THE 1969 MIRACLE METS: THE IMPROBABLE STORY OF THE WORLD’S GREATEST UNDERDOG TEAM (83 page)

Ronald Reagan’s sweeping victory in 1980,
followed by 12 years of Republican domination, looks a lot like the
Yankees’ baseball empire. The success of the Yankees resembles the
success of America. Not everybody enjoys watching America win,
dominate, and call the shots. By the same token, not everybody
enjoys watching the Yankees . . . win, dominate and call the shots!
There are parallels between political ideology and baseball fandom,
too. New Yorkers who hate the Yankees, despite the obvious hometown
pride seemingly engendered by the Bronx Bombers, may be viewed as
Americans who blame their own country for all the evils in the
world.

None of this has stopped America or the
Yankees from dominating. Steinbrenner put together a juggernaut
under Martin and general manager Gabe Paul in the 1970s. In truth,
the Yankees were not quite as bad as they looked to be when the
Mets seemingly displaced them as “New York’s other baseball team”
in and around 1969-73. The Yankees fell precipitously after their
“last hurrah” 1964 pennant: sixth place in 1965,
last place
in 1966, and next-to-last in 1967. A novel of the era,
Right
Field Rookie
by Joe Archibald, painted a picture of a
traditional champion that becomes a casualty to the modernity’s of
1960s pro sports.

Between 1965 and 1968, a different team won
the American League championship every year: Minnesota (1965),
Baltimore (1966), Boston (1967) and Detroit (1969). The period
between 1968 and 1975 came to be known as the “Horace Clarke era.”
During this time, the Yankees featured a solid second baseman,
Clarke, who represented competence but not championships. In 1968
they rebounded from their 1965-67 doldrums to post a winning
record. The historical memory paints a picture of the 1969 Yankees
as a dismal failure in contrast to the dazzling Mets. In fact, the
Yankees were a near-.500 club, which was not as dismal as five
other American League clubs that year. The 1970 Yankees were
genuinely excellent at 93-69, but unnoticed in the glare of
Baltimore’s 108-win World Champions. In a crowded 1972 East
Division pennant campaign, the Yankees were in contention all the
way. In 1973, the world declared that they were back, just as a
hopeful
Sports Illustrated
cover tried to revive past
glories by declaring “The Pack is back,” an incorrect prediction
that the glory of Vince Lombardi’s Packers was to be revived by a
quarterback named Scott Hunter. Instead, it was Baltimore, playing
little ball
under Earl Weaver, who won the East.

In 1974, a huge trade was consummated:
Oklahoma-born Bobby Murcer, a solid player but one who committed
the sin of not being Mickey Mantle, traded to San Francisco for the
alcoholic, militant, enormously talented Bobby Bonds. The Yanks
contended, but fell short. Steinbrenner had had it by 1975; winning
clubs, but not juggernauts. In 1974-75, the club played at Shea
while Yankee Stadium was renovated.

A film of the era,
Bang the Drum Slowly
f
rom Mark Harris’s novel, captured a fictional Yankee team
called the New York
Marathons
reviving past glories with a
Stengelesque manager (Vincent Gardenia), an idiosyncratic 20-game
winning pitcher (Michael Moriarty), and a bad-baseball-playing
Robert DeNiro as a tobacco-chewin’
Georgia boy
dying of
cancer. They played their games . . .at Shea!

Martin came on board after being fired in
Minnesota, Detroit, and Texas. Everywhere he went, Billy turned
losers into winners, got in bar fights (sometimes with players,
like his 1969 Twins ace, Dave Boswell), then wore out his welcome.
The act was repeated at Yankee Stadium, but with much greater drama
attached. His 1976 club was good, but not great. Cincinnati swept
them in four straight games. By 1977, free agency was in full
swing. Catfish Hunter and Reggie Jackson, the stars of Oakland’s
three-year run (1972-74), were brought over. Jax and Martin hated
each other, but it did not prevent Reggie from hitting three homers
in game six of the 1977 Fall Classic with the Dodgers. His five
homers in the Series powered the Yankees to victory.

In1978, Goose Gossage was brought in as
their closer. The season was captured in Sparky Lyle’s
The Bronx
Zoo
. Trailing Boston by 14 around mid-season, New York powered
their way back to win a second straight World title, again over Los
Angeles. Pitcher Ron Guidry won 25 games. Bob Lemon took over for
Martin after he was fired in mid-season, but with the strange
proviso
that he would return in 1979.

The next few years were a revolving door of
firings; Martin was in, Martin was out; Martin was in, Martin was
out. In 1980, the Yanks won the East but lost in the play-offs.
With new free agent Dave Winfield they played but lost to the
Dodgers in the 1981 World Series.

