THE 1969 MIRACLE METS: THE IMPROBABLE STORY OF THE WORLD’S GREATEST UNDERDOG TEAM (43 page)

They were calling the other division the “wild, wild
West,” as Atlanta, San Francisco, Cincinnati, Los Angeles and even
Houston were all in the hunt. In the American League, the Baltimore
Orioles were absolutely dominating everybody they played. The
Yankees in their greatest year were never better than Earl Waver’s
juggernaut. It looked like all the excitement over a possible
Mets-Cubs showdown; a duel between the Braves, Giants and Reds; or
the Kabuki dance in the A.L. West (where Oakland would throughout
the season creep within three or so of Minnesota, get swept by the
Twins, drop eight back, only to try again); none of it would matter
in the wake of Baltimore dominance.

The most optimistic of Mets fans began to formulate
the idea of a Mets-Orioles World Series, only because the January
Super Bowl had featured a New York team against a highly-favored
Baltimore powerhouse, but this still looked mighty far-fetched . .
.

At 9:30 in the morning on July 8, 25-year old Jerry
Koosman awoke after a restless night. On that afternoon he was
scheduled to face the Cubs in the first of a three-game series. It
was the first truly crucial series in club history. A Chicago sweep
would give them an eight-game lead, not insurmountable, but the
psychological damage to New York would be a major blow. A
three-game Mets sweep meant they would be just two out, with the
wind at their sails. A 2-1 series would not make for a huge
differential either way, although if the Cubs got the two they
would call it a big win. The problem for Chicago, however, was that
they studiously avoided any acknowledgement that this meant more
than all the other games they played. To do so would elevate the
Mets into their stratosphere. Leo Durocher had no intention of
paying
the Mets
any of his hard-earned respect.

The Mets needed to avoid what was happening that
year in Oakland. Like New York, the A’s had been doormats for years
in Kansas City before the move to California. In 1969 they featured
a talented young squad. Minnesota was, like Chicago, a strong,
veteran club. The Athletics would creep close, but Minnesota would
sweep them in several crucial series. Their 13-5 mark against
Oakland marked eight of the nine games they beat the A’s by at
season’s end.

Koosman, leading the National League with a 1.67
earned run average, would be opposing Ferguson Jenkins in one of
the best pitching match-ups of the year. Don Kessinger, Glenn
Beckert and Billy Williams of Chicago were all hitting over .300.
Ron Santo was among the league’s RBI leaders, and Ernie Banks was
on pace to drive in 100 runs. Randy Hundley was a star catcher and
capable with the bat. Even Jenkins had homered off Seaver early in
the season. Koosman had his work cut out for him.

Chicago’s only weaknesses: ex-Met Jim Hickman in
right field, and the unknown rookie Don Young in center. Young was
walking on eggshells. Leo Durocher gave him no leeway, no rookie
comforts as he had for Willie May 18 years earlier. He had
impressed nobody so far and needed to prove himself, especially
since he had replaced the talented, temperamental Adolfo Phillips
in center field.

New York had two .300 hitters: Cleon Jones and
part-timer Art Shamsky, but they featured the hardest throwing
pitching staff in baseball: Seaver, Koosman, Gentry and Ryan all
throwing gas, plus some of the second line guys were no slouches
either. By 12:30, Mets coach Joe Pignatano, a one-time Dodger and
member of the original 1962 losers, hit practice grounders. Shea
was almost full to capacity along with a World Series-level
contingent of press gathered around the batting cage.

“There are more writers here than at Cape Kennedy,”
one of them remarked. 900 miles to the south, the Apollo 11
astronauts were in Florida, about a week away from a full-scale
landing on the Moon.

“It looks like the World Series,” another writer
said. “Everybody’s here.”

One prominent member of the press in attendance was
the bombastic Howard Cosell. Cosell was a Brooklyn attorney who
decided he wanted to become a sports broadcaster. ABC carried the
Baseball Game of the Week
on Saturday afternoons. The man in
charge was a blustery New Yorker with a heart of gold named Edgar
Scherick. Scherick gave Cosell his shot, thus launching his career.
Cosell’s star was made in a series of hilarious, half-put-on
interviews with the equally bombastic heavyweight boxing champion
Cassius Clay. When Clay became not only a Muslim but also a member
of the controversial black Nation of Islam sect, Cosell respected
his religious views and was one of the first to call him Muhammad
Ali. When Ali evaded the draft, refusing to serve in Vietnam Cosell
– a major liberal – called him courageous. Later, Cosell would be
in Munich when Yasser Arafat’s murderers blew up the Israeli
Olympic wrestling team. Cosell begged to do the reports so he could
describe “those Muslim faces,” and for that reason was denied.

