Author: Ira

If you enjoy a baseball cliche even half as much as I do, then you’ll nod knowingly when I point out it’s a long season.  The key is to not get too high during the good times or too low during the bad.  I bring this up because I’m in something of a slump right now, despairing of ever finding the Mets’ “yo la tengo” moment, while trying to remind myself that the season’s not even one quarter over.  As you know, we’re focusing on games in which the anecdote’s above-the-title stars—Richie Ashburn, Elio Chacon and Frank Thomas—appear in the starting lineup.  May 25, 1962 barely qualifies.  Chacon plays just the first three innings of the Mets’ wild 17-8 loss to the Dodgers.  So let’s forget about baseball, and salute Midnight Cowboy, on the 43rd anniversary of its Best Picture award.

I once cold-called Frank Thomas.  I probably told him how I got his phone number, and then identified myself as being in a band named Yo La Tengo.  Before I could say anything more, he cut me off, “That never happened!”  It was a pleasant conversation nonetheless.

 

Is Frank Thomas right?  Are we searching for an event that is merely apocryphal?  Jimmy Breslin’s book about the 1962 Mets, Can’t Anybody Here Play This Game?, mentions the incident, but gives no indication of when it happened.   That book was published in 1963—you’d think the memory’d be fresh, but the anecdote already has the feel of legend.

 

Bottom line: no outfield collisions at Dodger Stadium 50 years ago today.  (Though the game was not without its oddities—Dodgers pitcher Don Drysdale was thrown out attempting to steal second base.)  Dodgers win 3-1.  The investigation continues.

 

Today marks the 20th anniversary of Johnny Carson‘s last Tonight show and the 40th anniversary of Richard Nixon’s arrival in the Soviet Union.  What it is not—despite Elio Chacon, Richie Ashburn and Frank Thomas all being in the Mets’ starting lineup for the first time in nearly a month—is the day on which the fabled yo la tengo incident occurred.  The Mets lost 3-2 to the Houston Colt .45’s (Jetsons-mania would inspire the name change to the Astros in 1965).

 

Just because it’s been nearly two weeks since I’ve posted an update on the hunt for yo la tengo, don’t think we’ve given up the search.  As you’re no doubt aware, in this the 50th anniversary of the Mets’ first season, we are attempting to pinpoint the precise moment that Richie Ashburn hollered “yo la tengo” and collided with Frank Thomas.  Ashburn, Thomas and Elio Chacon have not been in the lineup together since April 28.

 

Instead, I’ll mention Occupy This Album, which includes a contribution from Georgia, James and me, in collaboration with the Lost City Rumblers–Rick Brown, Sue Garner, Willie Klein and Chris Nelson.   Its release date is May 15, but you can order it now.

 

Perhaps you’ve noticed a lack of gratuitous government bashing in this space.  In fact, I take to the keypad today for just the opposite reason, to congratulate the United States Post Office.  Currently available at finer stamp outlets everywhere is a long-overdue tribute to one of our favorite bands: FOREVER ANTIETAM.   One question—speaking as someone who considers himself relatively familiar with popular music, I am drawing a blank with Antietam’s co-honorees.  Can anyone tell me something about this band NEW ORLEANS?

(And don’t forget: Antietam celebrates Derby Day at Maxwell’s this Saturday!)

Impressed though we may be by the uncanny imitation of the 1962 Mets that this year’s squad turned in last night, we resolve to accept no substitutes.  Setting the Wayback Machine to exactly 50 years ago today, we find the New York Mets winning a ballgame for only the second time, a stirring come-from-behind affair highlighted by back-to-back-to-back home runs by Frank Thomas, Charlie Neal and Gil Hodges.   But I come to bury the Mets, not praise them—and to that end, I must sadly conclude that once more we must look elsewhere in our search for the “yo la tengo” moment (it wasn’t here or here either).  Admittedly, some of our research may be inconclusive, as evidenced by this play from the top of the 5th inning: