THE 1969 MIRACLE METS: THE IMPROBABLE STORY OF THE WORLD’S GREATEST UNDERDOG TEAM (16 page)

The coincidence comes from the
fact that both Larsen and Wells graduated from Pt. Loma High School
near San Diego, but does not end there. On the May day in which
Wells tossed his perfecto, Larsen was featured in a pre-game
ceremony and was in attendance, but it still does not end. Larsen
and Wells were both “wild children,” considered unique California
hybrids; they both loved to party, drink beer, stay out late, chase
women, and raise hell. Wells was the motorcycle-driving baseball
version of the Marlon Brando character from
The Wild One
.

The New York Giants featured Irish Meusel (born in
Oakland; brother of Bob Meusel). He also played for the Dodgers.
Dick Bartell (Alameda) was an All-Star shortstop over an 18-year
career. Bill Rigney (Alameda) was a journeyman second baseman in
the 1950s, later managing the Giants, Los Angeles Angels and
Minnesota Twins.
Pitcher Mike McCormick (Los
Angeles) played in New York briefly before the team moved to San
Francisco.

The Brooklyn Dodgers’ California
connection was also strong. It starts with the great
Lefty
O’Doul (San Francisco), who hit .398 in 1929, later managed the San
Francisco Seals, and is credited with making baseball popular in
Japan. General Douglas MacArthur said no single diplomat did more
to heal U.S.-Japanese relations after World War II than O’Doul did.
Rod Dedeaux (Hollywood High, USC) had a very
short “career,” but befriended his manager, Casey Stengel. Dedeaux
became the most legendary college baseball coach of all time at
Southern California. The long tradition of big league teams playing
exhibitions against colleges started when Stengel’s Yankees played
Dedeaux’s Trojans. Later the Dodgers played USC at Dodger Stadium
every year before heading to Spring Training.

Jackie Robinson (Pasadena’s Muir High, Pasadena City
College) was of course a UCLA football hero whose place in the
pantheon of baseball and American heroism is approached by few, if
any. Cookie Lavagetto (Oakland) broke up the Yankees’ Bill Bevens’s
no-hitter in the 1947 World Series. Infielder
Gene Mauch (Los Angeles Fremont High) later became the
manager of the Phillies, Expos, Twins and Angels. His nephew, Roy
Smalley III, was an All-American at USC and an All-Star with
Minnesota. Dick Williams (Pasadena City College, where Jackie
Robinson went), later managed World Series teams at Boston, Oakland
and San Diego.

Bill Sharman (Los Angeles Narbonne High,
USC) sat on the Dodgers’ bench the day Bobby Thomson hit the “shot
heard ‘round the world” before becoming a Hall of Fame basketball
star with the Boston Celtics, and coach of the 1972 NBA champion
Lakers.

Duke Snider (Compton High) was one of the three
legendary center fielders in New York during the “golden age” of
the 1950s (the others being Willie Mays of the Giants and Mickey
Mantle of the Yankees). A Hall of Famer, he also played for the
Mets. Gino Cimoli (San Francisco) was a power hitter.
Pitcher Don Drysdale was a teammate of Robert Redford’s at
Van Nuys High, where Natalie Wood was also a student at the time.
He turned down a scholarship to Stanford to sign with Brooklyn and
was their staff ace before the team moved to L.A., where he won the
1962 Cy Young award, set the record for consecutive scoreless
innings (58, 1968), and made it into the Hall of Fame.

The New York (football)
Giants have a strong California connection.
Running back
Frank Gifford (Bakersfield High) was an All-American and a “golden
boy” at the University of Southern California before forging a Hall
of Fame career in the Big Apple. He was a staple on the
Monday
Night Football
broadcast team for years. Defensive end Fred
Dryer (Lawndale High, San Diego State) started with the Giants
before becoming an All-Pro with the Los Angeles Rams.
Wide receiver Amani Toomer (Concord’s De La Salle High)
played in the 1990s. Defensive back
Jason Sehorn (Mt. Shasta
High, USC) starred for the Giants and became a
cause celebre
for his model good looks and personality.
Giants
coach
Jim Fassel
was from Anaheim and USC.

