Queens, NY – The New York Mets will celebrate their 50 years of history in the 2012 Season with an Anniversary Logo, a return of Banner Day, a Mets50.com web site, Anniversary Ticket Packs and a few other offers and events. The players will wear 3 redesigned uniforms: a home stripe, home white and Road Grey reflecting the look of the original uniforms from their inaugural season of 1962. All of the above was part of a news conference at the Caesars Club at Citi Field. Mets third baseman David Wright, first baseman Ike Davis and outfielder Lucas Duda were present and each modeled the uniforms during the event.
Howie Rose, the radio voice of the Mets emceed the event after a video clip showed highlights of Mets history minus José Reyes, the franchise first batting champ. The very first thing Mr. Rose did was to acknowledge Jay Horowitz (some writers use Horwitz), Vice President, Media Relations, who during the season suffered multiple displaced fractures in his right ankle. He sat in his wheel chair and Mr. Rose quipped “I would ask Jay to take a bow, but I am not sure his insurance covers that, so stay just where you are (some laughter, but still an ironic truth of health coverage in general).”
Mr. Rose then gave way to Mets Vice President of Business operations Dave Howard who went on to give the details of the features of the 50th Anniversary celebrations. Later the first question to him was basically: "Given the problems the Mets have had during the last couple of years, do you think this celebration will be a welcomed distraction?" His reply was immediately to disagree with the proposition that it was a distraction, gave positive feedback and ended by saying "So there are better days ahead for this team and this franchise. To call this a distraction would be a great disservice."
Another interesting question was to the effect of how the fan content on the Banner Day will be monitored. This could be an interesting scenario in the wake of the Occupy Wall Street protests, and the quagmire created by Bernie Madoff and the Ponzi scheme that has made shambles of the Mets financial situation. Mr. Howard dismissed the notion of possible censuring by saying, "We believe Mets fans will act appropriately."
But on a possible note Mr. Howard said that not only the outfield dimensions were scaled back, so were ticket prices. He also affirmed the Mets commitment to diversity when asked by Latino Sports CEO Julio Pabón how the 50th celebrations would take into account the booming Latino community. “The Latino community has always been front and center for our promotional efforts. One of the things we are seriously considering is post game concerts including a merengue contest.
One may note overall that celebrating diversity could have begun with a Latino player donning one of the new uniforms.
And so it will be that the 50th Anniversary will have a 50th Anniversary Logo, redesigned uniforms, Post Game Concerts and a Merengue Contest and much more, but not likely of fan chants of José, José, José…
First published in www.latinosports.com
Photo by Damien Acevedo
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