1968 Mets Team Leaders / 1969 Fantazy Cards

Whoa. Things are gettin' real. Three Met batters with a batting average of over .275! You're gonna spoil us guys!

Cleons photo is from Fat Jack.

That's almost the kinda look Grote gave me when he told me to fuck off that time.

Still working on the Ed Charles colorization. It was looking blotchy. Sometimes you have to step away from it a while and then look at it again. That still needs work.

Power-wise these were still the mid-sixties Mets. Most of these years I should have included RBIs too but I'm not sure if that would have made these numbers any less depressing.
I guess in a way the early Met performances I saw (1970-1974) forged my opinion as to what a standard power hitter was. So I wasn't asking for much. Watching Agee and Staub in the early 70's I felt that anything on or upward of 20 HRs, 75 RBI, .275 BA, was a successful offensive season for a power hitter. So expecting a team leader to hit 20 or more long balls was not a rude expectation.

Sure, other teams had 30 and 40 HR hitters but that was not our lot. And that was okay. We were about pitching these days. Gil Hodges was an artist at mix and matching his lesser offensive units. It would be awhile before Dave Kingman would raise the bar for this Met fan.

After Tom Seaver's grand debut in 1967 who would have thought that he wouldn't lead the team in all starting pitching categories the '68. Along came Jerry Koosman and suddenly the Mets had two awesome pitchers.

This card is a collectors special because for the first time in Fantazy Card history we have three players appearing in the vicinity of the Sadecki Spot on the same card. Jerry looks to be smack dab on the spot. Tom's close. Selma's out standing in the field.