Ticket to the Past -5/17/91
For this first installment of Tickets to the Past, I drew a ticket stub from a major league game I attended 26 years ago, a matchup between the New York Mets and Los Angeles Dodgers at Dodger Stadium on Friday, May 17, 1991.
I recall going with my college buddies, with whom I caravaned to Southern California several months earlier in August 1990. Two of the three were Mets fans hailing from Brooklyn. My other friend was from New Jersey and a diehard Yankees fan. I had been a Dodgers fan since I was about 10, so you can suppose we had some verbal jousts on this evening.
If today’s Dodger Stadium seating chart mirrors its 1991 version, we sat high up in the top deck along the third base foul line. What would you expect from four twenty-somethings basically just out of college?
Though L.A. grabbed an early 1-0 lead for starter Mike Morgan, the Mets went on to a 4-2 victory to give Frank “Sweet Music” Viola his fifth win in six decisions.
DID YOU KNOW?: I had forgotten that longtime Montreal Expos and Mets great Gary Carter was on this 1991 Dodgers squad.
TICKET TIMEFRAME
U.S. President at the time: George H.W. Bush. It was a little more than a year away from Bill Clinton’s 1992 election victory.
My internship with the Los Angeles Lakers: The day after this game, the Lakers were set to tip off Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals at rival Portland. As a PR intern for the team that season, I’m sure I thought a lot about that upcoming series that night.