THE 1969 MIRACLE METS: THE IMPROBABLE STORY OF THE WORLD’S GREATEST UNDERDOG TEAM (73 page)

“I never realized before that a man’s whole
life could be encompassed in a single play, in a single game, in a
single day.”

Seaver burst out of the dugout and met
Gaspar at home plate. A wild on-field celebration ensued.
Afterwards, Seaver and Swoboda were whisked into Hodges’s office by
PR man Harold Weissman, to be taken to a press conference. They
were both itchy to celebrate with their teammates, who could be
heard going “hog wild” next door.

It was strangely uncomfortable, the two
players drinking beer. They were not friends. They were “different
kind of people,” like George Patton and Omar Bradley, opposites
brought together by fate and common purpose.

Later, Swoboda found much fault with Seaver,
in their off-season activities, the way he “marketed” Nancy. He
eventually admitted, more or less, that it was jealousy, he would
have “been smarter” had he hung out with Seaver, giving the ace his
proper due and respect. But he was a young bull in those days; head
strong, saying things, teeing off on Hodges. He even expressed some
remorse that some of his best plays in 1969 directly benefited
Seaver more than Koosman or pitchers he liked more as people.

“Helluva catch,” Seaver said to him.

“I was going after it all the way,” he said.
“I wasn’t going to quit on it.”

“If you have the right mental attitude,
things go right,” said Seaver.

“If you have the right mental attitude, you
make a catch like that,” replied Swoboda.

Eventually, they were taken by golf cart to
what Seaver described as a “Presidential press conference, dozens
and dozens of reporters . . . television lights glaring, cameras
clicking, microphones jammed against each other.”

Oddly, Seaver recalled the celebrations,
which had been piling up by then, as rote, “going through the
motions . . . we had become public property,” dealing with Howard
Cosell, Dick Young, the national press, ABC, NBC. Gaspar was now a
bigger celebrity than Jim Morrison. Each Met was a national figure,
a hero.

Finally, the writers and camera crews left,
leaving only Seaver and his teammates; exhausted warriors, having
fended off a challenge to their manhood, their wives and children.
He told Al Weis he would be “batting cleanup tomorrow, Babe.”

Seaver told Koosman to wrap it up the next
day. He had no desire to see Baltimore ever again.

“That was the real Seaver today,” Rube
Walker said to him.

****

After the game, the Moratorium Day rally was
held at Bryant Park in Manhattan. Mayor Lindsay, Senators Eugene
McCarthy, Jacob Javits and Charles Goodell delivered speeches.
Seaver was there in spirit; his brother Charles was there in
person.

The Seaver’s all went to the Holiday Inn,
where his sister was staying. From there they went to Lum’s, a
favorite Chinese restaurant, where the customers all rose and gave
him a standing ovation. Nancy waved.

“Maybe the applause was for her,” Tom
recalled. “I’d already heard she’d been on camera during the game
more than I had.”

“All the Met wives were sitting together on
one huge cheering section in Baltimore,” she wrote in her
New
York Post
diary. “But I have to confess something about the
Series. It’s an ordeal. Tom got beat Saturday and I guess I took it
harder than he did. He was just thrilled about being in it. I
forgot about being in it. I was just unhappy about his losing
it.

“During the regular season I’m uptight when
Tom is pitching and I’m having fun when he isn’t. We wives> just sit there and chat about all sorts of silly
things.

“But the World Series is something else. We
probably had the loudest, wildest, kookiest cheering section in any
ballpark. We were yelling ourselves hoarse . . .” Nancy also added
this: “I’m not a losing pitcher’s wife.”

Champagne was produced, toasted and drunk.
Seaver did not mind getting a little high, adding a whisky sour on
this festive occasion. He would not have to work the next day, and
maybe not again in 1969.

Finally, Tom and Nancy excused themselves
and went home. Seaver was mentally and physically done. At their
home in Bayside a huge sign had been painted on their door; a
picture of a Met ball player next to the number four, three, two;
only one left. The caption read, “Nice going, Tom, we knew you
could do it.”

