25 February 2009

a final tribute for tommie agee and shea stadium

sometimes when i look at cards like this 1970 tommie agee, i think i see dodger stadium. the color palette of the seats gives it away, but there's no pavilion in left field. it's actually shea stadium, before they orange-ified all the seats. with the demolition of shea complete, now is a good time to reflect on the 1966 american league rookie of the year.

anyway, tommie agee will forever have a place in mets lore. in the 1969 world series, agee made two fantastic catches in game 3, most likely saving the game for the miracle mets. earlier that year, he hit the only upper deck home run in the stadium's history, a feat commemorated with a painted marker halfway up section 48. i believe the marker was saved for display at the mets' new stadium.
tommie was traded by the mets to the astros after the 1972 season. he spent only a part of the 1973 season in houston before being traded to the cardinals. he didn't do too well in saint louis, and was traded to the dodgers after that season ended, as captured on his 1974 topps traded card. agee never played for the dodgers, though, as they released him in spring training, making his 1974 cards a true final tribute.

agee died in 2001, but his memory will apparently live on in citi field, as well as the hearts of mets fans everywhere.

2 comments:

James said...

Great tribute. Its amazing how less than 10K people were at that game, but the legend of the HR lives on. That's great the marker is being moved to Citi.

Johngy said...

The Agee tribute brought me to Cleon Jones (I confused them as a kid). Now, a Cleon Jones tribute card in a White Sox uni would be interesting. Maybe Steve at WSC...(just hoping).