THE 1969 MIRACLE METS: THE IMPROBABLE STORY OF THE WORLD’S GREATEST UNDERDOG TEAM (24 page)

1,781,657 came to Shea that season. It was not
considered a good year for baseball. The pitchers dominated,
leading to a lowering of the mound in 1969 (and the designated
hitter in 1973). It was a tough year for the country, the year of
Tet, the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert
Kennedy, riots in major cities. Many ballparks were dilapidated,
still in the urban centers. Suburban fans were not comfortable
going there, especially at night. Yankee Stadium and Griffith
Stadium in D.C. (later re-named after RFK) were dead zones.

It was still a year of Yankee improvement after
three awful seasons, but their standards were so high their fans
could care less. They stayed away in droves. The Mets were the
thing now. But what really turned people on was pro football,
Broadway Joe and His Super Jets
. Shea was in a safe
environment, the place to be for both Jets and Mets fans. The
football Giants were dismal in this period of their history.

But excitement over the Mets made them an exception.
The Dodgers, record-breakers in attendance, had not kept up with
the times and suffered a reduction (although they were still among
the league leaders). The Giants, very popular when they first came
to San Francisco, saw a bad drop in fan support. Across the bay,
the new Oakland A’s diluted the Giants’ fan base but still drew
only mediocre numbers. Houston’s Astrodome, a big draw at first,
was less interesting now, and the new team finished dead last.
Baltimore: bad neighborhood. Cleveland: blah. California: Gene
Autry’s suburban venture had yet to take off. There were no
divisions, no wild cards, and races in both leagues were decided
early with little excitement outside of Detroit and St. Louis. In
Boston, the days of mega-excitement over the Red Sox had not hit,
at least by today’s standards, although they were defending league
champions and drew well for the times. Roger Angell wrote that
baseball’s 1968 demographics were old people and “Negroes. Bad,
bad
image.”

In New York, everybody was gaga over the Jets. They
were new, sleek, sexy, and with-it. Namath paraded around town in a
mink coat, grew a Fu Manchu, hung out at the Playboy Club. They
were a mixture of black and white players from all over the
country. In those days it certainly looked that whatever social
experiment a pro football team is, this one sure had succeeded.
Women had never been a major part of the sports audience, but with
Namath’s Jets they were. Everybody wanted a part of them.

Comedian Johnny Carson, whose
Tonight Show
was a New York staple for years, featuring numerous Jets’ guests
during their heyday, jumped on the bandwagon with both feet. After
they beat the Raiders in the AFL championship game, “I helped the
players celebrate the victory at their private party in Joe
Namath’s new bar, Bachelors III,” he recalled. “It’s a good thing
they didn’t have to play the Colts the next morning . . .” After
beating Baltimore in Super Bowl III, Namath told reporters, “I just
want to thank all the broads in New York.”

Namath was “the personification of the new sports
star,” sportscaster Bob Costas said in
The Magnificent Seasons:
How the Jets, Mets, and Knicks Made Sports History and Uplifted a
City and the Country
by Art Shamsky with Barry Zeman. “Long
hair, flashy clothes, brash
persona
, and lots of cash
($400,000 was a lot of money in the sports world of the ‘60s). But
stylish and charismatic as he was, there was something decidedly
old school about Namath . . . Namath and the Jets raised the banner
of a new league and a new time in sports, although much of what
they were would have rung true anytime.”

When the team returned to New York City from Miami,
scene of the upset, Mayor John Lindsay, an embattled moderate
Republican, gleaned onto them at a ticker-tape confetti parade down
Broadway to city hall. The parade route was filled with screaming
young girls every bit as exuberant as those who had turned out for
The Beatles when they “invaded” America in 1964.

“When was the last time New York had anything like
this?” asked coach Weeb Ewbank. The answer was 1962, when astronaut
John Glenn was
feted
after becoming the first man to orbit
the globe in space before a death-defying return through the
Earth’s atmosphere when his heat shields threatened to malfunction.
But Ewbank was right. The Yankees never got this kind of reception.
Dodgers celebrations were Brooklyn affairs. This was the kind of
thing reserved for Charles Lindbergh, Dwight Eisenhower, and
Douglas MacArthur.