In 1968-69, with “Broadway Joe” Namath popularizing
pro football above all previous experience, Scherick saw the future
and tried to grab it. He started
Monday Night Football
.
Cosell became the face of
MNF
. Scherick ultimately lost a
network power struggle with Roone Arledge, the man history says was
behind the concept. Scherick went to Hollywood, producing
The
Taking of Pelham One, Two, Three
with Walter Matthau, among
numerous other hits.

Cosell claimed baseball was boring, but he obviously
knew a good story when it stared him in the face. The Mets were the
story in the here and now. He conducted a national interview with
Gil Hodges for ABC, then falsely announced to a crowd of kids
begging for autographs that after the game Hodges would be “outside
with a ball for each of you.”

One of the only members of the press Casey Stengel
ever despised, Cosell was the “man you loved to hate.” Despite
attracting boos and catcalls wherever he went, Cosell was convinced
that he was loved.

Ron Santo, the Chicago third baseman, stared at the
Mets’ line-up card posted on the dugout wall. He shook his
head.

“I know Los Angeles won with pitching,” he said.
“But this is ridiculous.”

But Ernie Banks did not disrespect the Mets. “People
used to laugh at the Mets,” Bank said. “But not any more. Now they
have a good team. They have good pitching and they play together.
People laughed a few years ago, but the Mets play together
now.”

Banks heard the Mets’ theme song, “Meet the Mets,”
and hummed along to it with his own riff on the lyrics: “Beat the
Mets, beat the Mets. Come on out and beat the Mets.”

He paused to observe his surrounding. “What a
beautiful day for baseball,” he said. “New York. The melting pot.
The Great White Way. Let’s go. What’s going on?”

On Broadway during this era it was
Oh,
Calcutta
,
Hair
, and
Jesus Christ Superstar
. The
times were changing. Just a few years earlier Sir Laurence Olivier
had delivered a performance in the traditional
Othello
described by those in the audience as the finest acting of all
time.

When Banks expressed an interest in such racy fare,
one of the writers asked if he was a “dirty old man” underneath his
Mr. Sunshine exterior.

“No, no,” answered Banks, smiling. “You can’t say
that. What will all these kids think?”

He was asked what kept him so exuberant. “You have
to be happy, and sports does it,” said Banks. “What kind of world
would this be without sports, without baseball? Why, you’d have
people at each other all the time.”

Mrs. Joan Payson paid for the Mets’ game to be
transmitted by a special radio broadcast to her temporary vacation
home in Maine, where she was staying. What she heard was a
pitcher’s duel, with Jenkins and Koosman working fast and furious;
a flurry of strikeouts in a 0-0 game until Ed Kranepool, booed each
time his name was announced, lofted one over the right field fence
to give New York a 1-0 lead.

Ernie Banks answered with a solo shot of his own and
it was 1-1. In the seventh, Koosman walked Jenkins, of all people.
Durocher manufactured a run via a sacrifice bunt and Glenn
Beckert’s single to make it 2-1.

In the stands, a fan named Joe Delberti displayed a
sign reading “UNBELIEVABLE.” Two attractive brunettes paraded a
placard asking, “WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO MARV THRONEBERRY?”

In the eighth, Jim Hickman took Koosman deep,
something he sure did not do much of in his New York days. With the
score 3-1 and Jenkins still firing seeds, Mets fans began to resign
themselves to the fact that they were going to be six back.

When the Cubs took the field holding a two-run lead
in the ninth, Mets third base coach Yogi Berra passed Banks and
said, “We’re gonna get three in the ninth and beat you.” This time
Ernie remained silent.

As this was happening, a man in the Ridgewood
section of Queens named Frank Graddock, who had been drinking and
watching the game all afternoon, observed his wife, Margaret,
casually flip the station to her favorite daytime serial,
Dark
Shadows
. On that day viewers would learn whether Quentin, who
carried the curse of the werewolf, would be able to keep the
mummy’s hand he had been pursuing through the last few episodes.
Frank was uninterested in Quentin, the curse, or the mummy’s
hand.

