When the Mets Met Science: The Time Roy Lee Jackson, Steve Henderson & Alex Treviño Made 3-2-1 Contact

Before PitchCom, before the analytics department, before catchers had laminated wristbands the size of a Denny’s menu, there was… hand signals. And in 1980, the New York Mets took a break from trying to stay out of the basement of the NL East to give a national science lesson on exactly how those signals worked on an episode of PBS’s 3-2-1 Contact.

Yes, 3-2-1 Contact. The science show that was essentially a gateway drug for nerdy kids in the '80s, right after Mr. Wizard and just before you accidentally learned something from Reading Rainbow. On March 17, 1980, an episode titled “Human Communication” featured Mets pitcher Roy Lee Jackson, catcher Alex Treviño, and outfielder Steve Henderson teaching a wide-eyed young host named Marc how pitchers and catchers talk without saying a word.

And honestly? It holds up.

3-2-1 Contact was the brainchild of the same folks who brought us The Electric Company and Sesame Street. They figured if kids could learn the alphabet from a woolly mammoth with a big heart, they could probably learn science from a baseball team with a losing record.

To their credit, they were right.

The show’s mission was to get kids curious about how the world works. And what better metaphor for non-verbal communication than the mysterious dance between pitcher and catcher?

Enter Roy Lee Jackson, a hard-throwing righty with a gospel voice and an easy smile. Jackson was more than willing to explain the basics: One finger down means fastball. Two for curve. Three for slider. A wiggle means change-up. Simple, right?

Except, as Alex Treviño warns Marc, “If there’s a guy on second base, he might steal the sign.”

This leads to a fun little segment about changing the indicator—a concept every Little Leaguer eventually learns after getting rocked once too often. Treviño explains, "If one is the indicator, and I flash two-one-three-four, that second number is the one that counts. One means fastball, so the second sign—'one'—means fastball." Got that?

Marc nods. Kind of.

Steve Henderson, fresh off a solid 1979 campaign where he hit .306, steps in for a batting demo. Marc dares Roy to throw him a curve. Spoiler alert: it does not go well.

“Oh, Alex, there’s no way I’m gonna hit that ball. Not a chance,” Marc says after flailing at one of Jackson’s hooks.

So, of course, he asks the next logical question: “Why don’t you just yell out the pitch?”

When Steve Henderson steps in and knows the pitch is coming—boom. Fastball. Crushed. He grins and says, “If I knew what pitch was coming, I’d hit 600. Maybe 500 home runs.”

Now that’s confidence. And hey, Henderson wasn’t just talking smack. From 1977 to 1980, he was one of the few bright spots on some very forgettable Mets teams, slashing .287/.351/.415 over those four years.

As for Alex Treviño, the young catcher was just beginning what would become a solid 13-year MLB career. Known more for his glove than his bat, Treviño was beloved by teammates and managers alike for his hustle and smarts—qualities you can see on full display in this clip.

And Roy Lee Jackson? He’d pitch for parts of 10 seasons, finishing with a 3.77 ERA and an even more impressive post-baseball career as a gospel singer. (No joke the man has pipes.)

To place this in context: the 1980 Mets were not exactly contenders. This was the pre-Strawberry, pre-Gooden, pre-“Let’s take this seriously again” Mets era. Nelson Doubleday and Fred Wilpon had just bought the team from the deRoulet family, who ran it like a small chain of laundromats.

The Mets would finish 67–95 that season under manager Joe Torre. They were dead last in the NL in home runs and near the bottom in ERA. Shea Stadium was mostly empty. The magic of ’69 felt like ancient history. The miracle of ’86 was still a pipe dream.

But in that moment, with cameras rolling and science on the line, three Mets took the time to teach a kid about teamwork, deception, and trust—the stuff that makes baseball beautiful.

And that, my friends, is worth remembering.