1969 Mets: Everyone Comes Home in October

A passion for baseball, like all passions, is a webwork of connections. It is a network comprised of moments and memories, of personalities, situations and serendipity. It is a pattern of connections and of circuits completed. If our reactions to and interactions with events help to refine our definitions of ourselves, our reflections on such events help to deepen such convictions. Through theses processes we learn who we are, who we have been, who we yet may be.

Two events, one in the fall of 1969 and the other in the spring of 1970, have served such purpose for me. I have revisited (and likely revised) these memories often.

Two days before my 13th birthday I found myself with my mother and father in the upper deck of Memorial Stadium awaiting the start of the second game of the 1969 World Series. I had been born in Baltimore just after the summer that saw both Brooks and Frank Robinson complete their rookie seasons (one in Baltimore and one in Cincinnati), though neither of them was on my radar for a few years. I do remember with perfect clarity the moment that they did flash onto my screen. It was an early April afternoon in 1966 when I opened a local paper (we had been living for six years in South Jersey by then) and saw a photo of a ballplayer sliding into third base. The photo was captioned: “Frank Robinson of the Baltimore Orioles slides into third with a triple. Robinson later scored the winning run in Baltimore’s 3-2 victory over the Cleveland Indians.”

Serendipity. I decided on the spot that Baltimore would be my favorite team and that Frank Robinson would be my favorite player. Few choices in my life have ever been more timely or more fortuitous. Frank went on to win the Triple Crown and an MVP. The Orioles went on to a World Series sweep against a heavily favored Los Angeles club that included both Don Drysdale and Sandy Koufax. And I had the good fortune of watching a young right-hander named Jim Palmer become, at 20, the youngest pitcher to ever throw a shutout in the World Series at the outset of what was to be a stellar career. My fate was sealed.

What a delicious fate it seemed on the afternoon of October 12, 1969. That summer my family had moved back to Baltimore, the Orioles had won 109 regular season games and topped it off with a three-game sweep of a strong Minnesota club in the first ever American League Championship Series. That was followed by winning the opening game of the World Series against the New York Mets and their outstanding ace Tom Seaver. The stage was set for an easy Series victory and another world championship. Heck, the Series might not even make it back to Baltimore for Game Six. The atmosphere was positively electric. Then came Jerry Koosman.

‘The 25-year-old lefty had just won 17 games in his second season—following a 19-win season as a rookie in ’68—and he proceeded to show everyone how he had done it. After six innings he was pitching no-hit ball and looked as if he might be able to make Donn Clendenon’s fourth inning home run hold up for a 1-0 victory In the seventh, however, the O’s reached him for two hits and tied the score. I thought that we were back in the game, but he shut us down again and when three of his teammates singled with two out in the top of the ninth, the Mets again had a one-run lead, and Koosman was back on the mound needing just three outs.

One thing you need to know about Orioles fans of that particular era is that we were raised on the radio and television broadcasts of Chuck Thompson and Bill O’Donnell. Neither of these men were “homers.” They were true fans of the game. Listening to them helped one appreciate the fine play of the opponents as well as that of the hometown heroes. We searched for and applauded excellence when we saw it on either side, because we had been taught to recognize it as such. A gutsy pitch selection by the opposing battery might be responsible for one of our heroes striking out in the clutch. A line defensive play might retire our side without a run. They did not look to blame our own when they failed, unless they truly deserved such blame. Truth be told, there were not a lot of flaws to point out on the 1969 O’s. Usually when we lost it was due to superior performance by our opponents. Chuck and Bill had recognized this fact, and had taught all Orioles fans to be alert to just such possibilities.

After the Mets took a 2-1 lead in the top of the ninth, Koosman retired the first two batters in the bottom of the inning. I honestly don’t remember if the O’s had managed to get someone on base, or even who was due to bat next, but I do remember Gil Hodges, the New York manager, stepping out of the dugout and walking slowly toward the mound. I remember watching Jerry Koosman awaiting him, head bowed, spikes scraping along the dirt of the mound.

More than 50,000 people waited with a hushed expectancy. No one was certain what the manager would do. No one was even certain what they wanted him to do. Koosman had been magnificent. Was he tiring? Would we have a better chance against their bullpen?

Hodges reached the mound and it began to seem that even he wasn’t sure what he was going to do. They talked. We watched and waited. Finally Hodges reached his hand out for the ball. Head downcast, Koosman handed it to him respectfully, and then began his own long slow march back to the New York dugout. He looked, for all the world, like a man who’d just been fired from his job. It started then.

