THE 1969 MIRACLE METS: THE IMPROBABLE STORY OF THE WORLD’S GREATEST UNDERDOG TEAM (23 page)

The distance increased as the fence lengthened towards center
fielder. From center to dead right, Snider’s power alley, it “made
up the difference” for left field by spreading out in an expanse of
green acreage, the fence miles from home plate. The Giants came for
their first game and Willie Mays approached Snider.

“They just killed you, man,” he told Duke.

Snider was like two later Dodgers, Eric Davis and Darryl
Strawberry. They were all superstars in other cities who returned
to their hometowns after the magic was gone. Snider played on the
Dodgers’ 1959 World Champions and the 1962 almost-champions, but
the likes of Tommy Davis, Willie Davis and Maury Wills replaced him
as vital cogs in L.A.’s machine. The building of Dodger Stadium, in
those days no hitter’s paradise but much better than the Coliseum,
came too late and he was sent packing to the scene of triumph, New
York (and the Mets). He was cheered lustily, which fed his ego,
bruised by Los Angelenos who were not enthralled by the former
Compton High School football sensation. But Snider was
way
past his prime in 1963, nobly supplying 14 homers at the Polo
Grounds (whose right field line was even more inviting than Ebbets
had been).

Roger Craig lost 18 straight and 22 on the year.

Ron Hunt and Al Jackson became, perhaps, the first legitimate
Mets baseball players in 1963. Hunt was just plain good; not funny,
not quirky, just a hustling second baseman who played to win.
Jackson was 13-17, which on the 1963 Mets was 20-win good.

Shea was supposed to be ready in 1963 but in building it, a bog
was discovered. This pushed its opening back to 1964. Shea Stadium
was now the draw. 50,312 showed up for its first game, against the
Giants in 1964. On Memorial Day weekend, the Giants again came to
town for a memorable 10 1/2-hour double-header. Mets fans were
enthusiastic, many staying to the end, filling the air with hopeful
shouts and artificial noisemakers; placards and signs of
encouragement dotting Shea.

San Francisco won the opener but the second game went 23 innings
before the Giants pulled it out for the sweep. Mets fans were just
happy to be part of it. It was joyful. In that game, a young
Gaylord Perry, struggling to make his way as a big league pitcher,
was called on in desperation by manager Herman Franks of the
Giants. Franks had nobody left.

With runners all over the sacks Perry found himself in deep
trouble. He had practiced a “spit ball” in the bullpen but never
dared throw it in the game. It was now or never. He used his
“spitter” to pitch his way out the jam and hold New York scoreless
for 10 innings. He credited that game with launching his Hall of
Fame career.

Rod Kanehl, Ron Hunt and the Mets also got into a full on “pier
six brawl,” according to broadcaster Bob Murphy, with Ed Bailey and
Milwaukee. Hunt was the team’s standout performer. Kranepool took
over at first base. The old names – Choo Choo, “Marvelous Marv,”
Elio Chacon, both Bob Millers - were for the most part replaced by
a utilitarian group of marginal big leaguers, some of whom would
have (or had) legitimate careers in other places. They included Roy
McMillan, Jim Hickman, and pitchers Jack Fisher, Tracy Stallard,
and Galen Cisco. But on the final weekend of the 1964 season, for
the very first time, the New York Mets played meaningful, important
baseball games.

The final home game was on a Sunday. Kanehl was married but, as
one wedded player told an inquiring groupie in Jim Bouton’s
Ball
Four
, he was “not a fanatic about it.” Rod brought one of his
girls into Jilly’s on 50
^th
Street. His former Yankee
teammate John Blanchard, also married, was in the back room with a
woman, not Mrs. Blanchard. Blanchard told him that, “Mickey is so
envious of you.”

Kanehl was known to be a major
bon vivant
and man about
town, but the media never exposed his antics. Mickey Mantle, a
complete libertine, was a tabloid superstar who could not go
anywhere because “Dorothy Kilgallen will write about him,”
Blanchard told Kanehl.

Blanchard, Kanehl and the girls went to Mantle’s hotel suite at
the Essex House, where he was entertaining an airline stewardess.
The reader must only fantasize to imagine what all happened. These
guys were such men-children, however, that instead of an orgy it
was more likely Mantle, Blanchard and Kanehl acting like overgrown
boys than studs, while the girls stared at them with bored,
what-about-me? expressions.

Kanehl left, still drunk, at six in the morning, ran
to his apartment, gathered his belongings, and barely caught up
with his team in time to fly out for their final road trip.

“Little did I know it was going to be my final day
in New York,” he told writer Peter Golenbock.

Kanehl had little reason to save his energy, or so
he thought. The Mets would fold in Milwaukee and St. Louis, then
lick their wounds in the off-season. But 1964 was one of the
all-time doozies of a pennant race, ever. Gene Mauch’s Philadelphia
Phillies dominated all season and had a four-game lead with 10 to
play. Mauch then decided to get things wrapped up early, so the
club could concentrate on the World Series. He decided to pitch his
aces, Jim Bunning and Chris Short, exclusively in order to clinch
it. Both aces were exhausted, mentally and physically, and fell
apart. The Phillies lost 10 straight games.

