Conference Report Day III (also, some before): Present-ation

[captainsblog]

I've gathered a bunch of pictures on the Bookface that are available publicly at this link. Yes, that's my name; don't wear it out.

Those photos were gathered over three days on two different devices, but among my favorites so far, not in that collection, was this one that fellow blogger Coop asked me to pose for.

Oh dear, there's that name again. 

Sadly, I missed Taryn's presentation late Saturday so I could get home even later-but-still Saturday. For the final hour of that journey, I got to listen to the Mets gain, blow and eventually recover a lead- a pattern they repeated today, as well.

My notes from the various proceedings are even more scattered- among laptop, tablet and old-fashioned legal pad, but here are a few of the highlights:

One of the pairs of Met heroes I'd looked forward to were Mr. & Mrs. Skip Lockwood, who, respectively, anchored the bullpen for much of the 70s, and went on to write about being married to the Mob Mets. Sadly, they wound up not making it to the event, so Mrs. L's place on an early-Friday panel got taken by an historian from Kent State named Leslie Heaphy, who spoke on the role of "An Early Leader" by the name of Joan Payson. She was the team's original owner, a former co-owner of the deserting Giants, and for the first 15 years of the team's history was a quiet but important influence in all of its moves and success.  Professor Heaphy recounted the mid-60s trade of Ron Hunt, the team's first true homegrown player and its first-ever All-Star starter; I'd read, years before, about how crushed he was by his being traded, but I'd never before heard how Mrs. Payson took the time to explain it to him. The team was so bad, she consoled him, "you were the only player we could trade."

Also on that panel was a mathematical analysis of why our third manager, Gil Hodges, should be in the Hall of Fame. The presenter used Sabremetrics and anecdotes to make the case, among other things observing that the 1969 Series champ Mets had been predicted, by raw statistics, to fare no better than they'd done in achieving 9th place the season before. Professor Saccoman confirmed this data by noting his own statistical experience in recreating the games through random trials: "When I play them in Stratomatic, I get my head beaten in."

Next, I moved on to sit in on a panel of writers, including baseball's official historian John Lynch. He'd tried writing outside the baseball realm- “I wanted to bring England to its knees by killing Little Nell”- but ultimately found his niche between the foul lines, sharing a sentiment I achieved last summer, that seeing your own book in print is "as close as men come to giving birth."  He also recommended his recent success in tracing the history of baseball in its earliest days: “I like my ballplayers dead. They don’t complain and I can make stuff up about them.”

I will need to come back to the lunchtime and afternoon panels, to get in two of the highlights for me.

First: Friday night's banquet, honoring Dana Brand and Ed Charles, both of whom I have spoken of in previous entries here, and featuring a keynote from 70s-and-80s Met hero Rusty Staub.  Le Grand Orange talked about coming to the Mets in the tragic days following Gil's sudden death, playing through injury in the 1973 World Series, and then coming back in a new role as a pinch-hitter on the eve of the team's 80s successes.  Even more poignant for me, though, was hearing Rusty being introduced, by Hofstra professor Paula Uruburu. Although we'd never met or even spoken before this event, she's about my age, grew up near me, and had the same passion for those original World Champion Mets that I shared. Perhaps even more, though; when the season ended, instead of transferring her allegiances to other sports as I did, she and her sister would recreate Met games in their driveway using, well, bugs. Among their star "players," she confessed, were Ant Charles and Ant Shamsky; Fleaon Jones; and, my personal favorite (more so because his namesake was in the audience at the time), Bug Harrelson.

And finally, my 20-ish minutes of fame came late the next morning.  I presented to a near-full room, with cameras rolling (so there may yet be a Youtube of this out there someplace). I was juggling a Powerpoint and a separate audio clip on my laptop, only realizing, during an earlier talk, that I would not be able to read from my text ON the laptop, so I managed to switch it to the tablet and prayed that all the software and batteries would hold up. They did, and I did; the presentation was well-received, I only made one remark I regretted during it (dissing the Yankees: okay; dissing specific people connected with the Yankees: not okay), and I filled my time while still leaving some for a few questions.

One last Bullpen with the Bloggers, and it was time to head home. Getting out in mid-afternoon was much easier than either of the previous evenings' exits; Hosftra is in a neighborhood that was "rough" even when I lived nearby, and it was easier to escape from Stalag 13 at night than to find an open gate from the campus at 10 p.m. Yet, like Gil, and Yogi, I managed.

I'll try to fill in some final thoughts after returning to the weekday grind tomorrow:)