The Wall: A ‘69 Mets Quest

In early 1970, when I was a freshman at St.John’s University, I went to Shea Stadium to purchase tickets for Opening Day. As I walked toward the ticket office, I noticed a lot of refuse strewn around the parking lot, including one large piece of green plywood sheeting lying face down on the ground. It was pretty dirty and stained and appeared to have been lying there for quite some time. Since the color had a familiar look, I decided to lift it up and look at the underside. As I suspected, it was a section of Shea Stadium’s outfield wall. I knew this for certain because this wall fragment had a white numeral “3” on it, indicating that it had once been part of either the 396 or 371 distance markers from either left-center or right-center field.

Upon closer examination, I noticed graffiti written in both ballpoint pen and magic marker on the white background of the numeral “3.” One inscription said “Joan & Bill and the Mets are #1.” Another marking read, “Joe, Byron and Rich,” and below it said, “10/16/69.” That was the very date the Mets won their first world championship! I broke the large sheet into a small enough piece to fit into my friend’s car, all the while keeping the numeral “3” intact. I brought it home and stored it in my parents’ garage in Queens.

A few years ago, I decided that I would finally give that piece its rightful treatment by having it mounted and framed. When I found it in the garage, I noticed it had inexplicably been cut into four pieces. No one was around to explain. Fortunately, the pieces fit together neatly, leaving the numeral “3” intact. I’d always been almost certain that it was a piece of the Shea wall and time had not dimmed my belief. While doing some research, I found proof beyond a shadow of a doubt.

I stumbled across a photograph taken an hour or so after the last out of the 1969 World Series. The photo portrayed Tom Seaver and Gary Gentry, walking around the pitching mound, surrounded by huge divots of grassy turf liberally lying all over the field. When I looked beyond the main subjects, in the background, I could clearly see that where the right-field wall stood 371 feet from home plate, but only the numerals “71” were visible. As I looked closer … the section of the wall bearing the numeral “3” was clearly missing. After all this time, I finally knew exactly from where and when that piece of wall came from. It actually was, and still is, a tangible link back to that magical moment in Mets history.

From that point, came the next step, getting the participants to sign my little—or maybe not so little—piece of the Miracle Mets. It has been a labor of love acquiring autographs on the Wall from as many of the surviving ’69 Mets as I could get. Soon after rediscovering the Wall in March 2006, I realized the first chance I would get to have it autographed would be the following December, when a Mets Mania autograph show was to take place in New Jersey.

The experience of meeting each of those ’69 Mets was filled with all kinds of emotion: Al Weis had some funny stories to relate about still living in the Chicago area, where the word “Mets” remains a four-letter because the Miracle ruined what had been a dream season for the Cubs. Jerry Koosman, one of the greatest Mets pitchers, used the Wall to make fun of his well-known lack of hitting prowess. Jim McAndrew seemed to just to have a huge smile on his face throughout his entire appearance time, and I’ll never forget the warm country gentleman presence of Don Cardwell. Ed Kranepool, Swoboda, The Glider—Ed Charles, Wayne Garrett, Cleon Jones, Bud Harrelson and all the rest were equally friendly, spirited, humorous, and approachable and seemed just as genuinely appreciative of our continued interest in them, as we are for the thrills that they gave us. What an Amazin’ event it was for me.

By the time that New Jersey show ended, I had secured all of the autographs that now appear on the Wall, except for Tom Seaver, Yogi Berra, and Nolan Ryan, Hall of Famers, all!

Yogi was scheduled to appear at a Yankees-themed show in February 2007. Despite what I knew would be an “adversarial” Yankees atmosphere at that event, I decided I could not pass up the opportunity to personally meet Yogi, a coach on the ’69 team and the manager of the “Ya Gotta Believe” Mets that took the pennant in ’73. So with a single-minded purpose, I purchased my tickets to the show, had Yogi sign the Wall, and took the requisite photos. I left that event immediately after getting his signature, dutifully ignoring the sullying effect which that Yankees-themed atmosphere evoked. It was my intent to leave with an image of Yogi as a 1969 Mets coach … not as a Yankee. Fortunately, I made it work.