The 1980s and early 1990s were odd Yankee
years. They had talented clubs, contended, but did not win. Don
Mattingly became their star. Rickey Henderson was a Yank. Nobody
could keep track of Martin’s hirings and firings, nor how much
George paid him
not
to manage. Steinbrenner got in trouble
with the Commissioner and had to sit out, but triumphed over it
with a
Sports Illustrated
cover depicting him as Napoleon,
vowing to return from his baseball exile. Buck Showalter was
seemingly the perfect Steinbrenner employee – hard-working, earnest
– but ultimate victory did not come fast enough.

Joe Torre was hired and rookie Derek Jeter
arrived in 1996. The following five years may be the greatest in
Yankee annals. The club captured the World Series in 1996, then
three years in a row from 1998 to 2000. The 1998 Yanks won an
astounding 114 games, beat San Diego in the World Series, and are
accorded by a large number of experts the title “greatest team of
all time.” Roger Clemens was obtained and enjoyed some of his best
seasons.

After 9/11, the Yankees became a symbol; for
the first time, sympathetic figures. Planes brought down the twin
towers on September 11 and baseball was suspended. When it resumed,
the Yanks won the East. Trailing Oakland two games to none in the
play-offs, they made an incredible comeback to advance.

Some day, when the Special Forces guys are
sifting through the ruins of Osama Bin Laden’s compound in the
mountains of Pakistan after he is killed, captured or found dead,
they will find evidence of his reaction to the 2001 World Series.
History will record that despite invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq,
the War on Terror was won at Yankee Stadium in late October of
2001.

Thinking he had brought America and its
greatest city to its knees, Bin Laden had to be stunned to discover
that less than two months later and a few miles to the north, New
York chose not to participate in its “defeat.” Instead, they beat
terror by living, packing the Stadium and giving standing ovations
to two Republicans, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and President George W.
Bush. The concept that God favors America was certainly not
diminished by subsequent events: three straight Yankees wins in the
most improbable, possible manner, bringing joy, wonder and
amazement to crowds that equaled or even surpassed the orgasmic
insanity of the 1969 Mets’ championship run.

In the 2000s, Alex Rodriguez, Mariano
Duncan, Jason Giambi, Jeter and a host of other superstars have
kept the Yankees near the peak of their all-time greatness, but
disappointment found them in the post-season. Over 4 million people
packed Yankee Stadium every year, and in 2009 a new ballpark
opened. In the modern era the Bronx Bombers harnessed the future,
on the field and at the gate. They established themselves without
doubt as the single greatest sports dynasty in the history of
athletics.

As the Yankees go, so goes baseball.

****

Baseball never did die. In 1968, it was
supposed to be at its “death bed.” The 1969 New York Mets
completely reversed its health. They saved the game. Attendance
went up year after year, beginning in 1969 and continuing, with
little abatement, in all succeeding seasons. Not even player
strikes could seriously hurt baseball.

In the 1970s, the game looked substantially
different. Long hair and garish uniforms gave it a comical look,
but lost in the comedy was the fact that this may have been the
greatest “golden era” the game has ever known. Oakland became the
unlikely successors to the Yankee dynasty, winning three World
Championships from 1972 to 1974. The Yankees rebounded, and when
Los Angeles did, too, the results were a bonanza for baseball,
attendance and TV ratings. Cincinnati’s Big Red Machine won two
World Series in a row (1975-76).

Great National League stars of the 1970s
included New York’s Tom Seaver, Pittsburgh’s Willie Stargell,
Philadelphia’s Steve Carlton and Mike Schmidt, Cincinnati’s Johnny
Bench, Joe Morgan and Pete Rose. In the American League: Oakland’s
Reggie Jackson, Rollie Fingers and Catfish Hunter, Kansas City’s
George Brett, Minnesota’s Rod Carew, Chicago’s Dick “don’t call me
Richie” Allen, California’s Nolan Ryan, New York’s Thurman Munson,
Ron Guidry and Goose Gossage, and Baltimore’s Jim Palmer and Eddie
Murray.

The National League continued to dominate
All-Star Games, with the exception of the 1971 contest at Detroit,
won by the A.L., 6-4. Featuring Oakland’s young superstars Vida
Blue and Reggie Jackson, who hit a light tower homer of mythic
dimensions, many view it as the greatest conglomeration of stars in
history (old and new): Willie Mays, Roberto Clemente, Hank Aaron,
Joe Torre, Willie Stargell, Lou Brock, Willie McCovey, Juan
Marichal, Johnny Bench, Pete Rose, Ferguson Jenkins, Bobby Bonds,
and Tom Seaver for the Nationals. The American’s included Rod
Carew, Mike Cuellar, Mickey Lolich, Carl Yastrzemski, Frank
Robinson, Al Kaline, Norm Cash, Harmon Killebrew, Brooks Robinson,
Bill Freehan, Thurman Munson, Luis Aparicio, Jim Palmer, and Frank
Howard.

