July 4, 1967: Mets record first-ever win over Juan Marichal on Independence Day

From their inception as a National League expansion team in 1962, the New York Mets failed to achieve a winning record in their first seven seasons. The struggles of Mets fans throughout the club’s early seasons were often reflected in fan culture, including commercially produced pennants reading “Pity Me I am a Mets Fan” or “I am a Mets Fan And so is my Psychoanalyst.”1 The frustration surrounding the team was also famously expressed by journalist Jimmy Breslin in his 1963 book Can’t Anybody Here Play This Game?, whose title echoed the ill-fated ballclub’s difficult beginnings.2

Even so, the Mets would occasionally triumph3 against some of the NL’s greatest players and teams. Newsday sportswriter George Vecsey described the Mets in Revolutionary War terms, stating that they were a “downtrodden expansion team [who made] a bold move toward independence.”4

The Mets’ early challenges included one of the league’s elite pitchers: Juan Marichal of the San Francisco Giants. Nicknamed the “Dominican Dandy,” Marichal’s emergence as the Giants’ ace coincided with the Mets’ arrival in 1962, his first of eight consecutive All-Star seasons.5 When he beat New York, 11-2, with a 13-hit complete game on June 3, 1967, Marichal’s career record against the Mets was a spotless 19-0.

The 29-year-old right-hander’s next shot at the Mets was on Independence Day at Shea Stadium. His 11-6 record put him in a tie for the most wins in the majors, and his 1.97 ERA was second in the NL only to Phil Niekro of the Atlanta Braves. Marichal led all big-league pitchers in strikeouts (127) and complete games (15), and he was a week from starting the All-Star Game for the second time in his career.

On the other side of the pitching matchup was journeyman right-hander Jack Fisher, who was struggling with a 5-9 record and 4.14 ERA. The 28-year-old Fisher’s two prior starts against San Francisco, where he had played in 1963, reflected his inconsistency. He had pitched into the 12th inning against the Giants at Shea Stadium on May 2, allowing two runs in a no-decision.6 He had also been knocked out in the fifth inning at Candlestick Park in Marichal’s win on June 3 and was charged with 11 runs.

The Mets were ninth in the 10-team NL with a 28-45 record.7 Still, they had prevailed, 5-3, over fifth-place San Francisco the day prior, where rookie Tom Seaver recorded a complete-game win.

A modest crowd of 26,767 went to Shea Stadium, then in its fourth season, for the Tuesday game against a franchise that had moved from New York just a decade earlier.

The Giants went ahead in the first on Jim Ray Hart’s two-out RBI single. Marichal induced two groundouts to open the bottom of the inning and seemed to be on his way to a clean frame when Tommy Davis hit a grounder to Hart at third. But Hart’s throw to first was off the mark, and Davis reached second on the error.

It opened the floodgates for the Mets. Ed Kranepool’s single drove in Davis. Ron Swoboda followed with another single, and Ed Charles’ RBI single to center and Jerry Buchek’s run-scoring bunt single put New York ahead, 3-1.

Fisher held the lead until the third, when another Hart RBI single and Willie McCovey‘s run-producing groundout tied the score, 3-3.

Things seemed to be drifting toward another defeat against Marichal, but the Mets regained their bearings in the middle innings. Charles—who had come to New York from the Kansas City Athletics in a May 10 trade—hit a one-out solo home run in the third for a 4-3 lead. Fisher put up one-two-three innings in the fourth, fifth, and sixth, even catching Willie Mays looking to end the fifth.

Heading to the sixth, Marichal had kept it a one-run game despite allowing 10 hits in five innings. But Jerry Grote led off the inning with a bunt single, took second on Fisher’s sacrifice, and stopped at third on Bud Harrelson’s single. Larry Stahl walked to load the bases for Davis.

Davis, who went on to lead the ’67 Mets in hits, RBIs, and home runs in his only season with the team, doubled home Grote and Harrelson. After an intentional walk to Kranepool, Swoboda came through with a two-run single. It was an 8-3 Mets’ lead, and Marichal was done for the day after allowing 14 hits—matching his career high to that point8—and eight runs, five earned. Manager Herman Franks turned to reliever Ron Herbel.

