Let’s drift back to 1978. The TV show Lou Grant captured the nation’s collective conscious, as evidenced by children everywhere naming their imaginary friends ‘Ed Asner.’ Teenage boys were dying their hair red as Ralph Malph Mania was at an all-time high. And ‘Captain Stubing’ topped ‘Bubba’ as the most popular nickname for high school football players. Musically, the Bee Gees showed us how important having chest hair is for a nation to feel good about itself. And at the movies, America couldn’t get enough of 35-year-old, singing, dancing teenage delinquents in Grease, and 30 years later I’ve proven Animal House’s point that you can get through life fat, drunk and stupid.
While American culture was at its zenith, the New York Mets were hitting rock bottom. They finished in last place for the second of three consecutive seasons. And they had the worst record in the National League, with a 66-96 mark, coming in 24 games behind first-place Philadelphia. The team followed up the Midnight Massacre of 1977 by trading away Jon Matlack and John Milner in a four-team swap in December of ’77. Jerry Koosman and Ed Kranepool were all that were left of the ’69–’73 glory years of the team. The Joe Torre–led squad was in a rebuilding mode, only nobody knew what they were trying to build.
The offense could only manage to hit 86 home runs that year. The team leader was first baseman Willie Montanez, who blasted 17 round-trippers and also paced the Mets in RBIs with 96. He was mostly known for his flamboyant bat flips and snatch catches. He came close to driving in 100 runs so was traded the next season, as the Mets weren’t going to put up with that kind of success in those years. Doug Flynn manned second base. He was so good in the field and so bad at the plate that he would often throw himself out when he hit a grounder to second. Shortstop Tim ‘Crazy Horse’ Foli was back for his second stint with the Mets. A master at throwing the bat at the ball on an outside pitch during a hit-and-run, he once almost hit coach Dal Maxvill with his bat and just ran away thinking he might get grounded by Torre. He was later found playing for the Pirates and helped them win the ’79 World Series. At third base was Lenny Randle, whose punishment for 
punching manager Frank Lucchesi
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