THE 1969 MIRACLE METS: THE IMPROBABLE STORY OF THE WORLD’S GREATEST UNDERDOG TEAM (41 page)

The murder of King, race riots, anti-war
demonstrations; cities did not seem like safe places with a future.
The suburbs were the future, but the stadiums were all downtown.
The streets were dirty, the cops were violent, and the criminals
ran the place like some futuristic nightmare. Movies predicted
disaster:
Planet of the Apes
,
Omega Man
,
Soylent
Green
. Christianity was a “white man’s religion,” a “cracker’s
fable.” Richard Nixon went to a sold-out revival with the legendary
Billy Graham, but the press made fun of it. They said it was either
irrelevant or that Nixon should have not have tried to connect
church and state. The ACLU went after long-held traditions, calling
everything racist and bigoted.

A “generation gap” divided America. “Don’t trust
anyone over 30,” they said. “I hope I die before I get old,” sang
Roger Daltrey of The Who. The FBI put surveillance on John Lennon,
rock stars, subversive Hollywood types; all deemed to be corrupters
of the youth. Baseball was an old man’s game, slow and witless. The
young and the restless, the students, the protest generation, had
no time for baseball. Boring. Like watching grass grow, people said
of it. Long games, long shadows. Double-headers.

If you wanted excitement, you went for the NFL and
the even more-exciting AFL. Pro basketball was fast and athletic,
with wonderful black superstars like Wilt Chamberlain, Bill
Russell, Oscar Robertson, and Elgin Baylor. UCLA was like rolling
thunder under John Wooden, people moving Heaven and Earth to get
tickets at Pauley Pavilion. College football had everybody excited.
Southern Cal had O.J. Simpson. Texas would win the 1969 National
title. A great rivalry, traditions, fans going crazy at Notre Dame,
Ohio State, Michigan, Nebraska.

All of this had the Roger Angell’s stressed out.
They
liked
baseball’s pace; its cerebral intellectuality,
its building tensions. They
liked
the “Year of the Pitcher”;
fast pitcher’s duels, two gunslingers in the sun using horsehide
instead of bullets to mow down dangerous enemies. Denny McLain was
a master; big kick, high heat, a workhorse. Marichal, same thing,
just an extraordinary craftsman. They were artists.

But pro football played to 87 percent of its stadium
capacity in 1968, and in those days some of those yards were huge
(L.A. Coliseum, Cleveland Municipal Stadium). A Harris poll
confirmed baseball’s unpopularity with Angell’s succinct,
Politically Incorrect assessment that it was popular only with the
poor, the old, “and Negroes. Bad,
bad
image.” Rich folks,
women and the jet set preferred football.

But Angell’s keen eye was picking up on something,
and by May of 1969 he was ready to put his finger on it. The
divisional alignments were popular. The lowering of the mound had
not created an offensive extravaganza, but rather very exciting,
highly compelling statistics, teams and stories in the early going.
A plethora of excellent young players at every position were making
their mark in 1969. Men who would go on to greatness.

Angell invited some of his friends out to the park
but was declined. Still, he had a good feeling. Attendance in May
was up 32 percent from 1968. Kuhn and the owners were breathing a
collective sigh of relief. Talk of the Jets was subsiding, as was
that of baseball’s demise. The old fella’s greatest ally, the good
ol’ summer time, was just around the corner.

Angell rationalized the discrepancies between
baseball and football. Played on 14 Sundays, each pro or college
game had intense meaning. The collegians could nary afford a loss
and still hope for the National title. Baseball was languid. Win
two of three. Lose four, pick it up with a 5-1 home stand.

“Being forced to pick between them seems exactly
like being forced into a choice between a martini and a steak
dinner,” wrote Angell. He liked baseball’s “clarity, variety,
slowly tightening tension, and acute pressure on the individual
athlete,” observed from a seat behind first base, while giving
credence to football’s “violence and marvelously convoluted
machinery,” preferably on the tube.

The spring strike, a shock to the system in those
days, was old news by May. Out in Cleveland, a controversial player
named Ken “Hawk” Harrelson was trying to be baseball’s Namath:
beads, bell-bottoms and broads. Jim Maloney of Cincinnati and Don
Wilson of Houston repeated the Gaylord Perry-Ray Washburn feat of
back-to-back no-hitters at Crosley Field, but it had not
foreshadowed comatose offensive numbers in 1969. Minnesota’s Rod
Carew served notice that he would someday be knocking on
Cooperstown’s door. Oakland’ Reggie Jackson got off to an
astonishing start and seemed to be locked in on Roger Maris’s
record of 61 homers.

