Register. Attend. Take part.
The Hofstra 50th Anniversary Mets Conference must be getting close, and not just because I finally finished writing my paper for it. Indeed, the event Dana Brand envisioned and cultivated for years is upon us, arriving April 26-28, just three weeks from tomorrow. Registration information, along with a (mostly complete) program, is now available at the Hofstra Cultural Center site.
My advice? Go register and attend the conference. Spend three days there if you can. Spend part of one day there if that’s all you can do. But for Mets’ sake, take in as much of it as you can.
In my informal capacity as editorial consultant to the conference, I’ve been immersed in a dozen logistical details for the past few months, so it is only now that I’m pulling back and noticing what an incredible lineup Hofstra has put together. It’s 1986/1999/2006 strong. Brothers and sisters, this is the kind of event we as Mets fans always wish would come along…and it has.
I’m so happy to see so many people I know on the program, not because I know them but because I know they know their Mets and they are going to explore so many different aspects of the Mets experience. You’ll likely recognize a whole bunch of names, including a few who wore the uniform and some others who tracked their doings from the press box. Yet to me, the beauty of this conference is how many fans — bloggers and otherwise — are taking part. We the fans represent the filter for what the Mets truly mean. We tell the story to one another every day. Telling it in one concentrated forum, with an audience eager to hear about it and contribute their own stories, with everybody involved taking this thing we call the Mets seriously…that was Dana’s dream. It’s the dream for a lot of us, but Dana had the presence of mind to actually dream it and put it into action.
I’ll be talking this up in a little more detail over the next three weeks, but the time for talking about it has become the time to act. Check out what’s planned and make yourself a part of this once-in-a-lifetime Mets happening.
FYI, proceeds from the conference (above expenses) will go to the Dana Brand Memorial Scholarship Fund, one small way in which the conference is dedicated to the memory of the Mets fan who thought it up in the first place.
The best thing about the conference? Not a Wilpon to be found in the program. Or any current Mets PR phonies. This a a great, fan-friendly lineup of all things Metsie.
Not that they wouldn’t be welcome to attend, either.
Greg,
Glad the welcome mat would not be there for the same welcome mat is certainly not there for those unable to spend several hundred dollars to go to Citi Field.
Especially for those sitting in the cheap seats with blocked views and no restroom close by to run to.
I will not be able to attend but sounds fantastic. Please share your thoughts on the event, and also the paper you are presenting.
Thanks,
Ed
I’m looking forward to it! As a lifelong Mets fan ex-pat living in out on the edge of the prairie in Lake Wobegon country, it should be great. I gotta get tickets to a game Wed. night. Of course, they scheduled the opening of conference during Thursday game (and I see maybe 1 Met game live every 4 years…and that’s in places like St. Louis)…
I’m presenting a paper Saturday on the Mets, Latin America and the “Los Mets” controversy during Minaya’s tenure…read through A LOT of old newpapers..did you know the Mets broadcast in Spanish language right from 1962! WPIX even had a weekly hour long show on the Winter Leagues in Latin America in the mid-60s.
Wish they could have gotten some 86 era players to show up…Gary, Keith and Ron would have been great! Ralph?!?! Mookie? Hubie?
Paul,
Look forward to meeting you there. Thanks for coming and presenting.
And we do have Skip Lockwood! (Exclamation point added without irony.)
Oh…nothing against Mr. Lockwood! I have his 79 baseball card somewhere…it seemed like I got a TON of Skip Lockwood cards that year. :) I remember seeing him pitch at Shea with my dad.