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Ah, the savoury pleasure of a fellow Metsaholic from back when! You might care to know that I am working on my first book and it will be about the 1962 Mets. (I was working on a book about the Cubs and the Red Sox until I started thinking about a magazine type piece commemorating the 40th anniversary, and people I showed a draft to said I just had to make a book about the original Amazin' Mets.)

By the way, the famous signmaker - he customarily sat in the box seats behind the third base dugout - was named Karl Ehrhardt, not Dave, and by trade he was a commercial artist. And he was even more magnificent in the World Series. I've never forgotten when Frank Robinson beefed over a close play in the infield (he was thrown out very tightly) and Ehrhardt whipped up one of his famously stylised signs: BACK TO YOUR NEST, BIRD! And throughout the entire Oriole ninth in the final game, he held a sign: BYE BYE BIRDIES! When Cleon Jones made the famous praying catch of Davey Johnson's fly to left, and the Mets had the Series nailed, up went a sign that said it all: THERE ARE NO WORDS. He was invited, in fact, to ride in one of the cars for the Mets' victory parade in Manhattan, and there he was, holding up a sign that said even more: THEY SAID IT COULDN'T BE DONE!

He was also prepared in the 1973 World Series, the day after the Mike Andrews contretemps, when Charley Finley tried throwing Andrews off the team for a couple of errors. The first Oakland error of the next game was greeted with YOU'RE FIRED!

Ehrhardt took a long time, however, to warm up to Ed Kranepool, who never really did live up to his earliest promise. For a long time, whenever Kranepool got a hit in a game, his typical greeting was BIG DEAL! In fact, it was Ehrhardt, in the early Polo Grounds days, who whipped up the famous sign that greeted the still-teenaged Kranepool in 1963, IS ED KRANEPOOL OVER THE HILL? But in Kranepool's later years, Ehrhardt began to like the man - possibly as Kranepool was transforming into one of the better pinch hitters in the National League (which he was for a few years), whipping up signs like KILLER KRANE and LOOPENARK THE GREAT.

Dave Kingman actually had Ehrhardt to thank for getting the nickname King Kong. When Kingman first joined the Mets in 1975, Ehrhardt was well prepared for Kingman's first downtown shot at Shea in a Met uniform (Kingman as a Giant had once smashed the Giants' team bus windshield with a homer - behind the bullpen) - sure enough, the first time Kingman went yard in Shea as a Met, there was the sign: KONG! and the nickname stuck. Kingman himself was a little squeamish about the nickname, at least until the annual Banner Day parade, when he discovered just how popular he actually was his first term with the Mets: two thirds of the banners referred to the big man, and at least half of them addressed him as "King Kong Kingman" or just "King Kong". Ehrhardt liked to greet Kingman as he approached the plate for a time at bat with THE KING OF SWING, a sign Kingman was said to have loved especially. (Kingman's troubles with the sporting press and his reputation as a mistanthrope didn't begin until after he was purged as part of the infamous Mets "Saturday Night Massacre" in 1977...)

Thought you might appreciate this, from the Mets' founding (foundling?) days...

That's wonderful stuff. By the way, I can watch both game three and game five of the 1969 World series at mlb.com website. They have lots of other classic games in their archive, including games from the Brooklyn Dodgers/New York Yankees 1952 series, game 6 of the 1975 series, game 6 of the 1986 series, game 1 of the 1988 series plus other world series and playoff games from the 60's,70's,80's,90's..2000 and 2001. I had to pay for the service. You are exactly correct Krl Ehrhardt raised his sign that said "back to your nest bird" after Robinson made out after earlier beefing about being hit by a pitch but not given first base. Robinson and Weaver beef for about five minutes. Robinson then heads into the bird lockeroom, probably because he wants everyone to think he really was hit with the pitch, before finally emerging from the dugout to resume his at bat. (One inning later comes the famous shoe polish on the baseball incident which awards Jones first base..needless to say..Earl Weaver is beside himself...next batter..Donn Clendenon hits the two run homer cutting the Bird lead to one run, 3-2.) You see it all while watching the game at mlb.com's video section. You also see Tony Kubeck in the stands finding all the luminaries to talk to during the game such as a young Joe Dimaggio and Pearl Bailey and lots of other stars.

Best on luck writing your 1962 Mets book. If you write that book like you post here in this thread it will be chock full with wonderful incites and stories and I'm sure it will get published and become a best seller!

I bet you know what Marv Thrownberry's middle initial was.. I don't know if it was Casey Stengell or Joan Payson who said it but somebody said Marv was born to be a Met!

Unfortunatley, I have no memories of the original 1962 Mets. I'm going to have to count on you to paint that picture for me. My first memory of the Mets was 1964. My dad took me to the first game ever played at Shea Stadium in April 64. I still have the program complete with Dad's scoring of the game. The cover of the program contained the words 'worlds fair' edition because the New York City Worlds Fair had also just opened in Flushing, New York. The program contained lots of information about the fair about Shea Stadium and how to travel from Shea to the Worlds fair and vice versa. That day Willie Stargell hit the first homerun ever at Shea stadium. Later that day Gil Hodges hit the first Mets homerun at Shea Stadium. The program had some other great features. It contained a story on rookie of the year Pete Rose and rookie of the year runner up Ron Hunt. I also remember the program listed all the pitchers from all the major league teams. As I looked down the list of Chicago White Sox pitchers I noticed the name D. Debuschere. I knew it had to be Dave Debuschere the future NBA hall of fame player with the Detroit Pistons and the New York Knicks.