It was 40 years ago today ... Tom Seaver taught the band to play

(with apologies to The Beatles and Sgt. Pepper) Long Island’s Newsday daily has been asking people about 1969, when (quote) “the Mets marched to a World Series victory that even their most avid fans couldn't have predicted. On a farm in Bethel, N.Y., nearly 500,000 people gathered for the Woodstock music festival that would come to symbolize the hopes for making "love, not war." For some, Woodstock also was an orgy of drugs and overindulgence. It was a summer of tumult. While students throughout the country marched for civil rights, casualties in the increasingly unpopular war in Vietnam continued to mount.” (end quote)
I was 11-12 that year, the first that I really followed baseball. My Aunt Shirley, a long suffering Brooklyn Dodgers fan, helped fuel my love for baseball. She quit the game when the Bums left for Los Angeles and only returned when the Mets were born in 1962. They were mostly ghastly for the first seven seasons but in 1969 they went from worst to first under Gil Hodges, the ex-Brooklyn first baseman who once was prayed for in a New York Catholic church by a priest and parishioners, when he was in the midst of a batting slump.
’69 was a magical year for the Mets and a great time to have that be the first year I followed baseball. (My passion for the game continues via the MLB baseball TV package and trips to dozens of major/minor league ballparks ... that includes the Durham Bulls Triple-A park yesterday). What I remember from 1969, off the top of my head: the Mets winning both games of a doubleheader 1-0 - with the pitchers driving the only run in both games!
There was Ron Swoboda hitting 2, two-run homers to overcome a 20 strikeout game by Steve Carlton, TV announcer Lindsay Nelson’s outrageous, gaudy sport jackets and Kiner’s Corner – the ponderous post game show awkwardly hosted by ex-slugger Ralph Kiner. Now well into his ‘80’s, Kiner still comes on SNY Mets broadcasts for several games every year and struggles, but its still good to hear him as a thread to my youth. Baseball was the game I listened to on my transistor radio as I cruised around the block on my Schwinn bike, or as I threw pitches in to the backyard pitch-back net.
I remember light-hitting infielder Al Weis becoming a hitting star in the playoffs, the Mets winning four straight World Series games after losing the first to Baltimore, the Cleon Jones hit-by-pitch incident, when Hodges came out of the dugout with a ball that had shoe polish on it – and the umpire awarding first base to Jones in a crucial spot.
We listened to playoff games in school or got updates from teachers – everything happened during the day back then, and the NY newspapers provided wall to wall coverage. Daily News cartoonist Bill Gallo drew his eagerly anticipated “Hero and Goat” cartoons after every playoff game involving the Metsies.
Radio announcer Bob Murphy provided the “happy recaps” and detailed descriptions of the weather and clouds. (I just found out he was an Army meteorologist, now it all makes sense). Shea Stadium sold great fried knishes and was adorned with blue and orange metal squares on the outside of the building, where ramps to the stands were.
In the early ‘70’s my Aunt, father, brother and Uncle Ray (Aunt Shirley’s husband) would go to games at Shea… my Uncle (who would arrive by subway from his Manhattan business) didn’t care much for baseball and would sit there reading Guns and Ammo magazine,
Back to October, ’69: I got off the St. Pius X school bus at my Aunt’s house that day, instead of at home, and we scored every play in the last game of the World Series, when the Impossible Dream came true. That’s the first time I had ever scored a game and my Aunt showed me all of the codes and symbols. Later the Mets were on Ed Sullivan that weekend, singing “You Gotta Have Heart” from the musical Damn Yankees. The names … Tug McGraw, Ken Boswell, Tommy Agee, Jerry Koosman, Duffy Dyer, Jerry Grote, Ed “The Glider” Charles… 1969 was my coming of age year, and the Mets had plenty to do with it. They were a national phenomena – witness George Burns in the movie “Oh, God!”, as God, describing their win as one of his true miracles. Few would disagree.
Oh yeah, the country was a mess because of the Vietnam War and we landed on the moon (I was glue to the TV for hours and remember the surreal moment when the first images from the moon flickered on to the screen) … but the Mets helped New Yorkers and others that rooted for underdogs around the country, in that Nixonian era, take heart – anything was possible.
I may not know where my wallet or keys are half the time now, but I remember 1969 – and the Amazin’ Mets.