“The political climate, lack of trust and confidence
in many of our leaders, and unresolved social issues, all combined
to put citizens of our country and New York City in a continual
state of turmoil,” Namath recalled. Despite being born on the
“wrong side of the tracks” Namath, the kid who hung out with black
kids in the pool halls of Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, had a true
social conscience.

Sylvester Croom grew up black in Tuscaloosa,
Alabama. He later played for Bear Bryant after the color barrier
was removed, largely as a result of the 1970 USC-Alabama game, when
the Trojans’ black fullback, Sam “Bam” Cunningham ran wild and
helped convince the landed gentry that the Crimson Tide needed some
integratin’. He was about 13 when Namath arrived at ‘Bama.

“Namath would come down to the black neighborhoods
by himself,” recalled Croom. “I heard some at ‘Bama didn’t like it
but he was gonna do what he wanted. He’d mingle and we just looked
at him in amazement. We’d never had some white man, a local
celebrity, come down to our neighborhood. He was
sooo
cool,
man, like a cool jazz singer.”

Namath had predicted, in fact
guaranteed
,
victory despite being 18-point underdogs to Baltimore. Teammate
Dave Herman echoed the sentiment of everybody when he said, “If Joe
told me right this minute there was a lion standing behind me . . .
I’d jump.”

Seaver recalled being in the middle of finals at USC
when the Jets won the Super Bowl. “I’m sure the thought of the 1969
Mets accomplishing the same thing was light-years from my mind,” he
recalled.

“I have been told many times over the years that the
Jets, and then the Mets and Knicks, helped people emotionally deal
with all this adversity,” Namath recalled. “As sports figures, we
were important to our society as a whole, not only for what we did,
but how we did it. The Jets of that season were known as underdogs,
the working man’s team; an unselfish and cohesive unit that never
gave up. Our fans have never forgotten.”

“Time seemed to stand still in 1969 as the world
moved forward,” Seaver recalled of the ebullient atmosphere.

“In a time when New York City needed something to
lift its spirits, the Jets, Mets and Knicks were able to do that,”
recalled former U.S. Senator Bill Bradley (D.-New Jersey), a member
of the Knickerbockers and later a candidate for President. “All
three teams found a common ground as they captured the hearts and
minds of their fans. The exploits of these three remarkable teams
had an important and positive impact on the sports of the city when
people needed it most. Their legacy endures today.”

The theme of a team, or in this case three teams,
helping a community overcome difficult social circumstances was
relatively new in 1968-70, but that very year (’68) the Tigers were
credited with keeping Detroit together after riots roiled the city
the previous season. In 2001, the Yankees, of all people, took on
the role of underdogs. Their remarkable three-game sweep of Arizona
at home less than two months after 9/11 will some day be seen as
the moment when the War on Terror was won. In 2005, Louisiana
State’s football team played out a successful schedule to keep up
the hopes of fans devastated by Hurricane Katrina. The New Orleans
Saints did a similar thing the next year.

Sportswriter Bill Gutman: “In times like these,
people often look for an escape, no matter how ephemeral it might
be, and one of the most popular modes of escape has always been
sports. When things appear bleak, it always helps to be able to
hang your hat on a favorite team, especially if it’s winning, and
ride it through troubled times . . . The city needed some
excitement, but in 1968 finding it among the city’s professional
sports teams seemed like a lost cause.”

After the Jets came through, the Mets were only a
glimmer in their 1968 shadow, but they still benefited from
association with them. They shared the stadium, their names rhymed,
and each team had its share of young, single guys who enjoyed
hanging out together in Manhattan.

At 73-89, New York beat out the Astros by a game in
1968. Ever since the beginning, Houston had their number. In 1962,
when they were the Colt .45s (the Astros’ name came with the
building of the Astrodome, in conjunction with NASA’s moving its
operation to the Johnson Space Center in Houston; LBJ’s all-time
gift to his home state), Houston was competent using young players.
They had a respectable expansion franchise. When they moved into
the ‘Dome Houston built their club around strong pitching in the
notoriously difficult-to-hit-in facility. They continually held the
upper hand, year after year, over the Mets, not just in the final
standings but in head-to-head games. Finishing ahead of them in
1968 was a big boost for New York.

