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Well, it’s summertime and as the song goes "the living is easy" and my mind turns to baseball.
The current season has not been a happy one for New York Mets fans like me. In the preseason, the Mets were predicted to finish first or second in the NL East. Analysts expected them to comfortably secure a postseason berth. Now with the season nearly two-thirds gone the Mets own a record of just 44 wins and 62 losses for the fourth worst record in baseball.
There are several reasons for this nightmarish season. Following the second half collapse in 2025 President of Baseball Operations David Sterns traded away key players like Brandon Nimmo and Jeff McNeil while losing Pete Alonso, and Edwin Diaz to free agency. While this was an attempt to inject new blood into the team, it's proof that when you throw out the bathwater the baby sometimes does go with it.
Then there have been injuries to several key players. Shortstop Francisco Lindor suffered a broken left hamate bone right before the season began. Slugger Juan Soto suffered a right calf strain in April that sidelined him for 15 games during which the Mets struggled. Now I've just learned that he is suffering from a Grade 2 left calf strain and is expected to be sidelined for four to six weeks.
The pitching has been another low point with Freddie Peralta acquired from the Brewers in the off season as the anchor of the starting rotation apparently losing his pitching skills somewhere between Milwaukee and New York.
Perhaps next season will be a different story, if there is a 2027 season. Currently, negotiations between Major League Baseball and the Major League Players Association for a new collective bargaining agreement are not going well. Negotiators for both sides are not optimistic that a settlement will be reached before the current contract expires on Dec. 1, and warn that a lockout is likely. The sticking point is a salary cap. Team owners have officially proposed replacing the Luxury tax with a hard salary cap system for the first time in over 30 years. The Major League Baseball Players Association remains opposed to that. It could be a long battle for the boys of summer.
Major League Baseball was a different game when I was a kid in the 1950s and early '60s. First of all, when teams traveled by train it was a game bound by the East coast and the west shore of the Mississippi River where the St. Louis Cardinals and the St. Louis Browns held down MLB's western outpost.
Baseball's 50-year geographic stability ended in 1953 when the Boston Braves left town and headed to Milwaukee for a 12-year stay, the above-mentioned St. Louis Browns headed for Baltimore becoming the Orioles, and the Philadelphia Athletics began a never ending search for the promised land by moving to Kansas City in 1955.
In the 1950s there were no millionaire players and no such thing as free agency. In 1950 the highest paid players were Joe DiMaggio of the Yankees and Ted Williams of the Red Sox who were paid $100,000 a season from 1950 to 53 equal to about $1.4 million today. In 1959, Willie Mays was the highest paid player earning $75,000 equal to $855,700 today
In those days before free agency players were permanently bound to a single team under the reserve clause, giving teams total control over a player’s career. Players had to accept the salary offered by their team or quit playing professional baseball entirely. An example is what happened to future Hall of Famer Ralph Kiner. Following the 1953 season he received a maximum 25% salary cut because his home run totals dropped from 51 down to 37 and Pittsburgh Pirates general manager Branch Rickey told him that the team could finish in last place with or without him. Essentially Rickey told him he could take the cut or he could retire.
Going to a game was a different experience in the 1950s and '60s. Today watching the Mets at Citi Field, you can avail yourself to variety of food choices like Legacy Catering by Mookie Wilson & Family offering Smoked pulled chicken sliders with golden barbecue sauce on a potato bun or Adam Richman’s Burger Hall of Fame where Brooklyn native Richman serves up “Adam’s Classic” burger available from a single up to a 4-patty “Home Run.” Then of course there are multiple "Mr. Softees" and the list of choices goes on and on.
In the '60s at Shea Stadium the food choices were limited but prices didn't break the budget. A hot dog cost 40 cents, a hamburger 55 cents, a Rheingold beer 50 cents and popcorn or Cracker Jacks cost 15 cents. And of course this was a time when Mets game tickets in 1965 ranged from $1.35 for upper deck general admission up to $3.50 for premium box seats.
In those simpler days they opened the gates at 11 a.m. so we got to see batting practice and could get close to players like Willie Mays or Duke Snider. Those were different times when ball players owned by a team until death or retirement often had to take off season jobs to make ends meet. Giving these talented men their due meant that inevitably the cost of attending games would increase for the fans but baseball is still worth the price.
Thomas Kirkpatrick Sr. is a Silver Creek resident. Send comments to editorial@observertoday.com