50 Years Ago: A Miracle in Flushing
“The difference between champions and everyone else is that champions are never afraid of losing, while everyone else is afraid of winning.”
An American author named Jeffrey Fry uttered this quotation some years ago. It had little to do with the New York Mets in their first seven years of existence.
The Mets, an expansion team born as a hybrid of the departed Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants, seemed to relish in losing and win by accident since their inception in 1962 through 1968. Their record in those first seven years was 445-838, a winning percentage of 34.7%. They finished in tenth place in the National League five times, and in ninth twice. They lost 100 games or more five times.
The Mets finished anywhere from 24 to 60.5 games behind first-place in those years and only gave a glimpse of things to come in 1968 when Gil Hodges took the helm for the fledgling Mets. They won 73 games that year and actually had a winning record on the road (41-40).
But they still finished 24 games behind the N.L. Champion St. Louis Cardinals. Not exactly the lineage of a champion-to-be. Not exactly the type of team that would mark a 50th anniversary on October 16, 2019.
Baseball savants saw improvement in the Mets in 1969 and prognosticators figured that a third or fourth-place finish lay ahead. The Amazins’ (a nickname coined not for the ’69 Mets, but by Casey Stengel, the Mets’ first manager, years before) had accumulated an abundance of young talent led mostly by their strong pitching.
Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman, Gary Gentry, Don Cardwell, and Jim McAndrew each had ERAs below 3.50 for the ’69 Mets and together with a dependable bullpen led by Tug McGraw, Ron Taylor and Nolan Ryan, the Mets presented a formidable presence on the mound.
Offensive talent included Cleon Jones, Tommie Agee, Ken Boswell, and Jerry Grote among others. This group was fortified mid-season by the acquisition of Donn Clendenon from the Montreal Expos on June 15. Many point to this trade as the final piece in the mosaic for the upstart New Yorkers.
The 1969 season started as usual for the Mets. They played the first international game in MLB history against the Expos on April 8. They had lost their first seven Opening Day games, and ’69 was no different as they fell to Montreal 11-10. The Mets went 9-11 in April and 12-12 in May as they endeavored to get over the .500 hump for the first time in their history this late in a season.
In fact, they had never been over .500 after the ninth game of any of their prior seven seasons. But in late May, the Mets reeled off a then franchise-record 11 straight wins to put them over the .500 mark for good.
The Mets were a mediocre 15-12 in July and as mid-August rolled around, they found themselves trailing the Chicago Cubs by ten games. They then went on a tear, winning 14 of their last 17 games in August and 24 of their 32 games in September and October to steamroll past Chicago and win the newly formed National League East by eight games. The 18-game turn around against the Cubs is one of the largest differentials in MLB history.
1969 was the first year division play was introduced to MLB, so the Mets did not just waltz into the World Series. They had to play the NL West Champion Atlanta Braves first, with the winner earning a berth in the fall classic.
Two of the first three games were played in Atlanta, but home-field advantage did not seem to matter as the red hot Mets, who were 45-18 from August 1 through the end of the year, were ready. The Braves had leads in two of the three games, but the Mets were not to be denied as they swept Atlanta by scores of 9-5, 11-6 and 7-4. The Mets claimed their first pennant and won the first-ever National League Championship Series.
After the Baltimore Orioles swept the Minnesota Twins in the first American League Championship Series, the stage was set for the 1969 fall classic, featuring an NL team few expected to be anywhere near the World Series, pitted against a team in the Orioles who had an All-Star at nearly every position.
Baltimore featured sluggers Boog Powell and Frank Robinson who each had over 30 home runs and 100 RBIs, and defensive whiz Brooks Robinson at third. Their pitching staff was lead by Jim Palmer, Mike Cuellar and Dave McNally who combined for 63 victories. Throw in a Paul Blair, Davey Johnson and Don Buford for good measure, and this all added up to a team that won 109 games in the regular season and were huge favorites to beat the Mets.
Game 1: Baltimore 4 New York 1 Memorial Stadium in Baltimore, Maryland
WP: Mike Cuellar LP: Tom Seaver
The first game of the Series had baseball experts wading in expectation, as the Orioles dominated the Mets to take a one-game to none series lead. Many pundits thought the remaining games were just a formality, as the O’s defeated Mets’ ace Tom Seaver in the victory. Buford hit Seaver’s second pitch of the game deep over the right center field wall, just past the out-stretched glove of Ron Swoboda. Baltimore tacked on three more in the fourth on RBI hits by Mark Belanger, Mike Cuellar, and Don Buford.
Despite the opening-game loss, nobody on the Mets seemed discouraged. Tom Seaver said years later “I swear, we came into the clubhouse more confident than when we had left it. Somebody – I think it was Clendenon – yelled out, ‘Dammit, we can beat these guys!’ And we believed it. A team knows if they’ve been badly beaten or outplayed. And we felt we hadn’t been. The feeling wasn’t that we had lost, but Hey, we nearly won that game! We hadn’t been more than a hit or two from turning it around. It hit us like a ton of bricks.”
“Never give in.. never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force.. never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.” – Winston Churchill.
