1969 Mets: Introduction

Now, 40 years after the fact, the “Miracle” has finally become the property of history. Two generations have quickly slipped by. You need to be in your 50s to have a clear recollection of the Legend of the 1969 Mets and what they meant, banked against the futility of the years that preceded them. Today, most Met fans have heard about the Miracle Mets from their fathers or uncles or from the vast literature that documented that unlikely season, but they were not there when it happened; they have not experienced it first hand; they do not know what it felt like to live through that season day by day, to see the impossible evolve first into the improbable and then, astonishingly, into the inevitable. A distance of 40 years confers any story to the pages of history. Enshrined in the past, it can no longer be treated with the immediacy of current events.

It is now a shade more than 20 years since I began my trek through the 1960s, gathering material for a retrospective on the ’69 Mets that became A Magic Summer. The project was not an inspiration of my own. If the truth be told, I had been a Yankees fan since the 1940s. I was a native son of the Bronx, growing up a long walk from Yankee Stadium, and I had spent a good part of my youth jeering at the few hapless Dodgers and Giants fans that I ran into. But when our inter-borough rivals left town and the Mets took their place, I was well beyond the age of such adolescent bickering. New York City had educated me at its own cost, right through college, and there was no one, with the possible exception of my father, who embraced the city with greater devotion.

So I had no trouble rooting for the Mets while still investing my principal allegiance with the Yankees. During the 1969 season, with the Yankees flying well below the radar, I followed the fortunes of the Mets closely and with enthusiasm. On that fabled afternoon in mid-October I could be seen dancing a hora on Madison Avenue and 40th Street after watching them win the World Series on TV at the bar of a nearby Italian restaurant.

The project of bringing the ’69 Mets back to life came looking for me. I had previously written two well received sports books, and an editor from what was then Harcourt Brace Jovanovich publishers sought me out through my agent. That was early in 1986. Spring training was just getting under way and the Mets, having won 98 games in 1985 and finishing just three games back of the division-winning Cardinals, were deemed a live bet to win the National League pennant. My charge was to reconstruct the championship season, incorporating the views and recollections of members of that team.

Recreating the season would not be a problem. The beat writers for the daily newspapers, particularly the New York Times, still described each day’s game in full detail back then, instead of filling the space with quotes and ruminations from the clubhouse, as is the fashion today. The challenge was to locate the players and get them to sit for interviews that offered them no profit of any kind. There was no Internet, at least none that had come to my attention, in the ’80s, and Google was the last name of a comic character whose first name was Barney.

Playing the percentages, I chose to start with players who were closest to home. A friend of mine was acquainted with Art Shamsky who had an apartment in the East 50s, not far from where I had an office at the time. Shamsky was more than gracious and looking not far removed from playing shape. It was mid-morning and he put up a fresh pot of coffee and leisurely shared his memories of the season with me. He also pointed the way to where I might find some of his former teammates.

If my visit with Shamsky offered the brightest promise of things to come, I soon came upon the first of several bumps in the road. Tommie Agee resided in the New York area and worked in a variety of youth programs for the New York City Police Department. I had both his home and business telephone numbers and called several times but he adamantly refused to speak with me except for financial consideration. Some time later, I interviewed Cleon Jones, up from Alabama and visiting his buddy Agee in New York, but while Cleon spoke freely, Agee kept his silence. In July of 1986, having managed to meet with almost every member of the ’69 team, I was in the Mets clubhouse for Old Timers Day, and I took one more shot at Agee. A number of the players near his locker—Wayne Garrett and Ken Boswell among them—greeted me warmly and offered testimony in my behalf, but Agee was determined to let the past stand on its own. He continued to work with youth in the New York area, engaging in many charitable events, until 2001 when he died of a heart attack at the age of 53.

The only other player missing from the book is Donn Clendenon. Clendenon had been practicing law in the Pittsburgh area, but every attempt to reach him went for naught. The Mets public relations office, which helped me to make other contacts, could not locate him either. Years later, I learned that he had been in a rehab center for drug addiction at the time. He eventually kicked the habit and resumed his law practice in South Dakota, where he also worked as a drug counselor. He died of leukemia in 2005 at the age of 70.

I located many of the other players through the good offices of The Sporting News, the weekly newspaper based in St. Louis, which was known back then as baseball’s bible. The paper routinely provided anyone who asked with the home addresses, but not the phone numbers, of baseball players past and present. My publisher wrote to each of the players advising them of my mission. Most of them had listed telephone numbers, and I followed each letter with a phone call. To my delight and surprise, almost to a man, they seemed pleased to speak with me and eager to help with a person-to-person interview.

The only exception was Ron Swoboda. Swoboda was living in Phoenix and serving as sports director of a local television station. He told me, very politely, that he did not wish to give me an interview. He never offered a reason for turning me down but continued to do so, despite my persistence, as if it was just something he preferred not to do. I tried once more when I came to Phoenix in the brutal heat of an Arizona summer to meet with Gary Gentry, who was working as a real estate developer. Gentry and I had a friendly chat in a downtown Phoenix bar and following the interview he offered to plead my case with Swoboda. When I called later that day, Swoboda agreed to meet with me. “I checked you out with Gentry,” he told me. “He said you were harmless.” Despite my harmlessness, Swoboda was exceptionally tentative for at least half an hour before loosening up and becoming a touch friendly.