Californians with the New York Jets include
placekicker
Jim Turner, known as the “Crockett
Rocket” because he hailed from the tiny town of Crockett.
Incredibly, this tiny place, along with neighboring Martinez and
Rodeo, is home (or birth place) to such athletic figures as Joe
DiMaggio, Lefty Gomez and football coach Norv Turner. Defensive
back Mike Battle played at Lawndale High and USC.
Defensive
back Ronnie Lott (Rialto’s Eisenhower High, USC) came to the Jets
after winning four Super Bowls in San Francisco. Wide receiver
Keyshawn Johnson (Los Angeles Dorsey High, USC), was the number one
pick of the 1996 draft by the Jets and an All-Pro in New York.
Pete Carroll (Larkspur’s Redwood High, University
of the Pacific) coached the Jets for one year and is now in charge
at Southern Cal.

The western state Buffalo Bills
featured such stalwarts as Jack Kemp
(Los Angeles Fairfax
High, Occidental College) and two star-crossed childhood friends
who went to San Francisco’s Galileo High, City College of San
Francisco, and Southern Cal together (before a tragic June 1994
night in L.A.): O.J. Simpson and Al Cowlings.

At Army, in West Point, New York: Heisman winner
Glenn Davis out of LaVerne’s Bonita High School. Then there are the
other Californians who have ventured to New York City’s Downtown
Athletic Club, claiming the Heisman: Southern Cal’s Mike Garrett,
O.J. Simpson, Charles White, Marcus Allen, Carson Palmer, Matt
Leinart and Reggie Bush; UCLA’s Gary Beban; Stanford’s Jim
Plunkett; plus Golden Staters John Huarte of Notre Dame, Gino
Toretta of Miami, Rashaan Salaam of Colorado, and Ricky Williams of
Texas.

California tennis players who have shined at
the U.S. Open include three from Palos Verdes Estates:
Tracey Austin, Pete Sampras, and Lindsay Davenport. Stan
Smith hailed from Pasadena; the Williams sisters, Venus and Serena,
from Compton. John McEnroe played collegiately at
Stanford.

Just for good measure, Richard Nixon
(football player at Whittier High and Whittier College; his wife
Patricia, USC) carried New York four times; twice as Vice-President
on Dwight Eisenhower’s ticket (1952, 1956) and twice when he won
and was re-elected to the Presidency (1968, 1972). California
Governor Ronald Reagan won New York twice (1980, 1984).

Then there are the New York Mets. One of their first
prospects was Tom Seaver’s boyhood pal from Fresno, Dick Selma. Jim
Fregosi of San Mateo’s legendary Serra High (Barry Bonds, Tom
Brady, John Robinson, John Madden) was traded by the Angels to the
Mets prior to the 1971 season for Nolan Ryan. Another Serra product
was Gregg Jeffries, who played for New York in the 1980s. Danny
Frisella also came from San Mateo. All-Star first baseman Keith
Hernandez grew up just up the road from San Mateo, in neighboring
San Bruno.

Southern Californian Mets have included Dave
Marshall (1970s), born in Artesia, power-hitting Dave Kingman
(USC), the great catcher
Gary Carter (Fullerton’s
Sunny Hills High), star outfielder Darryl Strawberry (Los Angeles
Crenshaw High), slugger Kevin Mitchell (San Diego), feisty Lenny
Dykstra (Garden Grove), reliever Jesse Orosco (Santa Barbara),
Billy Beane (San Diego’s Mt. Carmel High, now general manager of
the A’s) and outfielder George Foster (Lawndale’s Leuzinger High),
an All-Star with Cincinnati.

Mike Scott of Santa Monica, a star at Pepperdine,
came up with the Mets before going to Houston in the early 1980s.
Pitcher Bret Saberhagen (Reseda’s Cleveland High) was a Met in the
1990s after winning the Cy Young award at Kansas City. Second
baseman Jeff Kent (Huntington Beach’s Edison High, University of
California) started with the Mets before an MVP stint in San
Francisco. Eddie Murray (Los Angeles Locke High) was one of the
all-time greats in Baltimore and a Met for two years. Third baseman
Robin Ventura (Santa Maria’s Righetti High) was a star with the
Mets. Pitcher Bobby Jones was another Fresno guy, an All-American
at Fresno State University. Third baseman Todd Zeile was a teammate
of Erik Karros at both UCLA and with the Dodgers before coming to
the Mets. Shaun Green starred at Tustin High School.

In 1969, four Northern Californians all would play for the Mets.
The former Alaska Goldpanner Frisella only pitched three games for
New York. The three others all played a key role in the team’s
fortunes. Relief pitcher Tug McGraw hailed from Vallejo, shortstop
Bud Harrelson from Hayward, and Tom Seaver from Fresno and the
University of Southern California.

They, like so many like them, would “make it
there.”