In the ninth inning, Hodges pinch-hit .245-hitting
Ken Boswell for Jerry Koosman. Boswell was a pull-hitter with some
power. Cubs center fielder Don Young played him in right-center, a
little too deep. Boswell had a bad hand. After working Jenkins to
two-and-two, he hit a fly ball to straightaway center. If his hand
did not hurt, he may have hit it right to Young. If the Cubs’
advance scouts had known, Young would have been stationed right
where the ball was hit. Instead, Young froze like a deer caught in
the headlights. Supposedly a defensive specialist – Young’s bat was
certainly not exceptional – he lost the baseball for a crucial
split-second in the mid-summer haze and background of white shirts
in the crowd.

Kessinger and Beckert saw Young’s fatal hesitation
and tried to make up for it, but Boswell’s lazy pop was, as they
say, a line drive double in the scorebook. Suddenly, more than
50,000 Mets fans made mental note that Chicago had committed the
kind of
faux pas
previously reserved for their guys.
Reservedly watching the fast-paced pitcher’s battle, their guys
striking out, popping up and weakly grounding out against a future
Hall of Famer in his prime, now they came to their feet; imploring,
hoping, desperately shouting.

In Queens, Frank Graddock was watching Quentin try
to decide whether to keep the mummy’s paw or return it in exchange
for advice from the witch Angelique, since she was an expert on how
to shake the werewolf’s curse. Before this information could be
made known to Margaret, Graddock switched the station back to Shea
Stadium. The tying run was coming to the plate.

Nobody got up in the Cubs’ bullpen. Durocher’s creed
was
finish what you start
. Out in the mid-summer sun
Jenkins, perspiring and toiling, missed with two balls. Hundley
went out to chat with him. Durocher watched stoically. Agee then
popped up to Banks for the first out.

Clendenon came in to pinch-hit for light-swinging
Bobby Pfeil, who was playing in Bud Harrelson’ place while he did
his two-week military training stint. Clendenon tended to strike
out a lot and at the time actually held the National League record
for a season, a mark Bobby Bonds would break. Even though a home
run would have tied the game, Clendenon did not feel he could
handle Jenkins’s still-formidable stuff, so he choked up on the
bat, hitting a liner to the warning track. Maybe, had he not choked
up he would have cleared the wall but then again, maybe he would
have swung and missed.

Young raced after it, this time without hesitancy.
Ball, glove and fence met at the same time. The ball landed in
Young’s glove for a tantalizing millisecond, but immediately popped
out. The crowd held its breath, the “snow coned” white baseball
held precariously in the webbing of Young’s mitt, then let out a
roar that could be heard in West Islip, Long Island when it plopped
to the ground.

Or was that gentle Leo cursing out Young?

Boswell had to hold at second and only made it to
third, but his run was not the material thing. Clendenon reached
second with one out and Shea was a madhouse. So was the Graddock
household. Frank hit Margaret when, just as the Mets threatened
with two on and one out, she tried to switch back to
Dark
Shadows
, hoping to observe Angelique explaining how she, too,
had once been bitten by a vampire.

Cleon Jones came to the plate, hitless all day, but
Jenkins was withering. He smoked a line drive double over Ron
Santo’s head, scoring Boswell and Clendenon to tie it. The Cubs
bullpen was up by now as Durocher went out to talk it over with
Jenkins. He kept him in the game. Shea throbbed with emotion. The
noise, the fevered passions, were unlike anything ever felt at
Yankee Stadium. It was Ebbets with Duke at the plate, Jackie
dancing off third; “Broadway Joe” eyeing the Raiders’ secondary
with a minute or so left, the goal post within his sights; it was
all of it all rolled into one.

The Jets, in fact, were gathering for the 1969
training camp at Hofstra University on Long Island. According to
sportswriter Dick Schaap, they were watching, cheering for the Mets
on a television set in assistant coach Walt Michaels’s room.

Durocher ordered Art Shamsky to be walked. Wayne
Garrett grounded to Beckert as hoped for, but it was not hard
enough to turn two. Beckert threw Garrett out at first while Jones
went to third, Shamsky to second.

Ed Kranepool, the symbol of all those bad Mets teams
- of Casey Stengel asking, “Can’t anybody here play this game?” –
the bonus baby from James Monroe High who never became the hometown
hero; the man who just played out the string; stepped to the plate.
No time for the usual boos. Cheers resounded as his name was
called.