A number of players, even some who clearly welcomed the opportunity to relive their time of glory, seemed to be feeling me out at first meeting, measuring each response against the possibility that I might be starting out slowly on the way to probing areas that best remained untouched. It was the irrepressible Tug McGraw who chose to enlighten me. I met with him in his office in Media, Pennsylvania, a small town not far from Philadelphia. One-to-one, Tug was every bit the engaging, stimulating personality he was in public. He had a television sports show in Philadelphia, but his heart was clearly in an eponymous foundation called Tug McGraw Resources whose objective it was to come to the aid of young people who needed help. Tug defined a “special person” as anyone who needed help or anyone who gave it. He also explained why some players might be hesitant to talk about their playing days.

He told me that writers and reporters sometimes come looking for a story based on rumors they may have heard that one player or another had strayed from the straight-and-narrow while he was on the road—possible drug or alcohol abuse, late-night shenanigans of various types, or perhaps a gambling habit. It would not necessarily be the player you’re asking for the interview who is suspect, but perhaps a friend of his that you’re looking to get information on. Players tend to be cautious and protective of one another. “As for me,” Tug said playfully, “I tried Coke once but I couldn’t get the bottle in my nose.”

McGraw died of a malignant brain tumor in 2004 at the age of 53; his foundation still exists and continues its charitable work in his name.

The other interviews with the retired players were much like conversations you might have after meeting strangers with whom you find common ground and memories that you both share and treasure. There was Ed Kranepool with whom I spoke at his plant in Jamaica, Queens, where he manufactured marketing displays for stores and exhibit booths; Ed Charles in his apartment in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan; Bud Harrelson, the third-base coach of the Mets, in the team’s clubhouse before an afternoon game. On the road I chatted with Jerry Koosman, who met me at the Minneapolis airport after I had flown in from late-night meetings with Al Weis and J.C. Martin in the suburbs of Chicago; Jerry Grote in his real estate office in San Antonio and Ken Boswell at a hotel bar in Austin, Texas; Wayne Garrett, at a luncheon diner in the Sarasota airport; and Dr. Ron Taylor at Exhibition Stadium in Toronto, where he served as team physician for the Toronto Blue Jays. In town for the Mets Old Timers Day, Jim McAndrew and Don Cardwell met with me in the lobby of the Hyatt Hotel on 42nd Street in Manhattan and Cal Koonce in the Mets clubhouse. Koonce died in 1993 of lymphoma; Cardwell passed in 2007 as a result of Pick’s disease, a rare neurodegenerative disease.

Two players—Tom Seaver and Nolan Ryan—were still active in 1986, and getting to them at the start of the 1986 season presented some logistical problems. I needed to go through the public relations departments of their respective teams and arranging the appointments wasn’t easy. Ryan was pitching for the Houston Astros in 1986, and they were coming to New York early in the season. I was to meet with Ryan in the Houston clubhouse at 5 p.m. on the day of the game. We were both there but Ryan seemed to have other priorities. He told me he would not be able to speak with me until after batting practice, which began at 6 p.m. and lasted for about 40 minutes. It was a cold night, with rain on the way, and I waited in the dugout while Ryan shagged balls in the outfield. When he returned to the dugout, other writers were waiting for him.

A few nights earlier, Roger Clemens had struck out 20 batters in a game, breaking by one the record held by Ryan and three others, and newspaper reporters were understandably eager to get his reaction. So Ryan held what amounted to a press conference, each of us taking turns asking a question. I felt out of place pursuing his recollection of 1969 while the focus for everyone else was on the present day. As it turned out, it was not much of an interview, Ryan responding to questions in a clipped, perfunctory manner. He seemed to care little about having won a World Series at age 22 in only his second full season with the Mets. My overall reaction to Ryan reaffirmed how I felt about him as pitcher—more sizzle than substance. For all his strikeouts and no-hitters, Nolan Ryan was never really a winner.

Tom Seaver could not have provided a sharper contrast. He was pitching for the Chicago White Sox in 1986, in what would be the last of his 20 big league seasons, and it was not the best of times for Seaver. His mother had recently passed away and he was impatiently awaiting a trade to Boston that would bring him closer to his home in Greenwich, Connecticut. Throughout my brief stay in Chicago I was expecting a message saying that Tom couldn’t make it. But he did. He showed up in the White Sox clubhouse at precisely the appointed time. It was about four hours before a game with the Minnesota Twins and he suggested that we conduct the interview in the Sox dugout. From the outset, it was clear that Seaver was preoccupied. This was not where he wanted to be right now but he had made a commitment and he would keep it. I told him that I understood that conditions were not ideal for him, and I asked him how much time he would offer. “Whatever you need,” he said. He answered every question thoughtfully and with typical Seaver precision. The interview lasted about 45 minutes. When I had what I needed, I thanked him and told him I appreciated his following through despite his woes. He wished me luck with the book and gave me his home phone number in the event I needed anything else.

I recently saw Seaver doing a television interview with Tim McCarver. He was discussing his work as a vintner in Calistoga, California. He told McCarver that his day begins at 6 a.m. and he described how he pays strict attention to every detail. He said it was lot like pitching. It required total commitment and you could not cut corners; you had to give it all the time that was necessary. I thought back to our interview. For Seaver it was just another job that you had to perform and you had to do it right. Not for nothing was Tom Seaver known to the Mets as The Franchise.

STANLEY COHEN is author of eight books and an award-winning journalist. A Magic Summer was re-released by Skyhorse Publishing in 2009.

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