessively. While '86 was "my" big World Series, I've got a huge fondness for that '69 team.
I think Johnny Bench was quoted as saying "If Jerry Grote was on the Reds, I would be playing third base."
Impressive tribute. I also played a Stratomatic type game called "Be A Manager, where that team was included. Of course, it wasn't as cool as Olympic Decathlon.
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Man, that's incredibly high praise from Bench.
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I just realized I missed Pat Zachry's passing. Sad news. Of course the Seaver trade left a bad taste, but he was a silver lining.
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I always felt bad for the players. One of the first people I grew up loathing in sports was Dick Young.
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Asshole. He really damaged Seaver's reputation. Management guy.
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The Mets and Jets won it all within a year of each other. It's still by far my greatest sports year. As a kid I had no idea how rare it would be.
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Seriously. If I'd been a Giants fan, I could have gotten that experience in '86, but I've never been able to be a fair weather fan.
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Me neither. I rooted against the Giants every Super Bowl until the Brady Era. Then my hatred for the Patriots trumped all.
It still wasn't like MY TEAM won.
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