Putting the Miracle in Miracle Mets

Even when the Mets were at their most mediocre, dramatic victories were a common occurrence, and that trait carried over to the 1969 regular season. The Mets had their share of unlikely wins that season, including 11 in walk-off fashion. Mets Walk-Offs and Other Minutiae offers a closer look at those Amazin’ games.

 

April 27, 1969: Mets 3, Cubs 0

The first time that the Mets and Cubs convened in 1969 came at the end of April and didn’t exactly serve as a foreshadowing for what was to come that season. The Mets opened the weekend four-game series with a pedestrian 6-8 mark, while the Cubs held first place with a surprising 11-5 start.

The Cubs won the first two games of the series as Ferguson Jenkins edged Tom Seaver, 3-1, and Bill Hands followed by going the distance in a 9-3 pasting of Don Cardwell. Chicago made it three straight wins by taking the opener of a Sunday doubleheader, 8-6, thanks to a four-run ninth. The way that things broke, it looked like this was going to be a special year in Chicago. There was no reason to believe that anything special was going to happen for the floundering Mets. Until the nightcap.

Tug McGraw, in relief of Jim McAndrew, danced around jams to keep the score tied into the last of the ninth when the Mets worked a little magic. Hall of Famer Billy Williams muffed Rod Gaspar’s line drive to open the inning, giving the Mets a leadoff base-runner in scoring position. After an intentional walk to Ken Boswell, Rich Nye got Ed Charles to pop up for the first out.

This brought up Cleon Jones, whose whiff concluded the first game of the day, but whose torrid start made him a feared hitter at this juncture of the season. He finished off this contest as well, only in a much more positive manner, with a three-run walk-off home run that raised his batting average to .443.

The win gave the Mets a little bit of satisfaction, though the Cubs still left Flushing smiling, with a 14-6 mark. It didn’t strike anyone at the time that Chicago had just beaten the rival who would become most important to them within a few short months.

 

May 28, 1969: Mets 1, Padres 0 (11)

On April 29, Jerry Koosman suffered a shoulder injury while pitching against the Montreal Expos, noting to reporters afterward that something snapped like a piece of elastic.1

The resulting tenderness sidelined Koosman for nearly a full month, but the good news was that he returned as good, if not better, than ever. In his first start back, on May 24, against the Houston Astros, he allowed two runs and three hits over seven innings, in what turned into an eventual 5-1 defeat.

In that era, there was no hesitation, once a pitcher was healed, to throw him fully into the fire. Koosman’s next start came on three days’ rest, on May 28, against the Padres. The Mets had lost five straight and while there were promising signs of progress, there were also indications that this was going to be a troublesome season.

If there was any concern over whether Koosman could handle the physical and mental pressure, it was erased with this game, perhaps his finest as a Met to that point. Gil Hodges permitted him to work 10 innings, as he yielded only four hits and struck out a club-record and career-high 15.

The Mets squandered their share of opportunities by hitting into three double plays. It took until the 11th inning (and Koosman’s subsequent departure for Tug McGraw) for the Mets to plate their first and only run.

Cleon Jones led off, reaching when he beat out a grounder up the middle, judged to be an error on Padres shortstop Tommy Dean. After Ed Kranepool whiffed, Ron Swoboda advanced Jones to third with a single, putting the Mets within 90 feet of triumph. The Padres walked Jerry Grote to load the bases in the hopes that Bud Harrelson would hit into a double play. No such luck. Harrelson singled down the left-field line, scoring Jones with the winning run. It was the first of nine 1-0 wins for the Mets in 1969—and the first of three that came in walk-off fashion.

The win might have been the story of the day, but the real key to come out of this was Koosman’s effort on short rest. Now fully healed, Koosman got on a roll that helped propel the Mets to great things the rest of the season. In his first 60 innings back from the DL, Koosman allowed only four earned runs as the Mets went on an 18-7 spurt that turned their season around.

 

June 1, 1969: Mets 5, Giants 4

Some batters are masters of the walk-off home run. Ron Swoboda was the master of the walk-off walk. Of the first 15 walk-off walks in Mets history, Swoboda was the only player to have more than one. He had four.

The third of them came on June 1, completing a three-game sweep of the Giants, part of an 11-game win streak in which the Mets went from five games under .500 to six-over at 29-23.

The Giants held early leads of 2-0 and 3-2, but on both occasions, the Mets rallied quickly, and the Giants had to rally from a 4-3 deficit to even the score in the sixth against Don Cardwell, who pitched 6⅓ game innings in relief of Jim McAndrew, who left with a finger blister.

Ron Taylor dodged trouble in the top of the ninth, surviving a Willie McCovey double to escape with the score still even. In the bottom of the frame, the Mets were able to win without hitting the ball out of the infield. Giants reliever Joe Gibbon walked Bud Harrelson, Cleon Jones (intentionally), and Amos Otis, sandwiched around two outs. That brought up Swoboda, who was 2 for 4 with an RBI already and Gibbon couldn’t find the plate against him either. Swoboda’s walk brought home the winning run.

Alas, being the master of the walk-off walk doesn’t quite bring the glory of the other kinds of walk-off scenarios. When we interviewed Swoboda in 2005, he admitted having nary a recollection of any of his “walk”-offs.

“That’s odd, isn’t it?” said Swoboda, who couldn’t come up with a reason for his success in that department. “I was a bit of a free swinger. Sometimes you walk because you’re swinging the bat well, and sometimes you’ll walk because you’ll miss a pitch that you should have hit. Those [walk-offs] aren’t the ones you remember.”2

 

June 4, 1969: Mets 1, Dodgers 0 (15)

The Mets and Dodgers played an extra-inning classic, featuring a great pitchers’ duel between Bill Singer and Mets rookie Jack DiLauro. The two teams matched zeroes as Singer flirted with a perfect game for six innings and DiLauro escaped a couple of early jams. The contest went into extra-innings and both teams went to their bullpens.

In the top of the 15th, the Dodgers threatened, putting runners at the corners with one out. Willie Davis was the hitter and he hit a grounder off pitcher Ron Taylor that caromed towards second base. Al Weis charged the ball, made a barehand play and threw home just in time for catcher Jerry Grote to get incoming baserunner Billy Grabarkewitz at home plate. On the Mets highlight album that season, Miracle Mets, that moment is re-created by Bob Murphy, who states “Oh, what a play by Al Weis! I’ve never seen a better one by an infielder.” (As an aside, the real play took about three seconds to unfold. The recreated version takes about 30 seconds, allowing Murph to provide every detail.)

The Mets stole the game in the bottom of the 15th, when with one out, Tommie Agee scored all the way from first when Davis misplayed Wayne Garrett’s single to center. That gave the Mets a sweep of the Dodgers and matched a team record with their seventh straight win.

 

July 8, 1969: Mets 4, Cubs 3

The Mets win over the Cubs on July 8 may be a little underappreciated in comparison to Tom Seaver’s near-perfect game of the following day, but the impact it had was extremely significant.

Trailing 3-1 in the ninth inning against future Hall of Tamer Ferguson Jenkins, the Mets rallied, with the aid of a couple misplays by Cubs center fielder Don Young, who incurred significant wrath from Cubs manager Leo Durocher (plus third baseman Ron Santo).

Cleon Jones followed the miscues by getting the game-tying double, then scored the winning run on a single by Ed Kranepool. This was the biggest win in franchise history, at least for a few hours, as it moved the Mets to within 4½ games of the first-place Cubs. It was the first Mets win to be reported on the front page of the New York Times since 1962.

“We’ve got the momentum now,” Jones told the media afterwards. “We beat their big man. Now we’ve got our big man. Were in command. Now we can relax.”3

Durocher was anything but relaxed. “That kid in center field. Two little fly balls. He just stands there watching one, and he gives up on the other… .If a man cant catch a fly ball, you don’t deserve to win. Look at [Jenkins]. He threw his heart out. You won’t see a better-pitched game. And that kid in center field gives it away on him. It’s a disgrace.“4

Is it any surprise that Seaver followed that game up the way that he did, given the moods of the two teams? And is it a surprise that a rookie named Jim Qualls was in Center field that night?

