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The game has obviously changed. I never thought of baseball as a dangerous game. I thought of football as a dangerous game, but not baseball. I learned how to take out a second baseman to break up a double play in Little League. I learned how to barrel into a catcher if he had the ball and was blocking the plate. And I learned that I was going to GET BARRELED INTO if I was blocking the plate when I was catching. I got some of the eight broken noses I suffered over the years that way.
There are things that were just a part of baseball. There are things that were not in the rule book. It was just understood. It was the “code.” One thing I was always good at was stealing signs. It helped that I had a photographic memory. But I paid attention while everyone else was jerking around. I didn’t have to guess what pitch was coming when I was hitting, I often knew what was coming. And, no, I didn’t always peek back at the catcher, I wouldn’t do that. I picked up on the odd habits and, perhaps, tics that a pitcher might have that would give away what he was about to do. In fact, if a batter peeked back at MY signs, he got buzzed behind the ear on a throw back to my battery mate.
The Mets announced that they will, at times, be sporting their "racing stripe" uniforms in honor of the 30th Anniversary of the 1986 World Series Championship team. I have always had a fascination with the Mets uniforms and to be quite honest, I absolutely hated those uniforms. The home uniforms were bad enough, but the road uniforms had a weird block lettering and then a silly looking script. Heck, Keith Hernandez has so often made his opinion of those uniforms known during broadcasts, calling them "hideous." I am a traditionalist, and although I liked the brief appearance of the blue and orange piping on the sleeves during the Lee Mazzilli era in the late seventies, early eighties, I am truly partial to the traditional home uniforms. But my favorite is the traditional away jerseys with the tiffany style lettering on the front and the full block numbers on the front and back.
And uniform numbers worn by the players always seemed to pique my interest. I am sure most people can be presented with a number and immediately associate it with a specific Mets player. In fact, sometimes you see a number on a player’s back and you either love the player or simply the way the number looks and all of a sudden that becomes YOUR number.
Alan Karmin is an award-winning journalist and author. He was born in Brooklyn, New York and spent most of his life growing up in the New Jersey suburbs. Alan's family were avid Brooklyn Dodgers fans and when the Dodgers moved west, the Mets became the team to root for. The Mets have always been a true focal point, Alan even wrote a term paper in high school to analyze what was wrong with the Mets. While at the University of Miami, Alan honed his craft covering the, gulp, Yankees during spring trainings in Fort Lauderdale for a local NBC affiliate, as well as the Associated Press and UPI. He broadcasted baseball games for the University of Miami, and spring training games for the Baltimore Orioles and Montreal Expos. New York Mets Mania is a forum for Alan to write about his favorite team and for baseball fans to chime in and provide their thoughts and ideas about New York's Amazin' Mets.