THE 1969 MIRACLE METS: THE IMPROBABLE STORY OF THE WORLD’S GREATEST UNDERDOG TEAM (69 page)

The Mets had none of the wide-eyed wonder of
World Series fans by this point. They were grim, prepared to play a
grim game, and they did just that. It was a match-up of pitching
and defense. Baltimore came with their “A game” in this regard. B.
Robinson made some fine plays. Belanger executed an extraordinary
catch-and-throw. The Mets responded, with Harrelson making a
hit-robbing grab. Angell wrote that Harrelson was “gaunt,” noting
that the “tensions of the season had burned Harrelson down from a
hundred and sixty-eight to a hundred and forty-five pounds.”

Koosman, the young fireballing southpaw,
opposed McNally, the veteran lefty control artist. McNally entered
the game with 21 consecutive scoreless innings in post-season play,
going back to the 1966 Series with L.A. Donn Clendenon reached
McNally in the fourth for a wrong-field homer to make it 1-0, Mets.
From there, New York was determined to hold their ground. They felt
like the famed American “lost battalion” that refused to give up
its strategic position in the Argonne, despite complete German
encirclement, in the closing days of World War I.

Grim.

Amid this, Koosman had everything he did not
have against Atlanta. In the seventh, he was nursing a no-hit game
and a perilous lead. His stated goal since he was kid watching Don
Larsen’s 1956 masterpiece was to pitch a perfect game in the World
Series. Blair ended Koosman’s no-no dreams, leading off with a
single, but Koosman worked two more outs. The Baltimore crowd urged
action. They were strangely mystified that the rout they expected
was not forthcoming. Blair seemed to pick up on the exchange
between Grote and Koosman, stealing on a change-up curve. Brooks
Robinson singled up the middle. It was tied.

Now what?

A “LET’S GO, METS!” banner was unfurled in
the aisle behind home plate, carried by Mrs. Pfeil, Dyer, Ryan and
Seaver; “smashers all,” wrote Angell. The Mets’ derived some
motivation from the fact their wives had been given bad seats out
in right field. Some threatened not to play unless they were given
better seats on Sunday, which the Orioles’ accommodated.

Grimly
, the game wore on. In the
ninth, faced with the obstacle of winning a late, tied game on the
road, the National League champions made their move. It was pure
station to station ball; little ball; Mets ball. Charles and Grote
singled off McNally, finally tiring. In this era before the Mariano
Rivera’s and Lee Smith’s changed baseball strategy, Weaver just
figured McNally was better than whoever was warming up in the
bullpen. .215-hitting Al Weis stepped in. On the first pitch he
slapped a go-ahead single.

Koosman lost his heat and went to curves,
but walked two O’s in the bottom of the ninth. With two outs, Ron
Taylor came on, retired the last man, and in “a game that would
have delighted John McGraw” (Roger Angell), it was on to the Big
Apple. New York City let loose in ecstatic hope. Baltimore gave a
collective,
Not again!

Weis was typical of the 1969 Mets: a
mediocre player who stepped up and had several extraordinary
moments (Chicago in July, now this). “It is a segmented experience
so you aren’t as bad or as good as you show,” said Swoboda of the
World Series. “Anything can happen, and it is an ideal opportunity
for lesser athletes to shine, because you don’t have to do it for
three months in a row . . . The real accomplishment is in not
allowing the aura of the World Series to change you in a negative
way.”

Winning the second game gave the Mets
confidence. “It was a close game, and if we could have beaten
Koosman it would have been a different story in the Series,” said
Brooks Robinson.

“We’re not going to have to come back here,”
Jones flatly told Agee,

“I knew we had to win in Baltimore,” said
Koosman. “I certainly felt the weight on my shoulders about going
out and doing my bit without screwing up.”

“Me, one of the heroes of the game,” said
Weis. “How sweet is that?”

“I figured if I walked Weis to get to
Koosman then Hodges would pinch-hit for Koosman and whoever he sent
up there would be a better hitter than Weis,” Weaver told the
New York Times
.

Koosman was a “cool cat,” according to
sportswriter Dick Young, because he would tell jokes on the bench
before pitching a game. He and Ron Taylor held Boog and the
Robinson’s one-for-10, making them two-for-24 on the weekend. “It
was an ominous note for the Orioles,” wrote Ben Henkey of
The
Sporting News
.

The Mets gladly boarded a plane for New York
City. Down deep, they knew something the Orioles only suspected.
The reaction of the city would be as intimidating to the O’s as
their team had been to the Mets. Baltimore had heard about the
crowds, the frenzy, the media, the pure adrenaline of 12 million
people pumping as one; but they had not
experienced
it. Most
of these Birds either could barely remember or had never
experienced a truly meaningful baseball game in New York, what with
the demise of the Yankees. A few – Brooks Robinson, Boog Powell,
Dave McNally – had been on the team when they battled Mickey Mantle
& Company down the stretch in 1964, but Yankee Stadium was
no comparison
to the noise chamber they were entering.