Fisher responded to the increased lead with a perfect seventh. He had retired 14 Giants in a row, going back to McCovey’s RBI groundout in the third.

But San Francisco had some fireworks left. Jesùs Alou broke up Fisher’s streak with a leadoff single in the eighth, and Tom Haller followed with a single. Fisher struck out Mays, walked Hart to load the bases, and fanned McCovey.

The Mets appeared to have escaped the worst of it, but lefty-swinging veteran Norm Siebern hit for Herbel and drove in two runs with a single. Another left-handed pinch-hitter, Ty Cline, followed with an RBI single, cutting the lead to 8-6 and prompting Westrum to replace Fisher with Ron Taylor.

Dick Groat greeted Taylor with a run-scoring single, and the Mets’ big lead was now down to one run, with Giants at the corners. Taylor set down Jim Davenport on an inning-ending groundout, but Red Foley of the New York Daily News described the inning as an “eighth-inning uprising…[which] left Fisher, Wes Westrum and the rest of the Mets limping like the GIs in the famous ‘Spirit of  ’76’ painting.”9

In the ninth inning, the Giants threatened again. Alou led off with a single, and New York could not get an out on Haller’s attempted sacrifice, giving Mays another opportunity with runners on base. After facing just one batter, Don Shaw left the mound and the Mets bullpen was now represented by Hal Reniff, who had been purchased from the crosstown New York Yankees about a week earlier. Mays attempted to bunt on the first pitch. On Reniff’s fifth pitch, Mays grounded to Harrelson, who stepped on second and threw to first for a double play.10 Hart’s groundout ended the game.

The Mets held on to seal their 8-7 holiday victory, but it was not without struggle. Foley—who referred to the win as a “celebration of independence” from “Juan the Tyrant”—put the Mets’ struggles best, writing “it’ll be tough to convince the 26,767 Shea payees, who endured the 8-7 sweat, that the Colonists had a harder struggle getting their freedom from England than the Mets did from Marichal and the Giants.”11

The game stood out as one of the Mets’ more complete offensive performances within the 1967 season, in by a tense, high-scoring outing for their first win over Marichal. The matchup drew additional attention due to the old New York rivalry and Independence Day setting at Shea Stadium. In his post-game commentary, Fisher admitted that the game could have gone smoother: “You’ve got to give my men credit…Marichal was a little off, and we jumped him. This win was a little sloppy, but I’ll take it.”12

Fisher and Wes Westrum, who called the day a “‘Fourth of July that will go down in history,’”13 were elated by the victory. A quiet Fisher told reporters, “I’ll tell you, I wanted this game as much as I wanted anything,” as his team celebrated the milestone win in the Mets’ locker room.14

The win improved Fisher’s record to 6-9, but he went on to a 9-18 mark, leading the NL is losses for the second time in three years. His 115 earned runs allowed were the most in the majors and topped the NL for the third time as a Met. In December 1967, Fisher and Tommy Davis were traded to the Chicago White Sox in a five-player deal that brought center fielder Tommie Agee—a key contributor to future Mets’ success—to New York.15

A week after his defeat to the Mets, Marichal pitched three scoreless innings for the NL in the All-Star Game on July 11. He was scheduled to get another shot at Shea Stadium in an August 6 doubleheader, but two days before that game he tore his hamstring while running in the outfield and made only one more start the rest of the season.16 He finished with a 14-10 record and 2.76 ERA. In 43 career games against the Mets, including 40 starts, Marichal went 26-8 with a 2.13 ERA.

While the Mets finished the 1967 season in last place and improved only narrowly under new manager Gil Hodges the next season, the Independence Day victory stood out as a significant performance with sufficient hitting and a strong bullpen against a premier pitcher of the National League. Additionally, seven players who appeared in this game would later appear on the 1969 “Miracle Mets” championship team.17

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Bruce Slutsky and copy-edited by Keith Thursby.

Photo credit: Jack Fisher, Trading Card Database.

