The summer of ’69?
Well, I got my first real six string. Bought it at the five-and-dime.
OK, that wasn’t me. That was some Canadian dude.
My summer of ’69 was more about a dim awareness. Of moon landings and Mad magazine. Of hippies and Nixon and ‘Nam. Oh my…
And the Mets. I had a dim awareness of the Mets that began to sharpen that summer.
This is the final form it took: “It will always be this way.”
So the seeds of my romantically fatal baseball tendencies were planted at the very moment of my conception as a fan.
However, I didn't have even a dim awareness of baseball cards at this point. My brother was four years older, but he was not really into sports, so cards hadn’t made their way into my house.
And all apologies, but I don’t feel like I missed too much. The ‘69 card fronts are kind of a lazy amalgamation of the ’67 and ’68 sets, and expansion appears to have given the airbrushers a fit.
Further evidence of the essential torpor surrounding the set can be found there on Al Jackson's left sleeve. If you squint a bit, you'll see a World's Fair commemorative patch. Which the Mets wore in 1964 and 1965...
The reverses are actually kind of cool, with a bubblegum pink background and a comic, as space allows. Plus, I love the way the loop of the “t” in the Topps logo cradles the card number.
Well, if you want to see Jackson in his late-60s Mets uniform, you can always go to his 1970 card. Of course he was on the Reds then...
ReplyDeleteThose ex-Mets Mets' cards like the 1970 Jackson make me feel deeply conflicted, kind of like early Big Audio Dynamite singles. And don't get me started on that goddam 1962 Don Zimmer, which is a C'Mon Every Beatbox card if I ever saw one...
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