Boston’s Carl Yastrzemski was putting up big power
numbers. Hank Aaron, Denny McLain, Ernie Banks, Frank Robinson,
Richie Allen, Harmon Killebrew, Frank Howard; these marquee names
were all off to great starts.

Angell then turned his attention to New York
baseball, his true
forte
. First he made a visit to Yankee
Stadium, watching the pinstripers in a dispiriting series with
California. He wanted to know for sure that the Mets were now the
thing, that the Yanks were “New York’s other baseball team.” He was
not disabused of that notion.

Then it was on to Shea. There were early reports of
over-the-top fan excitement. The Mets were a happening. Something
was in the air. In mid-May Angell saw New York play a squeaker with
Cincinnati, but it was the “same old Mets” when two hits, an error,
and a wild pitch gave the Reds a 3-0 win. Then Atlanta came to
town. The Braves were a wildly entertaining group of talents. Gary
Gentry tried to challenge them like they were the Southern Illinois
Salukis in the College World Series. “Hammerin’ Hank” Aaron (Seaver
could have told Gentry about him), newly acquired
winner-everywhere-he-went Orlando Cepeda, and Bob Tillman sent
baseballs into the friendly skies without stewardesses in a 4-3
Braves’ victory.

The next night, the magician Phil Niekro handcuffed
Mets bats through six innings. Then, just as suddenly and as much
by magic, New York scored eight runs, with Jones hitting a gland
slam in a 9-3 New York triumph behind Seaver. On Thursday
afternoon, May 15, Angell grabbed a seat at Shea on a glorious
spring day. School was still in and it was Senior Citizens’ Day but
jammed with noisy children, the most delightful of all sounds.
Aaron wristed two launch rockets and Atlanta led 6-2 in the
seventh. Four Mets singles and a wild pitch made the score 6-5.
Angell described wild screeching, every bit as imploring as a Jets’
game; simply outrageous excitement.

In the ninth Harrelson singled, Grote was hit by a
pitch and Agree dutifully moved them along with the kind of bunt
the fundamentalist Gil Hodges demanded. .390-hitting Cleon Jones
hit a “frozen rope” to right field, driving in the tying and
winning runs . . . except that second baseman Felix Millan “climbs
invisible ladder, turns midair, & gloves pill backhand,” Angell
wrote on a notepad. The thrills and chills were replaced by utter
silence, but the season was young and the games were
insane
.

After Seaver beat Niekro, 5-0 at Atlanta on May 21,
New York dropped five straight, falling to 18-23. It threatened to
cast a pall on the procedings. After one “sloppy” game with
Atlanta, Hodges held a closed-door meeting.

“He quietly reminded us that were a better ball club
than this, and we needed to make sure we were doing all the things
we needed to do to be a better club,” Swoboda recalled.

“He was heatedly exasperated,” was the way one
player put it at the time.
“We needed it,” said Seaver. “I expect it to help us. We’re mature.
We are supposed to be able to take it. The man is on our side. He’s
a perfectionist. That’s fabulous. I strive for that myself.”

On May 28 Koosman struck out 15 in 10 innings of a
0-0 game with San Diego. McGraw came on in relief, held the line,
and Harrelson hit a homer to win it, 1-0. Over Memorial Day
weekend, New York swept San Francisco four straight at home. Then
they beat Los Angeles three in a row at Shea, followed by a
three-game sweep at San Diego. After beating the Giants, 9-4 at
Candlestick Park on June 10, they completed an 11-game winning
streak. Gaylord Perry beat Gary Gentry, 7-2 the next day to end
it.

The 11-game winning streak was the first defining
moment for the 1969 New York Mets. First, crowds at Shea were out
of control for the Giants and Dodgers. There was no vestige of old
Brooklyn and Polo Grounds rooters there for the Californians. It
was all Mets; foot-stomping, chanting, placard-waving, noise
making. It was kids and grandparents, stockbrokers and
schoolteachers. All sense of old Yankee Stadium decorum, like bored
operagoers, was out the window. It was a rock concert, Hendrix
going electric, “Day on the Green.” It was “Seav-
uh
,
Seav-
uh
,” and “Lets go,
Mets
; let’s go,
Mets!”
With a lead late in the game they let loose with the old football
plea for
“DE-fense, DE-fense.”
Girls danced, some even
threatened to do a little more than that. Male fans did not object.
Couples kissed, parents approved. It was a carnival, Mardi
Gras.

