[Merkle923]

For all the modern metrics, and the increasing interest in well-researched baseball history, one area that is lost in the folds of time is how team managements thought they stood at a given point. Only if you thumb through newspapers in February or March of 1962 do you get the sense that the New York Mets (and a lot of brass, and writers, in other cities) thought they had a pretty good ballclub - possibly a .500 team - entering into the season in which they would break all modern records for most losses.

Similarly, even after their implosion in September, 1964, the Phillies spent several years absolutely convinced they were only a player or two away from winning the pennant. Invariably those players were older (Dick Groat, Bill White, Larry Jackson, Bob Buhl, Pedro Ramos, Dick Hall, Turk Farrell - even guys released by other teams like Roger Craig).

This often damaging conviction (Jackson and Buhl cost them Ferguson Jenkins) may have reached its climax in 1967. As the Dexter image I posted earlier showed, the Phils brought Jim Gentile into camp even though he'd been traded or released three times in the preceding season-and-a-half (once, traded while tied for the lead in homers in the American League). They also invited Harvey Kuenn back even though he'd had exactly 14 extra base hits in the previous two seasons. Kuenn had the presence of mind to retire instead.

The Phils also brought in former Reds' ace Joey Jay even though he'd been traded and released in a six month span. They were convinced Jay would make the team and stuck his photo in a couple of publications. Even when Jay bombed out in the spring, they briefly assigned him to a A-ball. The number they saw was his chronological age (31) and not career innings (2056, majors and minors combined).

Not to go too deeply into the history lesson but 1967 was also the year the Phils gave another chance (11 AA starts) to 40-year old Robin Roberts, and stocked AAA with veterans dumped by other teams like Dick Bertell, Lou Clinton, Marty Keough, and Ed Roebuck.

Anyway, here's the first color shot I've ever seen of Jay during his ill-fated time with the '67 Phillies.

BTW message received on some of the requested Dexter images. I'm going to have another couple dozen processed at the pro shop and should have them back by mid-January, but I have to note at the top that Harris, Herrera, Owens, and Von Hoff are not among the Astros, Korince is not among the Tigers, Bench, Davidson and Osteen are not among the Reds, and Jake Wood would not be among the Reds since these are all from the spring and he didn't go to Cincinnati until June 23.