 

August 3, 1969: Mets 6, Braves 5 (11)

The 1969 Mets had not yet reached their turning point on August 3, 1969, when they faced the Braves in the finale of a three-game series. It was evident that the team was closing in on something special though, having taken two straight one-run affairs from the NL West leaders to stand at 57-44 and in second place in the NL East. The Mets had succeeded in making their opponents nervous, because they were a squad capable of doing anything. This contest was another example.

The Mets were shorthanded, with a couple of pitchers out on military duty, so when the Braves tallied four sixth-inning runs against Gary Gentry, extending their lead to 5-0, the outcome for the day looked rather bleak. The Mets hadn’t managed a hit in the previous three innings against veteran hurler Milt Pappas, and with the Braves needing the game to maintain sole possession of the top spot in their division, it seemed like this one was all but in the books.

Or maybe not. Tommie Agee doubled to lead off the sixth inning and scored on a one-out single by Wayne Garrett. Atlanta felt it had gotten enough from Pappas, who was pitching on three days’ rest, and replaced him at that juncture with Cecil Upshaw. That move didn’t work.

The Mets loaded the bases on singles by pinch hitter Art Shamsky and Rod Gaspar, then caught a break when Jerry Grote reached after Braves second baseman Felix Millan dropped a throw while trying to get a force play. That brought home a run, making it 5-2. Cleon Jones, who was out with an injury (and was only a few days removed from being pulled in mid-game against the Astros for lack of hustle), pinch-hit and drove in two more runs with a single. That made it a 5-4 game.

The Braves went to the pen again, choosing rookie Paul Doyle. Bud Harrelson greeted Doyle by plating the tying run with a sacrifice fly. Doyle got out of the inning without further damage, but the score was now even, 5-5.

Jack DiLauro and Ron Taylor did great work out of the Mets bullpen, combining to shut out the Braves over the next five innings.

This was a game that was looking for a hero and the choice of the moment happened to be the first batter in the 11th inning: Jerry Grote. The catcher had homered off Phil Niekro earlier in the series, his first homer in Flushing that season and only his third round-tripper of the year. Raymond ran the count to 2-0 and made the mistake of grooving his next pitch, right over the heart of the plate. Grote’s opposite-field drive cleared the right-field fence for a walk-off home run.

“If it had been anywhere else [but over the middle of the plate], I’d have taken it,” Grote told reporters afterward, acknowledging that he was just trying to get on base.5

You would have presumed that this was a pretty big win. However, it was not the one that tipped the season in the Mets favor. It would seem logical that this victory set off a big win streak, but it didn’t. The Mets lost their next two contests, and within a week, they were in third place, facing a nearly insurmountable deficit of 10 games after getting swept by the Astros. The chances of the Mets and Braves meeting in the postseason that autumn seemed rather bleak. It would take a miracle.

 

August 19, 1969: Mets 1, Giants 0 (14)

If you were going to rank the best pitchers’ duels in Mets history, this game might go at the top of the list. Rookie Gary Gentry went toe-to-toe with future Hall of Famer Juan Marichal for the first 10 innings, matching zeroes and avoiding damage of any significance. Marichal was 19-2 against the Mets to that point in his career and not surprisingly, he was sensational in this game. Gentry also threw one of his best games. It was a game that lived up to the cliche: “Neither team deserved to loose.”

The Mets had one threat in regulation, but their best chance to score came in the 12th when Marichal’s throw to nail Tug McGraw on a bunt attempt rolled away from ex-Met Ron Hunt after a collision between the former teammates at first base. Cleon Jones tried to score, but he was thrown out at the plate when Hunt recovered.

Jones redeemed himself in the top of the 13th when the Mets went to a four-man outfield against Willie McCovey. The subsequent smash to left-center was caught by a perfectly positioned Jones, who made a leaping catch at the fence to take away a home run.

The night’s only extra-base hit concluded this contest, a home run by Tommie Agee, good for his 500th career major league hit. There were some nights in which the Mets were willing to play forever to win and this was one of them. Whatever it took.