****

In 1960, the American Football League was formed.
The AFL was given true imprimatur in 1964, when the two biggest
names in college football signed with the New York Titans, who
played at the Polo Grounds. Quarterback Joe Willie Namath was the
number one pick in both the AFL and NFL drafts, setting off a
“bidding war” for his services. The prospects of success in New
York, on and off the field, were too great a lure and he went with
the unproven AFL. New York paid him a then unheard-of bonus package
totaling $427,000.

Namath had been the best college player in 1964, a
surefire Heisman Trophy favorite on the nation’s best team, when he
injured his knee in the seventh game of the season. With Namath
sidelined, Notre Dame pulled into the lead for the National
Championship. Their quarterback, John Huarte went on to win the
Heisman Trophy Namath otherwise would have garnered. Huarte, a
product of Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana, California (one of
only two high schools to produce two Heisman winners; Matt Leinart
also went there), spent summers working on pass routes with a
fellow Californian, receiver Jack Snow on the Orange County
beaches. Snow went from Notre Dame to the Rams. His son, J.T. Snow,
was a 1992 Yankee from Los Alamitos, California and the University
of Arizona.

In 1964, Huarte and Snow led the Irish to an
unbeaten record until the final game of the season, when Southern
California rallied from a 17-0 deficit to beat them, 20-17. The
National title was lost. The Titans chose Huarte. Bidding for his
services was almost as heavy as for Namath. He had Notre Dame
polish and New York paid him an enormous bonus, reportedly in the
$200,000 range. He never panned out.

Namath was the hotshot quarterback with bedroom eyes
from the University of Alabama. His college coach, the legendary
Paul “Bear” Bryant, always called him the greatest athlete he ever
had. Namath had been a sparkling baseball shortstop growing up in
western Pennsylvania, with Major League scouts throwing big numbers
at him to go that route, but his football ability was over the top.
When he came to ‘Bama, Bryant alternated between pro sets and the
option, taking advantage of Namath’s ball-handling and running
skills.

As a pure drop-back passer, he had no equal. His
athleticism was extraordinary, his arm strength outstanding. All
the talk in 1964 centered on how much he would get after the dust
cleared in a battle for his services between the two competing pro
leagues. His winning the Heisman was considered a
fait
accompli
until he went down with injury, which at first
jeopardized his draft status.

The Crimson Tide continued to win and at the end of
the regular season were ranked number one by both the Associated
Press and the United Press International, who in those days for
some reason awarded the National Championship
prior
to the
bowl games. Alabama played Texas, the defending champion, in the
Orange Bowl. Held at night for the first time, it was a television
ratings bonanza, in many ways the beginning of the bowl frenzy that
now exists.

Despite already having won the National Championship
trophies awarded by the wire services, everybody knew that in order
to be considered a legitimate winner, Alabama would have to beat
Texas. Unbeaten Arkansas defeated Nebraska, 10-7 in the Cotton Bowl
earlier on New Year’s Day 1965. If ‘Bama lost the Razorbacks would
not only garner some of the National titles awarded by lesser-known
services, but despite AP and UPI imprimatur, the legitimate
consideration by the country as that year’s number one team.

As if there was not enough riding on the
Alabama-Texas Orange Bowl game, it was the return of Joe Namath. He
had rehabilitated his knee since injuring it over two months
earlier, but it had been a difficult road. Namath actually missed
only one full game, but the injury recurred. Each time, he was able
to come back. A week before the Orange Bowl, he went down
again.

Great debate swirled around Namath. Injury or no
injury, he had already been picked by New York, as the draft was
held immediately after the regular college season ended, but before
the bowls. The huge bonus package was already negotiated and agreed
to between Namath and New York owner Sonny Werblin. However, in
order to maintain his amateur status, nothing was yet signed. If he
were to hurt himself in the Orange Bowl it would throw a major
“monkey wrench” into the works.

Should Bryant play Namath? If the Orange Bowl were
merely a glorified exhibition, the National title already won, then
it seemed illogical to jeopardize his pro career against Texas.
But, of course, it was
not
a glorified exhibition. The
polling system was a joke and everybody knew that if Alabama wanted
to actually
call themselves
the champion, instead of hiding
the trophy in a broom closet, they would need to win this game.

Namath was tentative. When he showed up on the field
he wore tennis shoes. When the teams kicked off Namath was on the
bench. Then Texas began to dominate. Bryant knew what everybody
else knew, what his screaming fans were urging him to do:
earn
the National title. Play Namath.