New York had gotten the split they needed.
They had a 10
^th
man, maybe even an 11
^th
or
12
^th
at Shea in the form of the crowd. It was like
putting an extra shortstop up the middle; an extra outfielder to
guard the line. They were suddenly confident, almost ecstatic. On
the plane they practically salivated at the prospect of playing for
“their people” again. The Mets had clinched the division in their
last home game of the regular season on September 24, then played a
pennant-clinching home play-off game. New York had played nine
games on the road and one at home beginning on September 26, yet
the stars were aligned.

The city had watched on TV, listened on the
radio, read in the papers, but now
they were here
, against
the Baltimore Orioles in the World Series. It had all seemed like a
myth, a rumor, but now it was for real.

On Monday, October 13 the town was in a
state of utter frenzy. It was the most exciting sporting scene the
city had ever known, and probably the most fevered sense of
anticipation for an athletic event in American or even world
history. This can be argued, but the Mets’ story was every bit as
incredible as any of the following sports events prior to October
of 1969:

1. 1909 Honus Wagner vs. Ty Cobb
   Pirates-Tigers, 1923 Babe Ruth vs. John McGraw Yankees-Giants (in
   the new Yankee Stadium), 1926 Rogers Hornsby vs. Babe Ruth
   Cardinals-Yankees, 1931 Gas House Gang vs. Connie Mack
   Cardinals-A’s, or1946 Stan Musial vs. Ted Williams Cardinals-Red
   Sox World Series.
   

2. 1927 Babe Ruth’s 60 homers, 1941 Lou
   Gehrig’s “luckiest man on the face of the Earth” speech at Yankee
   Stadium, 1941 Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak, 1941 Ted
   Williams’s .400 batting average, 1947 Jackie Robinson’s breaking of
   the “color barrier,” 1949 Joe DiMaggio vs. Ted Williams Yankees-Red
   Sox series at Fenway Park, 1951 Bobby Thomson’s “shot heard ‘round
   the world” Giants vs. Dodgers, or 1962 Willie Mays vs. Don Drysdale
   Giants-Dodgers play-offs.
   

3. 1958 Dodgers-Giants move to California, 1961
   Roger Maris’s breaking of Babe Ruth’s homer record, or 1968 Denny
   McLain’s 31 wins, or 1968 Bob Gibson’s 1.12 ERA.
   

4. 1955 Duke Snider vs. Mickey Mantle or 1963
   Sandy Koufax vs. Whitey Ford Dodgers-Yankees, 1962 Mickey Mantle
   vs. Willie Mays Yankees-Giants or 1967 Bob Gibson vs. Carl
   Yastrzemski “Impossible Dream” Red Sox-Cardinals World Series.
   

5. 1926 pro debut of Red Grange, 1940 George
   Halas vs. Sammy Baugh Bears-Redskins, 1958 Johnny Unitas vs. Frank
   Gifford Colts-Giants, 1966-67 (“Ice Bowl”) Vince Lombardi vs. Tom
   Landry Packers-Cowboys NFL championship games, or 1969
   Broadway
   Joe and His Super Jets
   -Colts Super Bowl.
   

6. 1925 “Four Horsemen of Notre Dame”-Stanford,
   1939 Doyle Nave-to-Al Kreuger USC-Duke, 1963 John McKay vs. Ron
   Vanderkelen USC-Wisconsin, 1969 Woody Hayes vs. O.J. Simpson Ohio
   State-USC Rose Bowls, or 1965 Darrell Royal vs. Joe Namath/Bear
   Bryant Texas-Alabama Orange Bowl.
   

• 1931 Johnny Baker’s field goal USC-Notre
  Dame, 1946 Frank Leahy vs. Red Blaik Notre Dame-Army, 1966 Ara
  Parseghian vs. Duffy Daugherty Notre Dame-Michigan State, or 1967
  O.J. Simpson vs. Gary Beban USC-UCLA college football games.
  

1. 1968 Elvin Hayes vs. Lew Alcindor
   Houston-UCLA college basketball game, 1962 Wilt Chamberlain
   100-points-in-one, 50-points-per-NBA-game, or 1969 Bill Russell vs.
   Wilt Chamberlain Celtics-Lakers NBA Finals.
   

• 1912 Jim Thorpe’s decathlon Gold medal
  Stockholm, 1932 Babe Didrikson’s Gold medals Los Angeles, 1936
  Jesse Owens vs. Adolf Hitler Gold medals Berlin, 1948 Bob Mathias’s
  decathlon Gold medal London, or 1960 Rafer Johnson vs. C.K. Yang
  decathlon Gold medal Rome Olympics.
  