 

August 23, 1969: Mets 3, Dodgers 2

Sometimes the 1969 Mets got a little lucky. Their win over the Dodgers on this date was one of those times. Tied in the bottom of the ninth, the Mets pulled out the unusual victory when Jerry Grote’s two-out pop fly fell between three Dodgers players, plopping on the grass for a game-ending double.

The Mets had bungled a 2-0 lead in the eighth inning. The Dodgers tied the game on Willie Davis’s RBI triple, and a subsequent throwing error by Cleon Jones, who put himself in danger of being the game’s goat when then hit into a rally-killing double play in the home eighth.

The Mets picked up for their teammate in the bottom of the ninth, getting a win on a day when the opposing starter was Mets killer Jim Bunning, who didn’t have perfect-game kind of stuff but held the Mets to only two runs in his seven innings.

“That ball has to be caught if we’re to win the pennant,” Dodgers shortstop Maury Wills said of the game-ending blunder.6 And it has to drop for the Mets to win it.

 

September 10, 1969: Mets 3, Expos 2 (12)

The Mets entered September 10, 1969 on the precipice of great things, just a half game behind after beating the first-place Cubs twice at Shea Stadium. Chicago then traveled to Philadelphia while the Mets caught a scheduling break: a doubleheader against the expansion Expos. The Expos had spoiled Opening Day at Shea by winning in their first game. That seemed like an awfully long time ago. The Expos had lost 97 times since then and would leave New York with an even 100 following the short three-game set.

The first game started in twilight and the Mets, winners of four straight, put Jim McAndrew on the mound against rookie Mike Wegener. Neither a first nor second inning run by the Expos dampened spirits, as the Mets responded with unearned runs in the first and fifth to knot the game at 2-2.

The game evolved into a pitchers’ duel. Wegener, who never reached double digits in strikeouts before or again in his two-year career, whiffed 15 and walked seven. McAndrew walked five, but yielded only four hits. Both starters went deep into the contest, deeper than most managers nowadays would allow. Mets manager Gil Hodges stuck with McAndrew, even letting him bat with the score still tied, a man on base and two outs in the ninth. He lasted 11 innings and Expos manager Gene Mauch left Wegener alone for 11 as well.

Hodges finally relented and sent up a pinch hitter for McAndrew with two on and two out in the 11th. Jim Gosger struck out to end the scoring chance.

In the 12th inning, with Ron Taylor pitching, the Expos failed in an effort to take the lead, though they came close. With two outs, Angel Hermoso singled, as did ex-Met Kevin Collins, who was batting for Wegener. Hermoso tried to take third on that hit, and was successful as Tommie Agee’s throw got away. However, the fundamentally sound Taylor backed up the plate, and when Hermoso tried to score, Taylor pegged the ball to catcher Jerry Grote for the third out.

Bill Stoneman, who had thrown a no-hitter earlier that year and would no-hit the Mets in 1972, was Mauch’s choice to take the ball in the 12th, an odd choice considering Stoneman had pitched a shutout just three days previous (he would toss another two days later). Mauch had a full slate of relievers to choose from yet went with his top starter.

Stoneman got the first two Mets out in the 12th, but then magic struck. A single to center by Cleon Jones was followed by a walk by Rod Gaspar. Ken Boswell had the game-winning single to center despite a desperate dive by Expos second baseman Gary Sutherland (captured in a marvelous photo the next day in the New York Times).

The Cubs game against the Phillies was still going, and was close through the middle innings, but the win gave the Mets a piece of first place for the first time in their eight seasons of existence. Philadelphia extended its cooperation, snapping a 2-2 tie with a run in the seventh and three insurance tallies in the eighth, sending the Cubs to a 6-2 defeat, their seventh straight loss. The news came through on the Shea Stadium scoreboard after the third inning of the nightcap, just before 10:15 p.m., with a peek at the standings and the words, “Look who’s number one.” Nolan Ryan pitched a complete-game win in the nightcap and the Mets were on their way.

