Category: News

Aw c’mon!

Just my luck, I picked this week to travel to Spain for a fact-finding look into Elio Chacon’s ancestry.   Not only did I discover I was wasting my time, that Chacon was from Venezuela, not Spain, but while here I missed out on the first no-hitter in Mets’ history.

No such mound mastery was occurring at the Polo Grounds 50 years ago today.   The Mets starting pitcher Jay Hook lasted an entire 1/3 of an inning, which still gave him time to walk two, give up four hits, and hit a batter, resulting in five runs, a pitching line that I haven’t seen since my days in the Croton-Harmon minor league with the–what a coincidence–Hook and Ladder squad.  Near as I can tell, no yo la tengo moments in the outfield.

 

Congratulations to Johan Santana!

The Velvettes said it best: It’s like finding a needle in a haystack.  I mean, what exactly am I looking for?  Let’s say that Frank Thomas is wrong and that at some point in the 1962 season, Richie Ashburn hollers “yo la tengo” and an uncomprehending Frank Thomas collides with him.  Is the official scorer so conditioned to Mets miscues that it’s scored a clean hit, or is an error charged, and if so, to Ashburn or to Thomas?  As far as I can tell, none of the above occurred in either of the two games on this day 50 years ago, both of which were won by the hometown San Francisco Giants.  What DID happen was one of the most memorable melees in Mets history.  Right in the middle of the action: Elio Chacon.  None of the accounts can confirm that at some point Chacon pleaded “no mas,” only to have a non-Spanish-speaking Willie Mays slug him again.

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.