• 1927 Jack Dempsey vs. Gene Tunney, 1938 Joe
  Louis vs. Max Schmeling, 1964 Cassius Clay vs. Sonny Liston boxing
  matches, or 1957 Pele’s first World Cup for Brazil.
  

Upon serious reflection, it had all the
earmarks of the biggest sports story
ever
, and while some
Earth-shaking events have occurred since – the Muhammad Ali-Joe
Louis fight at Madison Square Garden occurred two years later, just
for starters – it may very well still rank as number one. But, to
get there, to truly be as world-shaking an event as all that,
the Mets had to win!

Everything everywhere took a back seat to the World
Series. The shifting from Baltimore to the New York stage had a
cataclysmic effect. How the Mets were able to concentrate amid all
the craziness was a miracle in and of itself. The groundscrew had
literally slept at the park, working night and day to get the field
ready after it had been torn up after the pennant-clinching win
over Atlanta.

The Mets’ left-handed hitters got their
chance in the third game, since right-handed Jim Palmer was the
Baltimore starter against rookie Gary Gentry. This was the one New
York was “supposed” to lose. Seaver and Koosman could beat anybody,
but Palmer vs. Gentry?

“I was psyched up enough against the
Braves,” Gentry told the
New York Times
. “I should have been
a little nervous, but I wasn’t because we won the first two games
and all we had to do was win one of the next three games.”

Gentry seemed to have trouble controlling
his approach; either too excited or not excited enough. He had a
year under his belt, and by game three of the Series felt he had a
handle on how best to deal with the pressure.

“I didn’t feel a lot pressure starting game
three, but anytime you pitch in the World Series it’s pressure,”
said Palmer. “I was aware that it was Shea Stadium and not like
pitching at home.”

The crowds arrived early on Tuesday – it was
still an era of day World Series games, even during the week – and
the atmosphere was off the charts. The weather was cool with a
slight chance of rain hanging in the air, but good autumn ball
weather. The Mets were folk heroes, nothing less.

“After batting practice that first day in
New York as were going to the outfield to shag for our hitters, I
met Jim Hardin, who used to be in the Mets’ organization,” recalled
Jerry Koosman, “and as I was going out, he was coming in, and he
said, ‘What are you doing here?’ I said, ‘What do you mean?’ He
said, ‘You guys don’t belong on the same field with us. What are
you doing here?’ I said, ‘You’ll see.’

“So after batting practice I went into the
clubhouse and I told everybody that. Which really helped charge the
ball club more.” As if
these guys
needed additional
motivation.

Jackie Kennedy Onassis and her son, John F.
Kennedy Jr., attended as well as Governor Nelson Rockefeller, Mayor
John Lindsay, and Joe DiMaggio. All rooted uproariously for the
Mets (well, maybe not Joe D., who probably resented cheers not
reserved for
him
). Steve Lawrence sang the National Anthem.
Roy Campanella threw out the first ball.

In the first inning, Gentry retired the side
to thunderous ovations. It grew louder when New York came to bat in
the bottom of the inning. With the count two-and-one, Agee set off
an earthquake of sound by homering over the center field fence.

In the third, Grote walked and Harrelson
singled. Then Gentry drove a Palmer fast ball towards right-center
for a double, driving in two runs to make it 3-0. Shea Stadium was
not a baseball stadium anymore, it was a religious awakening.

In the top of the fourth, Frank Robinson
lined one to left field. Jones made a fine play but it was ruled a
trap. Powell singled. Were the Orioles’ big guns finally shooting?
With one out Gentry blew a third strike past Brooks Robinson.
Pull-hitting Ellie Hendricks stepped up, and the outfield shifted
towards the right. Then Hendricks, like Yogi Berra in the 1955
World Series, went to the opposite side, hitting a dangerous drive
to left-center with both runners off with the crack of the bat.

Agee ran 40 yards and caught up with the
ball at the warning track. Reaching up backhanded, he caught it in
the edge of his glove webbing, one of the best plays in World
Series history. The white of the ball could be seen through the
webbing, “snow cone”-style. It immediately reminded fans of “The
Catch” by Willie May off the bat of Cleveland’s Vic Wertz in the
1954 World Series at the Polo Grounds.

“When the ball was hit I looked over at
Tommie,” recalled Jones. “I knew right away that he could make a
play. He learned that when attending Grambling. They taught him
that to make sure the crease in the glove was not up so the ball
wouldn’t pop out of his glove. When I saw Tommie pound his glove I
started to let up in order to play the ball off the wall just in
case he didn’t get to it. But, I had a feeling he was going to make
the play, I kept yelling to him that he had lots of room.”