An Interesting Interaction Between UWers and the Mets ‘Perfect’ Record in BFBS and CC

I don’t expect to have four articles every day — and apologies because today they all seem to revolve around me — but this one is both timely and speaks to a Uni Watch convergence. Allow me to briefly explain.

My pal (and longtime UW reader and contributor) Kary Klismet was one of many readers who made the long trip to New York for Paul’s send-off, and we made plans to see the Mets this past Saturday. As you may be aware, home Saturdays are the designated times for the Mets to wear their City Connect (CC) uniforms. I hadn’t been to a game all season, and Kary had never been to CitiField Shea, so we’d both be seeing the CCs in person for the first time.

I told Kary the Mets had an interesting streak going — and not a good one: they were winless in their CCs, their BFBS tops, and (at the time), their blue alternates as well. They partially broke the streak on Sunday, when they won for the first time this season wearing their blue alternates. But, as of this writing, they’re still winless in either their CCs or BFBS.

As fate would have it, the Mets were ahead 2-1 going into the 9th inning on Saturday, and brought on Edwin Diaz to close the game. While Diaz was absolutely incredible in 2022 (he was injured for all of last year), and started off 2024 notching a few saves, he’d hit a bad stretch where he either blew saves or leads in non-save situations several times in the past few weeks. After we were treated to Timmy Trumpet, I said to Kary, “just watch him blow this one.” And he did. He gave up the tying run, and the Mets lost in extra innings, keeping their “perfect” (ZERO wins) record intact for their CCs.

Fast forward a day: I’d interacted with reader Steve Dodell several times on this site (Steve is a huge Mets fan, and who you may remember spotted the Seaver statue error and for which Paul — and indrectly Steve — received a bit of notoriety). Steve attended Paul’s retirement party and of course, our conversation turned to the Mets and their alternate uniforms. Unbeknownst to me at the time, Steve also had been tracking the Mets record by uniform top, and was posting them to Twitter. As of yesterday, here’s a look at their uni W/L breakdown:

The Mets were scheduled to wear their pinstripes yesterday, but that game was rained out, and they’ll play a double-dip against the Dodgers later this afternoon. It’s entirely possible either (or both) of those games will feature the team wearing an alternate top, so these statistics will change. Hence, why I’m posting this article now.

Once Steve introduced himself to me and we’d chatted a bit, I grabbed Kary and we informed Steve we’d been talking about the very thing he is tracking at the game the day before! Of course, as is the case when a bunch of Uni Watchers get together, those two hit it off — I just thought it was kind of kismet that our uni-obsessions dovetailed so serendipitously at Paul’s farewell!

__________Aside from the fact that the Mets aren’t doing very well this season (they only have a winning record in their home pinstripes), they’re winless in BFBS and (what Nike/Mets call) graphite (CC) uniforms.

I bring all this up not just to highlight how Steve and I were on the same wavelength (which I at least found cool), but to bring up a larger Uni Watching point: how soon will Mets fans call for the team to STOP wearing BFBS or CC uniforms because of their losing? We’ve discussed how otherwise excellent (or at least really good) uniforms have been deemed unlucky or worse — like the Cowboys old blue jerseys, or Pat Patriot or the Broncos Orange Crush. Those were all excellent uniforms, but teams didn’t play particularly well (or lost the big game or what have you) in them, but many fans don’t like an otherwise great uniform simply because the team didn’t win in them. Conversely, fans seem to love bad uniforms if a team has had success wearing them.

I even devoted a column to this back in 2021.

There are already a good segment of Mets fans who don’t like the BFBS or CC uniforms because they aren’t in Mets colors, but there are also plenty who are fans who do like them — Kary and I noticed a good number of attendees at Saturday’s game who were wearing CC (or black) jerseys. But if they keep losing while wearing them, will fans start to associate the uniforms themselves with losing? And will they either stop wearing them to games or even call for the team to go back to their pins (or blue alternates, which are fine)?

Will the Mets BFBS/CC losing streak end soon? That remains to be seen.

• • • • •And as long as we’re on the topic — and rather than make this a “What Phil Did This Weekend” type post, I wanted to share a few photos from the Mets game that Kary took.

Here’s the Seaver statue that Steve made “famous” — I specifically pointed that out to Kary.

You guys may recall Paul recently highlighted another “LOL Mets” moment when the team mowed the wrong number font into the outfield grass for Dwight Gooden’s number retirement. This coming Saturday, the Mets will be doing the same for Darryl Strawberry. As fate would have it, the team has already mowed Darryl’s No. 18 into the grass — but this time they used the correct font!. I can’t help but think Paul had something to do with this!

Before the game, Kary asked me if Mr. Met would be sporting the CC uniform the team would be wearing. Of course…

And finally, seated in front of us a couple rows down was a guy with a custom jersey and the NOB “THUMBS DOWN GUY” — he had plenty to “cheer” for this day.

• • • • •Once again — thanks for indulging me with this article (I promise there won’t be many like this one).

Thanks to Kary for the photos! If you weren’t already aware, Kary has penned a great series of Purple Amnesty Day articles in addition to his fantastic “Dressed For The Season” articles. In addition to Steve’s work with Paul, he also worked with me on a fantastic deep dive into the Sand Knit number font a couple years back.