Normally Seaver lay awake, re-playing the
game in his head. “But for once, on October 15, 1969, I had no
trouble falling asleep,” he recalled.

“I didn’t want to change anything that had
happened. The game was perfect.”

Seaver had gone the distance, winning 2-1.
He had pitched behind in the count, in many ways going against the
grain. He later watched replay of it, expressing amazement to Ron
Swoboda that he won with the stuff he had that day. Swoboda,
however, was impressed with his fast ball despite the fact that it
“was not the way you’re supposed to pitch, especially to good
hitters, but he did, successfully.”

Koosman later said as soon as Brooks
Robinson stung his line drive, he assumed, “The game is tied,” or
worse – “another misplayed ball” – but when Swoboda made the
incredible grab he thought, “God! These type of things were
happening all year. Here’s another hero.”

Swoboda told Peter Golenbock he saw that
play on the Classic Sports channel, and from the camera angle “. .
. it’s a base hit. And then all of a sudden in the frame comes this
maniac, diving, backhanding, and somehow coming up with the ball .
. .”

Swoboda insisted he had no choice but to go
all out; that the nasty, hard-sinking angle of it was such that if
he tried to play it safe, it may have skidded past him to the wall,
scoring the go-ahead run.

Maury Allen said Swoboda’s catch was “one of
those destiny, miracle things. The catch was better than any I had
ever seen. Everyone jumped in the press box screaming, which was
something you shouldn’t do.”

Mickey Mantle later said it was the best in
World Series history. Ralph Kiner said after the catch, he had “a
feeling of destiny. Everything was going the Mets way.”

Prior to the game, Hodges and some writers
held a lengthy discussion on whether Agee’s first or second catch
on Tuesday had been the greatest in World Series history, but
according to Roger Angell, “Swoboda’s was.”

The next day, Seaver’s clarification of the
anti-war pamphlet was printed. “The people are being misled, and I
resent it,” Seaver said of the Chicago Conspiracy. “I’m a ball
player, not a politician. I did not give them permission to use me.
I have certain feelings on Vietnam and I will express them as a
U.S. citizen after the Series is over.”

There had been no immediate controversy
regarding Martin’s inside-the-base-path run to first, but newspaper
photos the next day revealed that he was definitely in fair ground.
The Orioles of course howled, but what was done was done. Bowie
Kuhn weighed in, saying it was a “judgment call.” It only served to
emphasize the premise that all was against Baltimore. They were the
British Empire watching George Washington get all the breaks, his
judgment seemingly infallible. They were the Egyptians enduring
plagues, locusts and a cloud of death. With everything on the line,
Seaver had passed the ultimate “acid test,” walking through fire
and leading his team to within one victory of . . . The Promised
Land.

The Promised Land

And He said, Behold, I make a covenant:
before all thy people I will do marvels, such as have not been done
in all the Earth, nor in any nation: and all the people among which
thou
art
shall see the work of the Lord . . .”

- Exodus 34: 10

In the 1968 World Series, the Detroit Tigers
trailed the St. Louis Cardinals, three games to one, knowing that
in order to win, they would have to beat the unbeatable Bob Gibson
at Busch Stadium. They accomplished that feat.

Coming back from a 3-1 deficit was rare, but
not impossible. In 1967, the Boston Red Sox came back from 3-1 down
to force a seventh game before Gibson beat Jim Lonborg. In later
years, the 1998 New York Yankees – considered by some to be the
best team ever assembled – trailed two games to one in the A.L.
Championship Series with Cleveland. They rallied to win, going on
to take the World Series. In 1973, the A’s trailed these very Mets,
three games to two, but rallied for victory. There are many
examples of good teams recovering from post-season deficits to
win.

Baltimore was still Baltimore. A game five
victory would send the Fall Classic back to their stadium with
momentum, Jim Palmer and Mike Cuellar on their side. That said,
there was something
in the air
at Shea Stadium. Sports can
be a galvanizing, emotional experience. Every town and team, all
fans who have ever experienced the big game, the great upset, that
championship season, the bowl victory, the Final Four, the National
Championship, even high school heroics; all can describe something
mystical. When Minnesota, or Duke, or San Francisco, or Pittsburgh,
or De La Salle High . . . or Boston . . . won championships in
various sports over the years, these cities, fans and schools went
nuts, sometimes with violent results requiring police
intervention.