While the National League dominated All-Star
Games until the mid-1980s, they no longer played a better brand of
baseball. American League teams fared well in World Series play.
The old racial advantage of the senior circuit, resulting in the
much-ballyhooed “National League baseball” embodied by the 1964
Cardinals, became a thing of the past.

****

The 1970s were a golden era for football,
but a down period in basketball. The NFL merged in 1966 and
re-configured into the National and American Football
Conferences
beginning in 1970. They saw a decade of
dynasty/rivals: the Miami Dolphins, Oakland Raiders, Pittsburgh
Steelers, and Dallas Cowboys.

The Super Bowl became the pre-eminent single
sporting event, although for the most part it never lived up to its
billing, too-often falling short as a dramatic contest when
compared to many seven-game World Series that always gave baseball
the edge. But “Broadway Joe” Namath and the “Super Jets” were the
catalysts of pro football. Namath came out of “retirement” in 1969.
Playing on increasingly-bad knees, he led the Jets to a 10-4 record
and the Eastern Division crown in 1969, but they were no match in
the play-offs for the two class teams of the AFL, Oakland and
Kansas City. The Chiefs beat Oakland, 17-7. With Tom Seaver’s USC
teammate Mike Garrett leading the ground attack, Kansas City beat
the Minnesota Vikings in the 1970 Super Bowl, 23-7.

Namath was an effective quarterback in the
early 1970s, but his injuries prevented him from attaining the kind
of career greatness accorded to Roger Staubach of Dallas and Terry
Bradshaw of Pittsburgh.

Don Shula’s Baltimore Colts were a
disappointing 8-5-1 in 1969. He was fired, replaced by Don
McCafferty. In 1970, the Colts were placed in the AFC East with the
Jets . . . and Shula’s Miami Dolphins. Baltimore won the American
Football Conference championship, then defeated Dallas in the 1971
Super Bowl, 16-13. Their quarterbacking duties were split between
both Johnny Unitas, whose arm was recovered but whose age now
hindered him, and Earl Morrall. In 1972, Shula’s Dolphins went
unbeaten through 14 regular season games, two AFC play-off games,
and a 1973 Super Bowl victory over the Washington Redskins at the
Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Considered by many to be the single
greatest team ever assembled, they were led, ironically again, by
Morrall
. Picked up as a back up to the great Bob Griese,
Morrall stepped in when Griese was injured early in the season,
earning MVP honors.

Shula’s Dolphins won the 1974 Super Bowl, as
well. He coached the Dolphins for many years in a Hall of Fame
career. Namath hung on for a number of seasons past his prime. In
1977 he was traded to the Los Angeles Rams. Visions of “Hollywood
and Vine Joe” leading the Rams to the Promised Land were
short-lived. He had nothing left.

Namath became something of a parody of
himself. Times changed and his overtly sexual
persona
became
a time capsule of a dinosaur era. He tried acting but had no screen
presence. In the film
C.C. & Company
, Namath performed a
scene that makes modern audiences – if anybody ever saw it again –
wince. Namath enthusiastically endorses a gang
bang
of 1960s
sexpot Ann-Margret, only expressing a little discomfort when it
turns into a gang
rape
. He sheepishly says something about
it being a cool thing for a girl to enjoy “getting (expletive
deleted),” but that the line must be drawn when it comes to
“hurting her.”

When Namath saw himself on screen, he hated
the experience. He liked breaking down game film, analyzing his
mistakes and accepting constructive criticism, but playing
strangers of questionable moral taste was despicable to him.
Amazingly, despite his “swingin’ ‘60s” image, Namath was an
old-fashioned guy, a Southerner really, acquired by taste if not
upbringing.

Namath went into broadcasting and was on the
Monday Night Football
crew at one point, but his “come on
baby, let’s make love” bedroom voice did not play well on the air.
He moved to Florida and got involved with a local stage group,
eventually marrying a younger woman, becoming a husband, father and
family man. He embarrassed himself on
Monday Night Football
,
however, when sideline reporter Suzy Kolber interviewed him during
a 2003 game. Apparently drunk, Namath tried to pick up on her . . .
on the air. The young woman fended off his luring advances and
admonition that, “I want to kiss you,” and that was that.