THE 1969 MIRACLE METS: THE IMPROBABLE STORY OF THE WORLD’S GREATEST UNDERDOG TEAM (38 page)

New York made their first-ever trip to Canada. Jarry
Park resembled a “handsome little field that much resembles a
country fairground,” wrote Roger Angell. Their fans were “slightly
bush,” but not disheartened. Montrealers seemed to take to big
league ball, expecting little and appreciating what they had from
their unroofed stands.

Major League ball clubs were quickly discovering
that Montreal, while a little minor league from the baseball
perspective, was
big league
in one area that counted in a
big way with them: women. This was Paris/North America, maybe
better. Girls were just beautiful, fashionably dressed, coifed and
stylish. Montreal strip clubs were, to coin a later phrase, “off
the hook.” Years later, when baseball died in Montreal and the
Expos left, ball players expressed their greatest regret that the
trip to this sex capital was no longer on the schedule.

At Jarry Park the fans cheered politely even at foul
pop-ups and booed called third strikes against their boys. Baseball
had been in Montreal for decades, but many fans at Jarry Park were
apparently first-timers. Attendance went up during a long losing
streak. It was a bilingual audience, a long parade of
lanceurs
trudged to
le monticule
. A double-header was
le premier programme double dispute au crepuscule par les
Expos
. It sounded like an adult movie. One almost expected the
announcer to inform the crowd that the
menage a trois
would
begin precisely at one.

Each game was a
partie
, runs were
points
, scored via
coups surs
, the first out
au
premier but
. Second baseman Bobby Wine occupied
l’arret-court
. Back-to-back home runs were
dos-a-dos
,
each one a
circuit
clout, while the scoreboard fired up the
fans with the words
“VAS-Y”
and
“IL NOUS FAUT UNE
VICTOIRE!”
It felt like the resistance urging the overthrow of
the Nazis from Paris.

When the Expos had a rally going, however, the
French trait of pessimism cast a pall on the stadium. When the
rubber hit the road, Napoleon lost at Waterloo, the Germans
encircled the city, and in this case it meant failure at a crucial
juncture was the next step. Gene Mauch was called “little Napoleon”
when he was in Philadelphia, and Montreal fans called him
le
general
or
gerant
. Pitchers removed from games were
given the
framboise
from the stands. Ron Fairly was a
v
oltigeur
, pitcher Dan McGinn a
gaucher
, and wins
were rare
la victoires
in the early years at Montreal.

The Mets arrived, wide-eyed, then got down to
business. They won the opener 2-0, but it was not a good day. Jerry
Koosman had a two-hit shutout going in the fifth but suddenly
called Hodges to the hill. His arm had gone numb. He had knotted a
small muscle just behind the armpit and the pain was acute. It
would take a month to heal up. Nolan Ryan came in and finished off
the Expos. Aside from Koosman, minor injuries later sidelined Ryan
and McAndrew.

If Montreal thought they had Seaver’s number after
batting him around in the Shea Stadium opener, they saw the real
“Tom Terrific” at Jarry Park. Seaver overpowered them 2-1.

On May 2 and 3, Chicago defeated New York, 6-4 and
3-2 before wild cheering at Wrigley Field. The Cubbies were the
toast of the Northside. The whole, early shaky Mets’ season was
seemingly always on the line, and Seaver would be asked to respond
each time. On May 4 he came through with a 3-2 win over Billy
Hands. In the second game of the double-header, the Mets made a
statement, winning 3-2 again to split the series.

Seaver’s game was key. It was a Sunday, the crowd
loud and boisterous, drinking beer, the “bleacher bums” in full
force, May weather starting to break the Chicago winter. Durocher
was in the other dugout. The Mets were the baseball image of
nice guys
, and everybody knew what Leo predicted for that.
Hodges was a churchgoing fellow; quiet, unassuming. Another Walter
Alston guy, probably wore suits off the rack and was faithful to
his wife.

Chump
, thought Leo. Gil had a bunch of
college guys, frat boys. Seaver, the preppie. Softies from
California, surf dudes like McGraw; Harrelson, who was scrawny and
could be taken out by a spikes-flying slide into second breaking up
two. Koosman, an engineering student. So was Jay Hook. That’s
impressive. Ryan, who threw hard but was scared of his own shadow.
He did not have the guts to come inside. Kranepool playing out the
string as usual. Agee in center, pretty good with the Southside
White Sox, but a bust in the Big Apple.