It seemed to build gradually, but it came to fullness rapidly enough that Koosman was only half way back to the dugout by the time that 50,850 fans had risen to give him a rousing standing ovation.

Koosman’s stride faltered a little. He raised his eyes from the ground and looked up into the seats above the Mets dugout. He stopped completely. He looked higher. He turned his head to the right very slowly. He kept on turning his head until he had to shuffle his feet and turn his body. Now he took in the seats behind home plate. Now he took in the seats in the upper deck above the plate. Now the seats along the third base line and above.

His eyes swept back, taking in the scene again. His posture evinced his disbelief at the suddenness and incongruity of receiving such an ovation in the oppositions ballpark.

When his face came back again so that he was looking in my direction…well, maybe it was some trick of distance and light, maybe it was the sheen of sweat from his exertions on a warm October day, and maybe it is just the way my memory has overwritten the truth over nearly 40 years of telling and retelling of the moment; but it seemed to me that his cheeks were wet with tears.

Koosman raised a hand in acknowledgment, as respectfully and emotionally as he had moved when handing the game ball to his manager, and continued his walk to the dugout. His stride seemed more confident. His pace was quicker, his posture more proud.

It was one of the finest moments that I have ever experienced in a ballpark. I was aware of its import even as it occurred. I think all 50,850 of us were proud to be there.

Some months later my father asked if I wanted to attend the Baltimore premier of the Official Major League Baseball World Series film for 1969. I was, of course, elated, though I had no hope that the Series would turn out any differently than it had the first time.

The film was shown in the auditorium of Eastern High School, right across the street from Memorial Stadium. As I had feared, the Mets still won in five.

After the film there was a panel discussion with three or four Orioles and a like number of Mets available to take questions from the audience. Jerry Koosman was one of the Mets who had taken the time to be with us on that day. You must remember that by now I had passed my 13th birthday and so was worldly wise and knowledgeable in all things, even if I was too shy to raise my hand and offer my own questions.

I was thrilled, however, when Jerry Koosman stepped up to the microphone. I desperately hoped that someone would ask him a question that would get him to talk about that intimate moment that he and I had shared with nearly 51,000 other people that previous October.

I winced when I heard the first question he was asked: “Mr. Koosman, could you tell us what your worst moment ever was on a ballfield, and what was your best?”

Stupid question, I thought, the guy is barely 26 years old and has only played two full seasons. It was a question best asked of a grizzled veteran, or a wily manager who had a long-playing career before stepping up. What a wasted opportunity. But Kooz, once again, came through.

“That’s easy,” he said, “because they happened almost simultaneously. Right across the street from here, not too long ago.

“I never felt worse on a ballfield than I did when Gil Hodges asked me to give him the ball when I was one out away from completing my first World Series start. I wanted to keep pitching. I felt that I’d let the team down. I didn’t want to come out. I’ve never felt lower.

“Half way back to the dugout I heard a noise. I didn’t know what it was. I looked up and realized that the Baltimore fans were giving me a standing ovation. I couldn’t believe it. It really lifted me up. It was the best feeling that I’ve ever had on a ballfield.”

Grand slam answer. I swear I cried. A circuit had been completed for me. I’m sure I tried not to let my tears show, but my father wasn’t a man who missed much. He kept looking up at the stage. He wasn’t a man who would easily breach such a confidence either.

I guess this little essay is about him too. About what I learned from him as much as what I learned while at his side. My father was never a baseball fan until I was, so my fondness for the game and for the Orioles was never inherited. Once I became a fan he was eager to take me to games and events that met and increased my growing fascination with the sport.

Because of him, and Kooz, and Chuck Thompson, and more than 50,000 other attendees who also rose to a particular occasion, my memory of that World Series doesn’t key on the disappointment of loss.

That memory is not articulated by the incredible acrobatics of Swoboda and Agee, the heroic offense of Donn Clendenon, a blown interference call or a pair of shady hit-batsmen calls each going the way of the Mets in Game Five.

For me, that Series has always been defined by the circuit completed. Pole one was Jerry Koosman deserving and receiving our ovation with style and grace. Pole two was when he recognized and thanked us for it.

Such moments are rare in any endeavor. Such moments are why I love this silly little game of ball and bat and glove and guile.

GLEN VASEY grew up rooting for the incredible Oriole teams of the 1960s through the early 1980s, became fascinated with the history and personalities in the game, and is currently working on an alternative history novel that examines a different road to the integration of baseball than the one Robinson and Rickey took. By day he is a mild-mannered parking meter technician and town friendly guy in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.