THE 1969 MIRACLE METS: THE IMPROBABLE STORY OF THE WORLD’S GREATEST UNDERDOG TEAM (47 page)

Somewhere in America, Joe Louis and Rocky
Marciano knew that Tom Seaver felt that special sense of
recognition they had worked so hard to attain during all those
nights at the Garden. Somewhere in Manhattan, probably at the
center of a social whirl that had stopped itself in its tracks to
watch the Mets’ game on television, Frank Gifford was smiling at
the TV image of another Trojan entering the pantheon he had forged
in the previous decade. Out in California, a Glendale banker named
Casey Stengel was most likely asleep when it happened, but upon his
awakening and perusal of the
Los Angeles Times
the next
morning, the “Ol’ Perfessor” surely knew that a Met was in his
cherished, exclusive club. Somewhere else, in temporary retirement
after Pete Rozelle told him it was Bachelors III or football - not
both – was Joe Willie Namath. He had a blonde on one arm, a
brunette on another and a bottle Johnnie Walker Red in the middle.
His sense of inclusion, his egalitarianism forged in a tough
Pennsylvania upbringing, honed in segregated Birmingham where he
walked the streets of the “colored section” like Huey Long, made
Joe Willie smiled.

Sure, New York’s big enough for the two of
us. Welcome to the club, Tom.

So be it. So it was. The latest true New
York Sports Icon, the
savior
then laid down a perfect
sacrifice bunt. The runner moved to second as he jogged off the
field, cheered as if he had just moved a mountain.

An estimated two-and-a-half million New
Yorkers were now watching Seaver trot off the field. Over the past
innings, phones rang, doors were knocked on, people left all forms
of human endeavor to rush home; to a bar, to a car radio, anywhere
to hear or see this
happening
. It was like Orson Welles’s
re-creation of
The War of the Worlds
.

“Housewives not the least interested in
baseball have been dragged to the set by their husbands to watch
history,” wrote Dick Schaap and Paul Zimmerman. Little kids, boys
and girls, foreigners, people of all stripe who call themselves
“New Yorkers,” found a common bond in Seaver and the Mets at this
instant. Schaap and Zimmerman informed readers that a Chrysler
commercial played in between the bottom of the eighth and the top
of the ninth, urging carbuyers to “dream the impossible dream.” The
song “The Impossible Dream” from Don Quixote’s
Man From La
Mancha
was popularized at that time in part because it was
associated with Boston’s “Impossible Dream” pennant chase of 1967.
Now it applied to the Mets.

Nancy Seaver wept as she watched her husband
take the mound for the ninth. Next to her was Tom’s father,
Charles. Tom’s body was floating with pure adrenaline. He had
thrown a perfect game as a little leaguer, then had all his hopes
and dreams for a baseball future seemingly dashed when he made the
move to the “big diamond.”; then high school, where the likes of
Dick Selma – now a spectator sitting in the opposing team’s dugout
– had surpassed him by leaps and bounds.

59,000 fans chanted “Seav-
uh
,
Seav-
uh.”
It was beyond incredible, beyond heady. He later
said his arm was light, as if detached from his body. He was in
touch with his feelings. His heart pounded furiously, but the crowd
noise was somehow so great as to be silent. He was in a zone. Few
ever reach such a zenith. It is the zone that Barry Bonds was in
when he hit 73 home runs in 2001, or Joe Montana was in as he drove
the San Francisco 49ers down the field in the closing minute of the
1989 Super Bowl vs. Cincinnati. It is the rarest of air, the
highest peak in the mountain range.

But with all of this going on, Seaver still
had a job to do, and it required concentration. Amid all the furor,
he dropped, drove and delivered furious heat to Randy Hundley.
Hundley, as if acknowledging that to actually swing and hit Seaver
was by now beyond conception, tried to bunt his way on. The ball
came right back to Seaver, the easiest play in the world, except
that under such intense pressure some people stiffen right up.
Grote told him he had plenty of time, and Seaver threw out Hundley
as if he did not have a care in the world.

Bud Harrelson, his best friend on the ball
club, was watching the game at a restaurant called Giovanni’s in
Watertown, New York, where he was stationed for two weeks of summer
training. Nobody knew who he was. Now, he was a fan like everybody
else.

At seven minutes after 10 Jimmy Qualls
strode to the plate. Qualls was the only Cub to get decent wood on
a Seaver pitch all night, hitting a sharp line drive caught at the
warning track, then a liner to first base. A left-handed batter, he
had 47 Major League at-bats prior to his stepping in against Tom
Seaver. Tommie Agee in center fielder was not sure where to play
him. Seaver was throwing so hard that it seemed implausible that
Qualls would pull him, but he seemed to be on Tom’s pitches in a
way no other Cub was on that night.

Bobby Pfeil’s “scouting report” – hard stuff
- was all Grote and Seaver had to go by. Seaver had dominated with
the best fastball in the game, and that was what he and Grote
agreed on. As he nodded yes to the sign, Ed Schuyler of the
Associated Press arrived in the Shea Stadium press box.

Tom Seaver went into his wind-up, dropped,
and delivered. Instead of sinking action, down and away, the pitch
came in waist high. All night, Seaver was perfect with his
location, but his heat was so great that he could get away with a
mistake. The Cubs simply could not hit what they could not see.
Major League hitters feast on fast balls, much prefer it over
curves and off-speed stuff. Their reflexes are the best in the
world. They are the most skilled of athletes, those who engage in
what Ted Williams called the “single most difficult act in sports,”
the hitting of a “round ball against a round bat at 95 miles per
hour,” as Pete Rose described it.