Fred Hutchinson’s Reds and Johnny Keane’s Cardinals
had battled Philadelphia all season, but both seemed out of it
until the Phillie collapse. Given new life, both moved right into
the thick of things as the season’s last games were played. St.
Louis edged out to a slight advantage, and as fate would have it
that advantage was thought to be ace point, since they finished at
home with the lowly Mets. On top of everything, longtime Cardinals
general manager Bing Devine had been fired by owner August Busch
and hired by the Mets

In the first game, Al Jackson beat the great Bob
Gibson, 1-0 in a shocker that, considering Jackson’s fine, unsung
work over the past years, was not so shocking. Jackson was a ground
ball pitcher who induced opponents to hit into perfect double-play
balls, messed up and mangled in all possible ways by Mets
infielders. On that day they defended like the Yankees. The Reds
and Phillies remained alive.

On Saturday, all bets were off when New York
exploded for a 15-5 win in front of the St. Louis faithful. By
Sunday, the Cardinals were a shell of their normal, confident
selves. 18-game winner Curt Simmons started and was staked to a
10-0 lead, but he got knocked out. Keane made a desperation move,
bringing Gibson in on short rest to shut the door. The Mets got to
him.

The big crowd was restless, fidgety. The Cardinals
were a bundle of nerves. Anything could happen. In the ninth, Keane
had ace reliever Barney Schultz, a knuckleball specialist, in the
game. His dancing knucklers started scooting around. Catcher Tim
McCarver struggled with them. St. Louis was like a bunch of
zombies, begging for the last outs in a terrible, drawn-out game
that resembled an episode of
The Twi-Light Zone
.

Kanehl pinch-hit and congratulated McCarver, who
gave him the evil eye.

“We haven’t won yet,” he said.

“Those guys were so ready to choke they could hardly
even speak,” said Kanehl. Kanehl’s base hit drove in two more runs
and Kranepool came to bat.

“I went down to first, and baseman> Bill White was the same way,” said Kanehl. “He can’t
hardly talk. After I congratulated him, he said, ‘We haven’t got
the last out yet.’ ”

Finally
, Kranepool popped up and every eye
was on McCarver, circling under the thing, probably dizzy from
handling Schultz’s knuckler. Gravity did its thing and McCarver
secured it for an 11-5 win, propelling St. Louis into their first
World Series since 1946. Some have said their 18-year drought was a
“curse” brought on by a failure to change with the times and bring
black players on board after the Robinson signing. This 1964 team,
put together in part by Branch Rickey in his “last hurrah,” was one
of the most integrated ever, the subject of David Halberstam’s
October 1964.

“There was bedlam in St. Louis,” said Kanehl. “It
was just crazy.”

The Mets drew a fabulous 1,732,000 fans, more than
the American League champion Yankees. The Yankees fired manager
Yogi Berra despite making it to the seventh game of the World
Series before bowing to Gibson. Yogi would be an integral member of
the Mets’ family over the next decade.

The Mets had pushed the champion Cardinals to the
limit, but it was a temporary fit of competence, not repeated in
1965. With the club at 31-64, Casey Stengel called it quits. He had
suffered a broken hip after a late-night drinking spill at Toots
Shors. His replacement, former Giants catcher Wes Westrum, finished
up at 19-48. The old character of the team was now gone. Similarly,
out in Los Angeles the Angels, one of baseball’s most colorful cast
of characters, was in the process of moving to the Orange County
suburbs. With that they lost all their personality. Youth began to
be served. The Mets’ excellent front office had laid the foundation
and it was finally beginning to show; the old veterans, signed to
maintain fan interest, replaced by prospects such as Ron Swoboda
and Tug McGraw. But there were exceptions. Warren Spahn, who had
won a Silver Star for gallantry during World War II’s Battle of the
Bulge before a Hall of Fame pitching career in Milwaukee, was one
of those old-timers. Seemingly pushing 50, he did not know when to
quit. His performance for the 1965 Mets was a shell of his
once-proud self.

1966 was a pivotal season. Under Westrum the Mets
evaded the 100-loss mark for the first time and finished ninth
(66-95), ahead of Durocher’s Cubs (59-103). Both teams were young
and featured a fair number of key names (some of whom would be
traded by one team to the other) who would emerge in the memorable
pennant race three years later. Nobody predicted it in a million
years, not in New York or Chicago, although the Cubs featured some
very good young talent.