But it was the
Giants and the Dodgers
. It was
the old ghosts being exorcised after pasting some 170 defeats on
the Mets over the previous seven seasons. For the very first time,
the two great National League traditions had come to New York only
to play a decided second fiddle to the Mets. It was not like these
were bad clubs, either. Both would battle for the West Division
crown until the end. Los Angeles had been down in 1967 and 1968,
re-built, and featured a young, talented club which would form the
great champions of the next decade. They made New York look like
the veterans.

On May 30 Seaver won his seventh game, 4-3 over San
Francisco, the second win of the 11-game streak. Gentry won the
next day, 4-2. The sweep was completed in the next game, 5-4.
Koosman stopped L.A. cold, 2-1. On June 3, Seaver fired a
three-hitter to beat the team he rooted for as a kid, 5-2. Ed
Kranepool hit a home run in the fifth, then another in the sixth.
It was the first time the Mets had ever been above .500 in
June.

On June 4, all bets were off. Los Angeles and New
York went at it for 15 innings. As in the long, losing
double-headers against the Mets’ and Dodgers’ of the Polo Grounds
era, Mets fans stayed put; loud and exuberant. Only this time it
was not just joy over “lovable losers.” In 15 innings New York held
the line in an incredible 1-0 win to complete the sweep. Los
Angeles had men on base all game but could not score them.

In what may have been the best play of the regular
season, at least, Al Weis reversed gears to grab a ball deflected
off the pitcher’s glove, then threw the Dodgers’ runner out at home
plate on a bang-bang tag play. All the luck seemed to have swung
towards the Mets. For the first time, people started thinking about
contention. St. Louis was struggling so far, and what was going on
at Shea Stadium appeared to many to have a divine touch to it!
Flying to the West Coast afterwards, Seaver realized that the talk
in St. Petersburg was for real.

In San Diego, Gentry stopped the Padres, 5-3.
Koosman struck out 11 in a victory. Seaver won his 10
^th
game of the season at Candlestick Park , 3-2 in 10 innings over the
dangerous Giants. Ron Taylor picked up the save. Tommie Agee was
hot. It was New York’s 11
^th
straight win. After San
Francisco finally ended the streak, the Mets (29-23) were solidly
in second behind Chicago, and six ahead of the Cardinals.

The Cubs got off to a 35-16 (.868) start and were
all getting endorsement deals. Leo Durocher had his own radio show,
leading him to say little to the writers he considered beneath him.
Sports Illustrated
did a feature on their helmet-wearing
“bleacher bums.”

“Pitching is still the name of the game, and the
Mets have it,” said Montreal’s Rusty Staub, not quite ready to hand
the division to Chicago. “In the old days of the Mets it wouldn’t
have happened. They weren’t blood and guts, like these guys. Now I
think they can win.”

“The Mets are always in the game with Seaver and
Koosman,” said Ron Taylor.

Others still needed to be convinced. Seaver knew
Pete Rose from All-Star Games, and casually mentioned that they
might see each other in the play-offs. Rose looked at him like he
was nuts, but Seaver told him, “Pete, we’ve got some guys who can
get the ball over the plate.”

On Sunday, June 22, 55,862 came out for a
double-header with St. Louis. Baseball was
on fire
, in no
small part because of the Mets. That day, the 394,008 fans who
attended games broke the all-time single-day record. The Mets
looked “cool, loose, rich – like the old Yanks,” according to
Angell, who may have been overdoing it a bit by this point, so
enthused was he. With Koosman mowing ‘em down in the second game,
Rod Gaspar threw Lou Brock out at home plate to save a 1-0 win.

“Brilliant baseball,” wrote Angell. “Day to
remember.”

“The Mets have grown up,” said Los Angeles manager
Walter Alston. “They no longer beat themselves. They hold onto
one-run leads and they make the big plays.”

Sportswriter Joe Trimble called them the “best
expansion team in Major League history, beyond a doubt.” It had
taken “eight years and much patience,” but the whole roster aside
from Agee and Grote was produced by their farm system.

Harrelson recalled that the West Coast series “was
the biggest turnaround. Up to then, we had never played well
against West Coast teams, especially the Dodgers and Giants. They
always kicked our butts. This time they came in and we beat them in
New York, then went out to the coast and beat them again. And
that’s when we began to say, ‘hey, we’re competitive. Things are
different.’ ”