Authentication
1978 Mets Nelson Briles
Authentication with the help of…Saturday Night Live???
Never underestimate what you can find on the Internet. Read on for the full story. Beisbol is indeed berry berry good.
There’s a first for everything. Collector Robert Loglisci is a bona fide Mike Scott fan. Over the past couple of years he has been diligently trying to find game worn jerseys that Mike wore while pitching throughout his career for the Mets and Astros. Some of his finds have been in perfect, original condition, but most were sent to the minor leagues or reused again in spring training and needed some work, which I helped with.
Mike Scott was drafted by the Mets in 1976 and toiled in the minor leagues during 1977 and 1978 before being called up to the big club for the start of the 1979 season. Robert is quite good with research and was able to locate press photos and spring training rosters that showed that Scott wore number 59 in his first couple of big league spring training invitations.
For any player who might have a chance of being called up during the season, the team typically will make a set of jerseys for him that he uses in spring training and they generally would be issued for use if a call up happens.
Robert found this team tagged 1978 Mets home jersey with number 59 on it, he happily assumed he had found Mike Scott’s spring training jersey from 1978. He asked me to authenticate it.
There’s one important thing to know about spring training: the team will wear their prior years uniforms there, being issued their new set for the season on opening day. Therefore in spring training of 1978, Mike Scott would have worn a 1977-tagged jersey. I quickly determined that this jersey Robert had found must be from 1979 spring training. I asked him if his research had uncovered anything about what Scott wore in the Spring prior to the start of the 1979 season. Searching Baseball Almanac’s records we learned Mike Scott was wearing number 30 when he started the season with the major league Mets squad in April 1979. I reasoned that he probably was wearing number 30 during 1979 Spring training as well. Notice that the jersey being worn in this picture is the button front style without the blue and orange trim on the sleeve ends and around the neck. This is clearly an earlier season jersey.
A little more research showed that Scott was indeed wearing number 30 in 1979 spring training. Looking at the Mets roster for 1979 nobody was issued number 59. Therefore, this wasn’t Mike Scott's jersey. We thought that the story had ended at this point, but did it? Curious, Robert again went back to the spring training records and found that pitcher Nelson Briles had been invited to spring training after having been released from the Baltimore Orioles after the prior season . Briles was nearing the end of a notable 14-year career where he had won 129 games for the Cardinals, Pirates, Rangers, Royals and Orioles. After being released by the Orioles at the end of the 1978 season, he joined the Mets for 1979 Spring Training— and we located his name and number at the very bottom of the team roster in April showing him as a non-roster player. Searching Briles’ Wikipedia page we learned that he was indeed cut by the Mets in April, effectively ending his major league baseball career. Who could hope to find a picture of him wearing this uniform with such a brief appearance on the Mets in the preseason? And that should’ve been the end of the story. But the Internet is a wonderful thing…
Searching for information on Briles in 1979 uncovered that he was featured in a Saturday night live skit that has become very famous over time, The Chico Escuela (“Beiseball been berry berry good to me”) sketch where comedian Garrett Morris, playing fictional Dominican baseball player Chico Escuela was trying to make a comeback on the Mets after having written a damaging tell-all book called “Bad Stuff ‘Bout the Mets”. The sketch is well remembered, as players on the Mets are interviewed saying that they could never forgive him for writing such a book and that he was dead to them. Briles was one of the players featured in this video, and in two scenes it is obvious that he is wearing the jersey that I now held in my hands. Garrett Morris has said that this is one of his favorite SNL moments. A link to the SNL video is here: https://x.com/i/status/1469072174036271107
Robert was also able to locate a late spring training team photo of the Mets where Nelson Briles can be seen sitting with the other players, and again the alignment of the pinstripes with the stitched on elements on his jersey indicate that he is indeed wearing the same jersey that I was evaluating today.
So there you have it, pitcher Nelson Briles’ final major league baseball jersey, authenticated with the aid of Saturday Night Live and the fictional Chico Escuela. Baseball is berry berry good, indeed. Here is a copy of the complete two-page letter of opinion so you can read it if you'd like.
Here is a copy of the complete two-page letter of opinion so you can read it if you'd like. (page 2)