Durocher looked over the roster and announced that
they were not an “eighth place team.” He was right, they were a
10
^th
place team, but one that included Ernie Banks,
Glenn Beckert, Don Kessinger, Ron Santo, Billy Williams, Adolfo
Phillips, and Randy Hundley. Then there was the “Seaver
connection.” Fresno’s own Dick Ellsworth was a Cub. Dick Selma was
a Met (later a Cub). Ken Holtzman, the All-American Tom beat out
for the last Alaska Goldpanner roster spot in Wichita’s 1964 NBC
Tournament, was a Cub. So was Ferguson Jenkins and Billy Hands. Cal
Koonce was a Cub, later a Met. Based on what we now know about some
of those Chicago players, it seems hard to believe they finished in
last place, but they did.

The beginnings of the 1969 Mets were shaping up more
in 1966, although there were still touches of nostalgia. Ken Boyer,
the National League’s Most Valuable Player when he led St. Louis to
the World Championship just two years earlier, was now a has-been
at third base. There was Eddie Bressoud, Jack Fisher, Bob Shaw, Bob
Friend and Jack Hamilton. Hunt was gone to Los Angeles. But Ed
Kranepool was firmly ensconced at first base. Cleon Jones, who had
debuted three years earlier, hit .275 in left field.

Swoboda was in right. Young hotshot catcher Jerry
Grote took over behind the plate (he was definitely not one of
those “defensive catcher’s who can’t catch or throw,” as Casey said
of his predecessors). On the hill Nolan Ryan joined McGraw for a
brief big league debut. Down in the minors, Tom Seaver was “the
next big thing,” but close behind him was Jerry Koosman. Shortstop
Buddy Harrelson was impressing people, too.

But if 1966 brought high hopes, 1967 showed
everybody the meaning of being a Mets fan. Attendance was still
good. The club first broke a million at the Polo Grounds in 1963.
After the 1,732,597 in 1964 outdrew the champion Yankees, the Mets
were the established New York favorites of the 1960s. It was quite
“amazin’ ,” something the Dodgers and Giants had not been able to
do, with all their success. This losing team clearly separated
themselves as the “people’s team” in the Big Apple at the time.

In 1965 1,768,389 passed through Shea’s turnstyles.
In 1966 an astounding (for that time) 1,932,693 showed up.
Furthermore, in both 1965 and 1966 New York drew a million on the
road, a major benchmark of the era.

The record tells us that Tom Seaver arrived in 1967.
Met lore has always revolved around the manifest truth that all of
the club’s history must be divided between what they did before
(H)his arrival, and after this “savior” ascended into the pantheon
of true New York Sports Icon status.

Yes, Seaver arrived in 1967. He was sensational from
the beginning; an All-Star, 16 wins, Rookie of the Year, leader; a
young man among boys. But it was a setback season. From 66-95, good
for ninth place, to 61-101, another century mark-low, league-cellar
year. Despite the exciting Seaver, attendance dropped 367,201 to
1,565,492. Road attendance fell below 1 million. Westrum was fired
with 11 games to play.

The 1969 line-up formed some more. Kranepool at
first base hit .269, but seemed to go through the motions. He was
the New York kid, the bonus baby, playing for a bad team, and had
it made. He delivered little. Harrelson took over at shortstop.
Veteran Ed Charles from the Kansas City A’s took over at third.
Swoboda hit .281. Jones hit .246. Grote could catch but was anemic
at the plate (.195). The pitching staff was still veteran, outside
of Seaver. Oddly, McGraw and Ryan, who came up before him, found
themselves shuffled back into the system while Koosman still wowed
‘em down on the farm.

Despite finishing five games south of the previous
season, Seaver and some of the young Mets had changed the culture
of losing; or were on the verge of it, at least. Seaver made it
clear he had little use for it. In 1968, Gil Hodges was hired after
a stint with the Washington Senators. While Seaver had been
sensational in his rookie year, the Seaver-Koosman duo of ’68 was
absolutely outstanding. Factoring in run support, it can be argued
that they were as good a one-two pitching combination as there was
in baseball, a mighty strong statement indeed, especially in the
“Year of the Pitcher.” The Cardinals featured Bob Gibson, who was
inhuman in ’68 (1.12 ERA) followed by (take your pick): Nelson
Briles, Steve Carlton (not fully developed yet) and Ray Washburn.
The Giants featured Juan Marichal and Gaylord Perry. Suddenly the
Cubs were worldbeaters with Ferguson Jenkins, Billy Hands and Ken
Holtzman. The Dodgers had Don Drysdale, but “Dandy Sandy” was long
gone. In the American League: Denny McLain-Mickey Lolich (Detroit),
Luis Tiant-Sam McDowell (Cleveland), and Mel Stottlemyre-Stan
Bahnsen (resurgent New York, 83-79 in Ralph Houk’s second act). A
thorough evaluation of all the win-loss records and ERAs, and a
comparative analysis of each of the teams these pitchers were on,
indicates that the Mets had the best, youngest, hardest-throwing
knockout punch in the game. Their fans and the New York media; all
of inside baseball knew it. It was apparent that to simply discount
the Mets as
the Mets
for no other reason would be to do so
at one’s peril.