Game 2: New York 2 Baltimore 1 Memorial Stadium
WP: Jerry Koosman LP: Dave McNally
The strong conviction the Mets showed in the clubhouse after the game one loss manifest itself with a tense 2-1 victory in Game 2. Jerry Koosman pitched six innings of no-hit ball and Clendenon homered in the fourth to give the Mets a 1-0 lead. But in the seventh, the Orioles tied the game on an RBI single by Brooks Robinson.
The Mets pushed across a run in the top of the ninth on back-to-back-to-back singles by Ed Charles, Jerry Grote, and Al Weis. Koosman couldn’t quite finish his masterpiece as he ran into some trouble in the ninth as he allowed two walks, but Ron Taylor came in to retire Brooks Robinson and preserve the Mets victory.
Game 3: New York 5 Baltimore 0 Shea Stadium in Queens, NY
WP: Gary Gentry LP: Jim Palmer
Another pitching crescendo for the Mets, with Gentry and Ryan combining on a four-hitter. But the star of this game was center-fielder Tommie Agee. He led off the game with a home run to give the Mets an immediate lead, but saved several other runs with two remarkable catches in the field ( a recurring theme in this series).
In the fourth with Oriole runners on first and third, Agee raced to the 396-foot sign in left-center and made a backhanded running catch of a drive hit by Elrod Hendricks. In the seventh, the Orioles had the bases loaded with two out, but Agee made a headfirst diving grab of a line-drive hit by Paul Blair in right-center.
Ed Kranepool homered for the Mets and Jerry Grote had an RBI double. The interesting note about this game: it was the only World Series appearance in Nolan Ryan’s career.
Game 4: New York 2 Baltimore 1 (10 innings) Shea Stadium
WP: Tom Seaver LP: Dick Hall
Seaver, Swoboda and a little luck carried the Mets in game 4. Tom Terrific pitched eight shut-out innings but ran into trouble in the ninth. Donn Clendenon had given the Mets an early lead with his second homer of the Series in the second inning as Seaver rolled along. But in the ninth, after back-to-back singles by Orioles’ stars, Frank Robinson and Boog Powell put runners on first and third. Brooks Robinson was next up. What happened next is etched in Mets’ lore.
Robinson hit a sinking line drive towards right that Mets’ right fielder that Ron Swoboda dove for and caught just inches off the ground. Frank Robinson tagged and scored, but Swoboda’s heroics kept the Orioles from possibly taking the lead. Hendricks then flew out to Swoboda to end the inning.
The luck part was a non-call by the umpires on a bunt by pinch hitter J.C. Martin in the bottom of the tenth. Oriole pitcher, Pete Richert fielded the ball but hit Martin with his throw to first and the ball caromed to right field scoring pinch-runner Rod Gaspar with the winning run. Replays clearly showed that Martin ran outside the baseline, but after an umpire huddle, the men in blue decided he did not interfere and let the winning play stand.
Game 5: New York 5 Baltimore 3 Shea Stadium
WP: Jerry Koosman LP Eddie Watt
The final game of the series, or the shoe-polish game, wrapped things up for the Mets. But it wasn’t easy. Baltimore took a 3-0 lead after homers by Dave McNally and Frank Robinson in the third.
It stayed that way until the bottom of the sixth. McNally appeared to hit Cleon Jones with a pitch that ricocheted into the Mets dugout. The Orioles claim that it hit the dirt and not Jones. But manager Gil Hodges showed the ball to home plate umpire Lou DiMuro and after seeing it smudged with shoe polish, awarded Jones first base.
There are many who feel the ball was purposely smudged by Swoboda or another Met, but nevertheless Jones was on first with Clendenon coming to the plate. He proceeded to hit his third home run of the series to bring the Mets to within 3-2.
The Mets tied it in the seventh on a homer by Al Weis, the only home run he ever hit at Shea Stadium. Weis led all batters in the series with a .455 average. The Mets took the lead for good in the eighth on an RBI double by Swoboda and some sloppy defense on a double-error at first to allow the defensive hero of game four to score and give the Mets a two-run lead.
The final out was off the bat of Davey Johnson, caught by Cleon Jones in left. The Mets were champions; the miracle realized.
To put the 1969 New York Mets in perspective can be done in several ways. One is with simple cliches on how David took down Goliath, one is to use the old axiom that good pitching beats good hitting. After all, Baltimore collected only 23 hits in the Series for a .146 batting average.
Another is to look in wonderment at a series the Mets had no right in playing in based on past performance and then going on to stun the sports world with a victory. The Orioles would recover and defeat the Cincinnati Reds in the 1970 World Series while the Mets struggled until 1973. The “Miracle Mets”, some 50 years later, are still mentioned prominently in the annals of top sports upsets.
The Mets of 2019 celebrated their forebearers’ championship with a celebration this past June. It was wonderful to see players from different generations mesh. Let’s hope this generation can pass on a championship or two to future New York Mets.
British author Steven Moffat put things in perspective when he said:
“The universe is big, it’s vast and complicated, and ridiculous. And sometimes, very rarely, impossible things just happen and we call them miracles.” On October 16, 1969, a near-impossible thing DID happen.
Note: Tim Ryder and I wrote a comprehensive look at the Mets and their road to the 1969 championship earlier this year in a three-part series. You can find them here, here and here.