When teams win the College World Series
every June, they inevitably “dog pile” on the mound. To say one
celebration, or one stadium, or one city, somehow was more
maniacal, crazy, exuberant, than another is speculative, impossible
really. That is, except for New York in 1969. Maybe
because
it was New York; so big, so diverse, so with it, so
seen-it-all-and-done-it-all, that when
this
came around, it
was something they had
not done!

In 1971, the World Series was, for the first
time, held at night on weekdays for television. Nobody would argue
that this has not been good for ratings, giving more people –
particularly school kids – a chance to watch the games. Game five
of the 1969 World Series was a day affair. On the East Coast, it
started late enough for children to run home, catching the second
half on the tube, but out west it was played entirely during school
hours.

Traditionally, televisions were brought into
classrooms during the World Series so they could watch, but not
without some protest or refusal by certain teachers, who saw
baseball as a frivolous activity unworthy of diversion from math
and science. But in 1969, it was a pretty universal deal. That
Series effected the entire nation. Its day-game-during-school-hours
nature, reducing it to hand-held transistors during recess; bits
and pieces in between classes; a snippet here, an inning there,
changes in the game occurring but not watched; some kids racing
home or staying home altogether to see it; all played to a certain
sense of mystique for millions of Americans. The memory plays
tricks, but it was one of those days, one of those events, that
people always recall. They know where they were. Certain moments
have that resonance, for good or for bad: Bobby Thomson’s “shot
heard ‘round the world,” John Kennedy’s assassination, the Moon
landing . . . and the Mets’ winning the World Series.

17 years later, with a much better team that
was as different in character as can be conceived, the Mets won it
again in 1986. It certainly was celebrated, remembered, and was
memorable. It was not even close to 1969. For one thing, the 1986
Mets were favored. They came in with a regular season record and
galaxy of individual stars on par with the 1969 Orioles. Nobody
confused their run with a
God-inspired miracle!
Many thought
their win might have come from
a dark source.

“They were Satan,” was the way Jeff Pearlman
put it in
The Bad Guys Won!

Something happened in between 1969 and 1986.
A sense of magic exited stage left. Cable TV, night games, and
all-the-time baseball viewing reduced its mystique. Watergate,
Vietnam; there was an American
malaise
in which the youth of
this country lost their enthusiasm in favor of bad hair, bad
clothes, bad music, bad drugs and bad morals. Idealism was gone.
Kids no longer went into the Peace Corps, as Tom Seaver’s sister
did.

1969 was the last year of innocence;
Woodstock and the Mets. It was the final vestige of pure
righteousness in sports; before free agency, big money, big
business, corporate ownership, steroids, hideous uniforms, funny
hair, player strikes, and a myriad number of rotten things serving
to dilute the joy of a game, of a sport.

No, all was not perfect in 1969. It would be
historical revisionism to suggest it was. A war raged and two
heroic figures were martyred the previous year. That was five years
after the brother of one of them was killed. A third brother was
tarred for failing to live up to their sainted images. Kids were
getting addicted to drugs. Sex addiction would become an epidemic
of immorality and disease. People sought many forms of spiritual
enlightenment, often every kind other than the true faith. An
entire region was still segregated. Black Americans, frustrated
that the Constitution was still not completely lived up to, took to
violent militancy.

In New York, fetid garbage and incompetence
marked political leadership. The traditions that had always made
the Big Apple the greatest city in the world were seemingly a thing
of the past. But perhaps because the nation and the city were so
ugly, the 1969 Mets do represent idealism.

Subsequent champions have none of their
resonance. Baltimore would win it in corporate style the next year.
Pittsburgh lit up a city in 1971, but their strange new uniforms
and the fact it was
Pittsburgh
did not give it the same
imprimatur. Then there was Oakland, of all places, with hairstyles
and garish duds so bad as to be beyond description, playing in
front of half-ass crowds not deserving the greatness that was the
A’s.