Two weeks earlier, it had been Seaver time. Tom had a scheduled appearance in Baltimore. My wife and I took the 200-mile trek down I-95 on Friday night. Saturday morning, we went to the convention center, bought our tickets and soon after, saw Tom enter the building a bit earlier than his scheduled appearance time. As I waited my turn, things seemed under control. But then rumors began to circulate that Seaver had finished early and was actually on his way out of the building. That’s when the panic set in. I grabbed the Wall and rushed down to the area where I had seen him arrive, hoping that I could at least get him to stop and quickly sign the Wall on his way out. All that expenditure of emotion and energy turned out to be unnecessary, as the rumors of a premature exit were not quite accurate. Tom had merely left the first room he was in to move down the corridor to another signing room. We breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

When we finally got up to Tom, not only did he sign the top segment of the Wall which I had reserved for him, but he marveled at the entire two-by-three foot section, showing the entire numeral “3.” He repeatedly referred to it as “a great piece of history” and offered to help me get in touch with people in the Mets organization if I were so inclined. I thanked him and exchanged contact information. We said our goodbyes and left the building with the autograph that, with all due respect to any and all of the others on that Wall, most fittingly belonged: Tom Seaver, the Franchise.

 

 

Ironically, on that very morning, it had been reported that Nolan Ryan had been hospitalized for some “tests.” Fortunately, as was reported a few days later, all turned out to be okay. Nolan Ryan spent most of his long and remarkable career in uniforms that did not say “Mets,” but he will forever be remembered by Mets fans of that era as the fireballing hurler who won the clinching game of the 1969 NLCS and whose lone career World Series appearance resulted in a save in Game Three of the ’69 Series against Baltimore, that magical afternoon where Tommie Agee made his two miraculous catches. True, Ryan’s infamous 1971 trade to the Angels still lives in the annals of Mets history, but also, it was his brief arrival on the scene in the summer of 1966—a year before Seaver’s debut—that was the harbinger of things to come, pitching-wise, in the summers that followed. And it was power pitching from extraordinary young arms that would finally cause the worm to turn in 1969.

Nolan Ryan does not do many public autograph shows. I contacted his foundation, and while they said he would sign my “artifact” if I mailed it to them, I wasn’t of a mind to entrust this, in the words of Tom Seaver, “great piece of history” to the mail or any other delivery service. His foundation appreciated my willingness to fly to Houston personally whenever he would be in, but they said they rarely received much advanced notice of his office visits. I had noticed a private signing he was scheduled to do with a Houston-based memorabilia dealer in early July. So I contacted that outfit and said I’d be willing to fly down if I could get the Wall signed without letting it far from my possession. They suggested I wait, indicating that he might do a public signing in the upcoming fall. I thanked them for the information and resolved to contact them in a few months.

 

 

In early September, I noticed Ryan’s name on an autograph-signing website. I clicked on it only to find a scheduled public signing scheduled for Sunday, September 30, 2007, at 1 p.m. I assumed it was going to be in Texas, but when I clicked further, I saw it was scheduled to occur on Long Island, in Deer Park, not a 20-minute drive from my home! I couldn’t believe it! I immediately bought tickets for the event and waited with keen anticipation. It was a long, long couple of weeks building up to that Sunday. Sadly, every Mets fan should remember September 30, 2007. For those who need a hint: last game of the regular season, the Mets needing a win to force a one-game playoff, Tom Glavine on the mound, seven-run first inning …you know how that came out. Well, I spent those minutes during that first inning on line, listening to the game, waiting to meet Nolan Ryan. By the time I got up to him, those seven runs had crossed the plate. Meeting him was as good an antidote to that first inning as I could ever imagine. He was wonderful. And, getting back to my car, I said there was still time for a comeback, right? No Miracle that day.

 

 

In any event, I was thrilled meeting Nolan Ryan and he was fascinated not only by the Wall, but by the album of photos I had brought of his former teammates signing it, nostalgically smiling as he perused each photo. Nolan Ryan was a Met. He always will be a Met to me.

The author of seven no-hitters (none as a Met, of course) he has completed the Wall, my Wall. And he joined a pretty select company missing only Tommie Agee, Donn Clendenon, Tug McGraw, Rube Walker, Cal Koonce, and Gil Hodges, among the deceased.

On August 23, 2009, the day after the Citi Field celebration of the 1969 Mets, I got the last three signatures I needed on the wall: Eddie Yost, Bobby Pfeil, and Gary Gentry. The roll call for the Wall, my piece of the ’69 Mets reads as follows:

• Ed Kranepool
• Al Weis
• Ed Charles
• Jerry Grote
• J.C. Martin
• Rod Gaspar
• Ron Swoboda
• Jack DiLauro
• Joe Pignatano
• Jim McAndrew
• Jerry Koosman
• Tom Seaver
• Bobby Pfeil
• Gary Gentry
• Ken Boswell
• Bud Harrelson
• Wayne Garrett
• Duffy Dyer
• Cleon Jones
• Art Shamsky
• Amos Otis
• Yogi Berra
• Ron Taylor
• Don Cardwell
• Nolan Ryan
• Ralph Kiner
• Eddie Yost

LOU LONGOBARDI is an accountant from Long Island. Besides owning a piece of the original Shea Stadium wall, he is a Beatles aficionado and once sang for Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show.