Show Your Mets Stuff

[Lordstan]

OK so this is a very rare Mets item.
It's a 1977 game program. It was acquired and scored at the game by a much younger version of me. I was present at the game with my father.
Something very memorable happened. What is it?
I'll give the answer in a few posts to allow for some responses from the audience.

Wow, after looking the program over, it really hits home how bad they were then. Any team that has to have Bruce Boisclair batting clean up is in deep do-do.

[RichardSimon]

Does it have anything to do with Jerry Koosman?

[Scott Garner]

Originally Posted by Lordstan

OK so this is a very rare Mets item.
It's a 1977 game program. It was acquired and scored at the game by a much younger version of me. I was present at the game with my father.
Something very memorable happened. What is it?
I'll give the answer in a few posts to allow for some responses from the audience.

Wow, after looking the program over, it really hits home how bad they were then. Any team that has to have Bruce Boisclair batting clean up is in deep do-do.

Mark,
I'll take a swing at this. This game was suspended due to an extended blackout. It's certainly got to be a rare event, no?

[Lordstan]

Originally Posted by Scott Garner

Mark,
I'll take a swing at this. This game was suspended due to an extended blackout. It's certainly got to be a rare event, no?

You are correct, Scott.
This game was played on July 13, 1977. Ray Burris vs Jerry Koosman.
It was around 9:30 pm with Lenny Randle batting. The stadium went dark. You could see a little out the back that the whole area was dark, but nobody knew it was the whole of NYC that had lost power.
It was kind of surreal. For a while, everyone waited, figuring it was temporary. No one panicked. The organist, Jane Jarvis, played music. In a bit, a couple of cars were brought on to the field through the outfield fence. The headlights were put on to light up the field and a few players came out to run around and entertain us. I don't know who they were as we couldn't see them all that well.
A bit later, the news filtered in that the whole of NYC was blacked out. Most people hurried to their cars to get out of there. My dad drove home without any highway or street lights. There was lots of mayhem.

The blackout lasted until the next day. Power returned one area at a time starting around 7am. By 10:40 the power had been restored to the entire city. Unfortunately, this blackout was marked by extreme vandalism and theft.

The first part I can remember just as it was yesterday.
The last bit I got from Wikipedia's page about the blackout.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Yor...ackout_of_1977

I was at my Mom's house yesterday helping clean out some stuff from my childhood room. I found this and a whole bunch of other stuff, most of which brought back great memories of being a kid and spending time with my Dad. Pretty cool!

Edit: I just noticed I made a scoring mistake. I forgot to credit the Mets with a run in the bottom of the 5th on Mike Vail's HR. They were losing 2-1 at the time of the blackout.

[mr2686]

That must have been a very scary time in New York with a blackout and Son of Sam still on the loose.

[Scott Garner]

Originally Posted by mr2686

That must have been a very scary time in New York with a blackout and Son of Sam still on the loose.

Wow, no kidding!

[Lordstan]

For me it wasn't particularly scary. It was actually kind of cool, like a great adventure. My family moved to northern NJ in Dec 1976, so we drove directly out of NY. NJ power was not affected, so when we got home, we watched the news. I don't remember the details of which channels were on, etc. All I remember about the aftermath were the news reports of all the looting, fires and general destruction that went on. I'm not too sure most were worried about the Son of Sam at that particular moment.
I can't believe I actually saved the program. I wasn't into collecting at the time and probably just put in a pile of stuff which then got buried.

[Lordstan]

I read Koosman had 11Ks at the time the lights went out at Shea.
Could've been a big night for him!