Being in New York had some benefits that by 1968
were beginning to manifest themselves. They were becoming something
of a cultural icon. Playwright Neil Simon had a Broadway hit about
a slob sportswriter who rooms with a neat freak. It was made into a
film,
The Odd Couple
, in 1968. Walter Matthau was Oscar
Madison. Jack Lemmon played Felix Unger. In one famed scene shot in
the press box at Shea Stadium, Madison stands between Heywood Hale
Broun and Maury Allen as Bill Mazeroski steps up to bat.

Broun: “Bases loaded. Mazeroski up. Ninth inning.
You expect the Mets to hold a one-run lead?”

Oscar: “Whatsa matter? You never heard of a triple
play?”

Felix Unger then calls the press box to tell Oscar
not to eat any hot dogs at the game because he is planning “franks
and beans” for dinner. The call diverts Oscar’s attention from the
field.

Broun: “A triple play! The Mets did it! The greatest
fielding play I ever saw! And you missed it, Oscar. You missed
it.”

Oscar goes ballistic at Felix for wasting his time
over such a thing as that night’s dinner menu. It begins a series
of tirades over Felix’s pesty, neurotic ways.

The Mets scored for Seaver as if they were allergic
to home plate, reducing him to 16-12, but his 2.20 earned run
average was among the league leaders. Koosman was at least as good
and a little more fortunate at 19-8 with a 2.08 ERA. Don Cardwell
was 7-13. Dick Selma was 9-10 with a 2.75 earned run average but
was traded to the Chicago Cubs after the season. Nolan Ryan was 6-9
with a 3.09 ERA. Cal Koonce was effective out of the bullpen. Jim
McAndrews’s ERA was 2.28 and Ron Taylor’s was 2.70. It was a fine
pitching staff.

The offense was mostly anemic (with some bright
spots) for all the pitchers, not just Seaver. Kranepool hit all of
.231, Harrelson .219, Charles .276 with a team leading 15 homers.
Swoboda led in RBIs with a mighty 59. Tommie Agee came over from
Chicago and swung the bat as if it was a wet
New York Times
:
.217. Cleon Jones came into his own, missing .300 by three points
with a little pop. Jerry Grote improved light years from 1967 to
hit .282 and made the All-Star team with Seaver and Koosman. Art
Shamsky, Ken Boswell, Al Weis and J.C. Martin made up the
bench.

The eve of destruction

“Don’t trust anyone over 30.”

- Common refrain in the 1960s

In the 1960s, a singer-songwriter named
Barry McGuire hit it big with a song called “Eve of Destruction.”
The premise of the song was that America was not a good country
because we were in Vietnam. We were embodied by the fighter pilots
bombing North Vietnam. McGuire appealed to their conscience, as if
they were simply cold-blooded killers or murderous automatons,
dropping bombs without a care for the loss of life below. The fact
that the people, politics, armies, strategies, ideologies and
enemies of America on the receiving end of those bombs were
Communists; and that Communists were responsible for the murder of
more than 100 million human beings in the 20
^th
Century
(and now 21
^st
; North Korea has starved over 2 million to
death since 2000); breathtakingly escaped McGuire’s judgment. The
title of the song suggested that unless America changed its ways,
we were on the eve of “doom,” of “destruction.” They might have
used the word “Armageddon,” although that would require a strict
interpretation of Biblical Christianity, which was not the
preferred way of 1960s radicals or rock stars.

It was that kind of decade.

In American history, and maybe in all human annals,
there has probably never been a decade that looked more different
at the end than it did in the beginning than 1960-69. In January
1960, moderate Republican Dwight Eisenhower was the President.
Conservative, anti-Communist firebrand Richard Nixon of California
was his Vice-President and the favorite to succeed him in the
November elections. Communism and control of space were the
dominant themes of the era.

When the Communists ousted the French from Dien Bien
Phu, Indochina in 1954, Nixon advocated the use of battlefield
nuclear weapons, but Ike did not follow the advice. When Soviet
Premier Nikita Kruschev banged his shoe on his desk at the United
Nations, telling America, “We will bury you,” and when Cuba went
Communist under Fidel Castro, Nixon was the point man of the
debate.

The Soviets launched a satellite called Sputnik into
outer space in 1957. By 1960 Ike and Senate Majority Leader Lyndon
Johnson (D.-Texas) were the front men in the “space race,” with
plans to launch the Mercury program the following year.