Ron Santo faced Seaver. He was the face of the Cubs,
the Italian guy, outspoken, a hard-ass. The time had come. No
provocation really, other than Leo’s
presence
in the home
dugout. Seaver let one fly right at Santo’s batting helmet. It
flipped him. Santo stared out at Tommy Tom Tom.

So that’s how it’s gonna be, eh?

It was a baseball code, the way the game is played.
The Cubs’ star brushed himself off, the crowd booing. Did Leo
scream obscenities at Seaver, the home plate umpire, turn to Billy
Hands and tell him to “Stick it in his ear”? No. He sat in stony
silence. This situation required no words.

When Seaver stepped in against Hands, he got nicked
on the arm. It was on. Hands got one in the leg. The benches looked
to clear, players on the steps, ready to rumble. The umpire stepped
halfway out to the mound. He warned Seaver, a $50 fine. Seaver knew
he had reached the tolerance limit, and could not afford another
one lest he be thrown out. He needed to stay in to win.

It was the baseball version of Tataglia trying to
take down The Don; “business, not personal.” Both clubs were on
edge, verbalizing, squaring off against each other. A rivalry was
brewing. Seaver kept dropping, and driving, dropping, and driving .
. .

Pitch after pitch. Cheese. Hard, hard sinkers, the
kind that wore out Grote’s hand, left him black and blue, broke
bats, made the ball hit wood like shot-puts, induced grounders
struck by noodles. Good old country hard ball. Tom accepted the $50
fine as a small price to pay for victory and respect.

“That was my first really satisfying game,” he told
the media afterwards. He could enjoy the second game, sit around
half-clothed, taking his time, savoring the fact that he was
a
big leaguer
. He was an All-Star, his potential and reputation
sky high, and Tom Seaver knew how to play it. He was Central
Casting’s typecast Star, but underneath all of it he was packing
crates in 100-degree Fresno heat; rooting for “Dandy Sandy” at
Dodger Stadium; using guile to get high school hitters out. He was
a fan living a fantasy, not going
mano-o-mano
with Leo and
Ron Santo at Wrigley Field. He drank some beer, iced, showered,
rooted his team to victory in the nightcap. A great day in the
Windy City.

“I tried to brush him back in New York but I didn’t
do much of a job,” Tom told Larry Merchant of the
New York
Post
when asked about the Santo brushback. “He was hitting me
well. Possibly he’s taking the bread out of my mouth.”

This was Leo’s philosophy, one of the reasons he did
not want college boys. Holtzman could take his Jewish
intellectualism into the moneyed world of entrepreneurial business.
He did not need baseball. Seaver’s old man was an executive.
Where’s the hunger? He wanted gutter guys who felt that if they
failed in baseball they were destined for the streets. Carl Furillo
forced to work construction, bitter. But Seaver was the “new
breed.” He had served in the Marines, he had a “war face.”

Santo had a habit after wins of jumping up in the
air and clicking his heels. The “bleacher bums” loved it, opponents
stewed. “I had to make sure he respects me,” Seaver continued. “You
can’t let hitters dominate or intimidate you. The hitter shouldn’t
intimidate the pitcher and the pitcher shouldn’t intimidate the
hitter, but there has to be respect. I had to let Santo know I knew
what he was doing to me. Then Leo had Hands hit me. What do I do,
throw a bat at Leo? I had to do what I did. It’s a part of
baseball. It’s a good hard game.”

Seaver fought like the CIA, not the infantry. There
was a method to his madness. A time for an intellectual approach,
mind games, deception, and time to demonstrate to the enemy that if
they went too far they faced “mutual assured destruction.” Seaver
had a reputation as a control pitcher, but his fastball in his
prime years - and he was on the cusp of it now - were close to 100
miles per hour. He was
dangerous
.

“This is the code,” wrote Merchant. “But the thing
is someone can get hurt or maimed with a baseball . . . The man who
shoots back and kills may not know the first man was just issuing a
warning. They are fooling with bullets.”