The rest of the world noticed. “Mets March to Head of Class” read the Washington Post headline the next day. “Hysteria Rocks Shea” said the Los Angeles Times. The New York Times told a fine story, of how Hodges had received a stuffed rabbit from a fan who “deemed a rabbit’s foot not enough.” The Mets had won six straight since Hodges put the rabbit on his desk.7

 

September 23, 1969: Mets 3, Cardinals 2

The Mets have never cinched a division championship in walk-off fashion, though their first such celebration came a day after such an event. The game of September 24, 1969 is well remembered for its conclusion, with Joe Torre hitting into a 6-4-3 double play, assuring the Mets of their first NL East crown (and the first such crown in league history). The contest of the previous day isn’t as easily recalled.

The Mets entered September 23 with a magic number of three, and when Bill Stoneman and the Expos topped the Cubs that afternoon, that was sliced to just two. In order to reduce it to one and guarantee at worst, a tie for the title, the Mets would have to topple nemesis Bob Gibson.

Jim McAndrew was up to the challenge and kept the Cardinals off the board for three innings. Wayne Garrett put the Mets ahead with a two-out single in the last of the third. It was not McAndrew’s fault that he surrendered the lead in the fifth, as a two-out error by Ken Boswell allowed the tying run to score, and then Torre’s RBI single put the Cardinals up, 2-1.

McAndrew held the Cardinals, but he left after seven frames with a one-run deficit. Gibson had ramped up his performance, retiring the Mets in order in the fifth and sixth, then escaping trouble in the seventh. Gibson had a chance to add to his lead in the eighth, but the hard-hitting hurler flew out with the bases loaded against reliever Tug McGraw. This was no ordinary fly out—it required a terrific diving catch by Ron Swoboda, something that Mets fans would see again.

In the home eighth, the Mets evened things up. Tommie Agee started with a single, went to second on Garrett’s bunt, and scored on Art Shamsky’s game-tying hit. Gil Hodges decided that the Mets fortunes were best served with McGraw pitching. The lefty weaved out of a jam in the top of the 10th, getting Phil Gagliano to ground out with two on. Gibson stayed in, even though he must have been fatigued by the 11th. With one out in that inning, Ron Swoboda and Jerry Grote got aboard on singles with light-hitting Bud Harrelson coming up.

Now normally, this would figure to be a mismatch, but for whatever reason, throughout their careers, Harrelson had Gibson’s number. They would face each other many times and Harrelson was extremely successful with 20 hits in 60 at-bats (as well as 14 walks and just three strikeouts).

In this instance, Gibson got ahead two strikes before Harrelson dropped a single into left-center field, plating Swoboda with the winning run and setting the stage for the Metmorable events of the following day.

METS WALK-OFFS AND OTHER MINUTIAE began in 2005 as a blog devoted to chronicling Mets history, with an emphasis on their walk-off wins. It can be found at http://metswalkoffs.blogspot.com.

 

SOURCES

The New York Times

www.retrosheet.org

www.baseball-reference.com

Blatt, Howard, Amazin Met Memories. Albion Press, Tampa Fla. 2002.

Bock Duncan & Jordan, John, The Complete Year-By-Year N.Y. Mets Fan’s Almanac. (New York: Crown Publishers, NY. 1992.)

Cohen, Stanley, A Magic Sammer: The ’69 Mets. (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1988.)

Koppett, Leonard, The New York Mets, The Whole Story. (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1970.)

Zimmerman, Paul D. and Dick Schaap. The Year The Mets Lost Last Place. (New York: World Publishing, 1969.)

 

NOTES

1. Durso, Joseph; “Kranepool Hits 2 Homers as Mets Top Expos.” New York Times, April 30, 1969, p. 50.

2. Interview with Ron Swoboda, June 2005

3. Vecsey, George; “55,096 Watch Mets Shock Cubs With 3-Run Rally in Ninth for 4-3 Triumph.” New York Times, July 9, 1969: 47.

4. Zimmerman, Paul D. and Dick Schaap. The Year The Mets Lost Last Place. (New York: World Publishing, 1929): 30-31.

5. Durso, Joseph “Mets Beat Braves, 6-5, on Grote’s HR in 11th,” New York Times. August 4, 1969: 42.

6. Durso, Joseph “Mets Defeat Dodgers, 3-2. Pop Fly Hit Wins,” New York Times, August 24, 1969: S1.

7. Author uncredited. “For The Players, No Heady Stuff,” New York Times. September 11, 1969. p. 56