Sources

The author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retreosheet.org for statistics on players, teams, and the box score for this game. Additional sources are cited in the Notes.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYN/NYN196707040.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1967/B07040NYN1967.htm

Notes

1 “Hard-Luck Mets: Pennant,” Mets Virtual Vault, Mets Heritage, 1960s, accessed April 25, 2026, https://www.metsheritage.com/item/early-60s-pennant-for-the-hard-luck-mets/; and “Pennant for Mets Fans (and Their Shrinks),” Mets Virtual Vault, Mets Heritage, 1960s, accessed April 25, 2026, https://www.metsheritage.com/item/pennant-for-mets-fans-and-their-shrinks/.

2 The Dickson Baseball Dictionary describes “Can’t Anybody Here Play This Game?” as a frustrated rallying cry associated with Casey Stengel and his tenure as manager of the inaugural 1962 New York Mets. Dickson Baseball Dictionary, online edition, Baseball Almanac, accessed September 29, 2026, https://www.baseball-almanac.com/dictionary-term.php?term=can%27t%20anybody%20here%20play%20this%20game.

3 In 1966, the Mets were .500 (9-9) against the second-place Giants, marking the first time they’d reached a season record of .500 or better against a competing team in the National League. The ’66 Mets also accomplished this feat against the eighth-place Astros and last-place Cubs.

4 George Vecsey, “Marichal Burned by Met Explosion,” New York Newsday (Nassau Edition), July 5, 1967: 92. Like many other witty sportswriters covering the July Fourth victory, Vecsey continuously used American Revolution-era metaphors to describe the Amazin’ Mets, stating “The United States of America served notice on George III 191 years ago; Juan Marichal got his yesterday” when commenting on the win. Vecsey would later refer to Ed Charles’ third inning solo home run as “the blow that ranks with the Boston Tea Party in Jack Fisher’s estimation,” gave a significant Mets outing in the sixth inning the moniker the “Battle of Saratoga,” and dubbed the game-ending double play the “Battle of Yorktown.”

5 Because there were two All-Star Games in 1962, Marichal was selected as an All-Star nine times in eight seasons from 1962 through 1969.

6 Fisher had left the game in the top of the 12th after giving up a run to put the Giants ahead, but the Mets rallied for two runs in the bottom of the inning for a 3-2 victory.

7 Only the Houston Astros, who had joined the NL in 1962 along with the Mets, had a worse record at 29-47.

8 On June 15, 1968, Marichal would reach his all-time career high in hits surrendered against the Mets at Shea Stadium; even so, he still earned the 9-5 victory.

9 Red Foley, “Mets Gain Independence from Juan the Tyrant, 8-7,” New York Daily News, July 5, 1967: 100. Foley was referring to the widely reproduced patriotic painting “The Spirit of ‘76” by Archibald Willard, the original of which hangs in Abbot Hall of Marblehead, Massachusetts, and which shows a three-man fife and drum corps marching through a battle scene.

10 After being credited with the Fourth of July save against Marichal, Reniff had a perfect record of two wins and one save across three relief appearances over 4.1 IP (Reniff previously won two games against the Cardinals on July 1st and 2nd). According to The San Francisco Examiner, Reniff told the press, “I don’t want to be disrespectful, but I don’t worry about free swingers as much as I do ping-pong hitters. I was a little surprised at Mays trying to bunt on the first pitch. The Yankees always play for the big inning. No way Mickey Mantle bunts in that situation. Mickey might bunt for a hit, but he never bunts for a sacrifice with guys on base.”

11 Foley, “Mets Gain Independence From Juan the Tyrant, 8-7.”

12 Jupiter, “Pitching Stars Galore: Mets Unveil Heroes.”

13 Vecsey, “Marichal Burned by Met Explosion.”

14 Vecsey, “Marichal Burned by Met Explosion.” Marichal, on the other hand, was understandably frustrated with his first loss against New York. According to Vecsey, he told reporters, “I don’ got nothing’ to say” regarding the defeat.

15 Fisher wrapped up his major-league career with the Cincinnati Reds in 1969.

16 Bob Stevens, “Giants Sweep, Move into 2d,” San Francisco Chronicle, August 7, 1967: 43.

17 These seven players are Ed Charles, Jerry Grote, Bud Harrelson, Cleon Jones, Ed Kranepool, Ron Swoboda, and Ron Taylor.