“You would have thought it foolish to throw at us
when we had Tom and myself and the other guys, who could throw
hard, but we weren’t that well known yet,” Koosman recalled. “But
they helped get the fire going. They generated a lot of energy.
That was one club you loved to beat.”

Seaver saw no ethical quandaries. “There’s a fine
dividing line between throwing at someone or brushing him back.
It’s the difference between good hard baseball and dirty baseball .
. .”

But the Mets would face Chicago again down the road,
and Leo Durocher played “dirty baseball.”

When the Mets reached the .500 mark at 18-18, it was
celebrated as a major accomplishment in the New York press. Seaver
had the perfect reaction to it.

“.500 is nothing to celebrate,” he said. The tone
was set.

“We found ways to win games as opposed to finding
ways to lose,” wrote outfielder Art Shamsky in
The Magnificent
Seasons
. “Don’t get me wrong, at this point nobody thought
about winning the Eastern Division title or even visualized hopes
of a pennant. But we were a better ball club than the Mets had ever
been in our history. More important, we were starting to have faith
in our own abilities. Positive things started to happen.”

Shamsky had missed much of Spring Training with an
injury. He spent the early part of the season at triple-A Tidewater
before getting called up to the big leagues.

“We were learning how not to beat ourselves,”
recalled second baseman Ken Boswell, who was trying to debunk his
reputation as a defensive liability.

“I thought if we could just start winning some close
games you never know what could happen,” said Grote. There was that
computer analysis, and Gil’s admonition too: 36 one-run losses in
1968. Win half of those, that is 18 wins added to the 73 of the
previous year . . .

“I’m tired of the jokes about the old Mets,” Seaver
told Jack Lang and the assorted writers. “Let Rod Kanehl and
Marvelous Marv laugh about the Mets.”

After the Wichita Dreamliners had beaten him in
1965, Rod told the young Goldpanner pitcher he was destined for the
big leagues, and now here he was. When Seaver announced the
“celebration” would come about only when a pennant was won, Maury
Allen shrugged and said, “I’ll be too old to enjoy it.”

Meet the Mets

“The ‘new breed’ is here, baby.”

- Tommie Agee

As the 1969 season began to develop, the New York
Mets began to demonstrate a distinct personality. They were part of
the changing times, on and off the field. That spring, the great
Mickey Mantle tearfully announced his retirement from baseball. The
New York Yankees got off to a mediocre start. Their famed stadium
was empty. Press attention was focused on the Mets. The Yankees
were yesterday and had been for five years at least.

Shea was the place to be, just as it had been during
the football season. Off the field, Mets players reflected the new
sensibilities. They wore mod clothes, turtlenecks, a little jewelry
maybe, sideburns, and flared bellbottoms. They spoke in the new
dialect. It was a groovy time, man. They were with it. As for the
war, there were divisions. They were mostly small town guys and the
old values that especially make up the athlete’s creed led them to
support their country, the President and the troops. Most voted
Republican, but it was a far less conservative bunch than any
average big league team of five years before. Truth be told, they
probably were a little more to the Left than the average sports
team, circa 1969-70.

Black players on the Mets were distinctly of the
“new breed.” This was New York during a time of change. Their
hairstyles, clothing, jewelry and attitudes were reflective of the
times. They felt free to flirt with white girls, to meet them in
the Manhattan hot spots or on the road without fear of the old-time
recriminations about “their place” in the hierarchy.

The Mets were popular, young, attractive, and unlike
the 1962 “all-time record for fatherhood” team, had their share of
swingin’ bachelors. The sexual revolution was
up and running
and they were in the right time and place. Joe Namath had made it
perfectly acceptable to kiss ‘n’ tell. After Namath, there was
little debauchery the Mets’ could engage in that was going to shock
anybody.
Ball Four
was still a year away from publication.
Its revelations were shocking not so much because it told truths
that people already suspected or knew about sex, pep pills and
other aspects of the game, but rather because it tended to name
some names; some pretty important names. But hey, after Namath said
he went to bed the night before the Super Bowl with a “blonde and a
bottle of Johnnie Walker Red,” the fantasy life of pro athletes was
open for all to live vicariously by.