In little league, high school and college,
the overwhelming fastball artist dominates with speed alone. His
competition cannot touch it. At some point, usually in the minor
leagues and especially when he reaches The Show, he discovers,
sometimes alarmingly, that he is now dealing with the only 400 or
500 men on the face of the planet who
are
capable of dealing
with his heat. An adjustment, an accommodation must be made. This
decides whether he will continue with a successful big league
career, or become a coach, a scout, a salesman . . . a writer?

Seaver was throwing
so hard
that the
best-hitting team in baseball during the first half of the 1969
season was stopped cold, unable to get around on it. That rarest of
feats, the fast ball they knew was coming, could not be hit. It was
like an overwhelming army that blasts past all defensive positions,
but cannot be stopped by tricks, decoy or espionage.

But Seaver; dropping, and driving, dropping,
and driving . . . all night, over and over, expending all that
energy . . . now, in the ninth, he was just a quarter-inch off with
his fast ball. Qualls was the one Cub who seemingly felt no
pressure. Little was expected of him. He had not been around all
season, subject to Leo Durocher’s demands and psychological games.
Suddenly, he was Ted Williams or Duke Snider, seeing the ball, and
reacting to it.

Bat connected, solidly, and the ball carried
on a fly to deep left-center field. New York Mets center fielder
Tommie Agee broke after the ball, but quickly snuck a look at his
boyhood pal from Mobile, Alabama, Cleon Jones, as if to say, “Hey
man, you better get to it ‘cause I ain’t got it.”

Jones just shook his head.

More than 59,000 people groaned as the ball
dropped in for a single. Nelson Burbrink and Bud Harrelson swore. A
few boos for Jimmy Qualls were replaced by a cheer, louder than
ever, for Seaver, now a solitary figure on a mound of dirt
surrounded by green grass. Another prolonged standing ovation.
Seaver later called it the biggest disappointment of his life,
“within my grasp,” knowing he might not, probably would not, ever
get another chance at something this close to perfection.

With a 4-0 lead, Seaver straightened up,
took the mound and worked to the next two Cubs hitters, retiring
them easily. The celebration on the field was muted, but the crowd
let forth still more outpourings of adulation. A star was born,
that was for sure,
manifested
more like it; a self-evident
truth
right before thine eyes. Seaver disappeared into the
clubhouse. Later the crowd, not wanting to leave, chanted, “We want
Seaver,” but he was gone. The 59,000 made their way into the
parking lot, the subways, the bars of Queens and Manhattan, to
celebrate and talk it over. What a night!

Seaver was immediately met by Nancy, still
battling tears. “I guess a one-hit shutout is better than nothing,”
she told him. Tom Seaver’s greatest triumph was a melancholy
moment. Despite the incredible flow of electrical energy, despite
now being a mere three games out of first place, the New York
clubhouse had a subdued quality to it, but it was nothing compared
to Chicago’s.

“Nobody was going to beat Seaver tonight,”
Durocher told the writers. “I never saw him throw so hard. If he
keeps throwing that hard, nobody’s going to beat him. But I don’t
think he will.

“We’re still three games ahead. And from now
on the Mets are going to find the going rougher. They’re going to
see the best pitchers in the league.”

Gentle Leo refrained from predicting
“100,000 suicides” if the Mets let their fans down after such a big
build-up. He had made his suicide remark in 1952 when the Giants
threatened a repeat of their 1951 “shot heard ‘round the world”
comeback. Then he smiled. “That Qualls ruined you guys,” he said.
“He made you re-write your stories.”

“There was no pressure on me at all,” Qualls
told reporters. “All I wanted to do was get a base hit and get
something started.”

On “Kiner’s Corner,” Seaver, Nancy and Cleon
Jones were Ralph’s guests. “He’s a sticky little hitter,” Seaver
said of Qualls. Later in his career, Seaver would say that the
sluggers – Mays, Aaron, Clemente, Stargell, Mike Schmidt, Johnny
Bench – were obviously challenging but somehow “pesky” hitters like
Ralph Garr of Atlanta, Matty Alou of Pittsburgh and St. Louis,
those kinds of singles specialists, gave him the most trouble. With
a home run threat he always felt he could go
mano o mano
with his best fast ball, and even though he occasionally got taken
deep, he always liked his chances.

When Tom returned to the clubhouse, Dick
Selma met him.

“Who were you pulling for?” Seaver asked him
jokingly,

“I was pulling for us,” Selma replied.

“Dear Diary, last night I sat in, with
60,000 other rabid believers, on the birth of a folk hero,” wrote
sportswriter Ray Robinson “The folk hero . . . was Tom Seaver, a
right-hander, possessing the virtues of Prince Valiant.”

The historical memory often plays tricks.
Many New Yorkers who recall the 1969 season would say that Seaver’s
great performance spurred them on while setting the Cubs back
irreparably. They would say it was the beginning of the hottest
winning streak imaginable, all leading to ultimate glory.

In 1986, California Angels relief pitcher
Donnie Moore gave up a home run to Boston’s Dave Henderson in the
ninth inning. Fans might think it ended the game, or was the game
winning hit. California tied it in the bottom half of the inning,
only to lose in extra frames.

Less than a year after the Mets’ great
season, Lakers guard Jerry West made an impossible 62-foot
desperation shot at the buzzer against the New York Knickerbockers
at Madison Square Garden in the 1970 NBA Finals. It was the
signature moment of West’s career, and many assume it won the game.
It would have if the three-point shot had been instituted at the
time, but instead it just tied the score. New York won in
overtime.

When the weary City of New York went to
sleep on July 9, 1969, or more like the wee morning hours of July
10, visions of an East Division championship danced in their heads.
Momentum was theirs. Caesar had just defeated the Gauls. “The
Surge” was working. But the season was only halfway played out, and
oh what more ups and downs were to come!