Has It Really Been 50 Years?
For me, the 1969 Mets were phantoms. But the 1973 edition made me believe.
As I sit before my keyboard typing these words, the calendar reads September 1, 2023.
Fifty years before, on September 1, 1973, I can’t quite remember what I was doing. The calendar says that it was the Saturday before Labor Day. In just a few days, a teacher’s assistant would drop me into a classroom of screaming children for my first day of Kindergarten. In a little more than two weeks, I would celebrate my sixth birthday.
1973 had been a frustrating season for the New York Mets, as a raft of injuries made it challenging for Manager Yogi Berra to field a credible lineup on a regular basis. After an encouraging start to the season in April, the team skidded in May, June and July.
The Mets were 12.5 games out of first on July 8.
After losing both ends of a doubleheader on August 5, they were 11.5 games behind and seemingly running out of time.
They were 13 games under .500 on August 17.
But on that September Saturday afternoon at Shea Stadium, the New York Mets sparked the most memorable month in team history with a 4-1 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals. The win cut the team’s deficit behind the NL East Division leading Cardinals to 4.5 games. The Mets got seven strong innings behind left hander George Stone. Run scoring hits from second baseman Felix Milan, centerfielder Don Hahn and catcher Ron Hodges provided all the offense they needed. Right hander Harry Parker pitched two scoreless innings to get his fifth save.
The Mets went 19-8 for the rest of the season, winning the division over the second place Cardinals by a mere 1.5 games, this after being in last place in the division at the end of the day on September 11. Perhaps the most improbable win came in Flushing against the Pittsburgh Pirates on September 20, a 13-inning walk off victory that was made possible by the best defensive play the team had turned since Ron Swoboda.1 2
The division clincher came in the rain on October 1 in Chicago. The Mets needed a single victory in a scheduled doubleheader and got it, winning 6-4 behind Tom Seaver and left handed reliever Tug McGraw, the man whose cry of “Ya gotta believe!” and clutch relief pitching came to embody that late season surge.3 With the division title clinched, the umpires declared the field unplayable and cancelled the back end of the doubleheader, letting the Mets retreat to the visiting clubhouse to celebrate.
The Mets next found themselves facing the defending NL Champs, the Cincinnati Reds in the NL Championship Series (NLCS). They had won the NL pennant in two of the last three seasons in the early days of the “Big Red Machine,” taking the victorious Oakland A’s to seven games in the 1972 World Series. All the names you know were on the roster: Pete Rose; Johnny Bench; Joe Morgan; Tony Perez; and even a young Ken Griffey, Sr. Out of all of them, only Rose figured out the Mets pitching staff in the NLCS. He also provided one of the few highlights of the series for the Reds thanks to his “fight” with Mets shortstop Bud Harrelson in Game Three in New York.4
The Mets pitching staff, already formidable thanks to the trio of Seaver, Jerry Koosman and Jon Matlack, was supplemented by the unexpected performance of the aforementioned Stone, who went 12-3 with a 2.80 ERA in 20 regular season starts. As a team, the Reds batted .186 and scored just eight runs in five games. Looking back now, it seems like a miracle that the Reds were able to take the series to the limit before falling 7-2 in Game Five. And once again, it was McGraw who shut the door.
Up next in the World Series were the AL Champions, the seemingly invincible Oakland A’s. The A’s were the true team of the decade, winning three straight World Series from 1972-74. But what many folks forget was that the A’s won five AL West division titles in a row from 1971-75. And the only obstacle in their way of enjoying even more success was their mercurial owner, Charlie Finley. Had this team simply stayed together, they could have easily won another two championships.
The series was agonizingly close. The Mets outhit and outpitched Oakland over the full seven games. The light hitting Mets even slugged more home runs than the Swinging A’s, as the Mets pitching staff kept Oakland’s power hitters, including Reggie Jackson, in the park for the first six games of the series. Unfortunately, the A’s got all the home runs they needed in the bottom of the third inning in Game Seven at the Oakland Coliseum. Both shortstop Bert Campaneris and Jackson hit two-run shots off of Matlack as they cruised to a series-clinching 5-2 victory.5
As Garrett popped out to Campaneris for the final out of the Series, I experienced the first “gut punch” moment in my life as a sports fan, though there would be many more.6 At that point, as the innings had worn on, and it seemed the magic had run out for the Mets, the rest of my family began to slowly drift away from the television leaving me to watch the end of the game alone.
I don’t recall any tears after the final out. I remember rising from my seat on the couch and changing the channel as quickly as I could in the hope I could erase the disappointment only a child can feel. I turned the knob from Channel 4 to Channel 5 and sat back down to watch The Sands of Iwo Jima starring John Wayne. It didn’t help.
I didn’t know yet how spoiled I was. Yes, I had always watched the Mets with my father. I recall going to my first game at Shea that season and getting the 1973 Mets Yearbook. Despite that, I didn’t appreciate what was going on until I stumbled over the Mets clinching the NL East over the Cubs on October 1 on WOR-TV, Channel 9.7 Back in those days, we only had half-day Kindergarten, and I’m sure my mother, who was busy with two other kids under the age of five, was happy to see me spellbound before the television as the Mets drenched one another with celebratory champagne.
What followed was the best three weeks of my young life, and it was only later that I came to realize just how lucky I was to see the Mets get that close to winning it all. Today, we hear a lot about that 1973 team, not only because it’s the 50th anniversary, but because as the team’s 2023 season gradually unravelled, lots of online observers pointed to the 1973 experience as a reason to never give up hope.
While we should never give up hope, even as this Mets season is circling the drain, we should also recall that if miracles happened all the time they wouldn’t be special.
And that’s why 1973 will always be the reason that I believe.
The Mets finished with a record of 82-79, a .509 winning percentage, the worst ever for a division winner. While every win counts in a season like this, the team’s performance vs. the defending NL East Division champion Pirates was critical. In 18 games, the Mets went 13-5 vs. Willie Stargell and the “Lumber Company,” outscoring them 78-55. Outside of the 10-8 record vs. the second place Cardinals, it was the only winning record the Mets posted against any other team in the NL in 1973.
If you watch till the end of the clip, you’ll see Mets catcher Hodges display the ball to the umpire to prove he held on after the tag. I don’t have enough fingers on my two hands to count the number of times I mimicked that move while playing catcher in softball.
The whole story behind the rallying cry McGraw carried to Philadelphia is worth reading.
Following the fight, Mets fans were enraged at Rose, who was pelted with debris as he tried to take his place in left field in the bottom of the fifth inning. Reds manager Sparky Anderson pulled his team off the field and the umpires threatened the Mets with a forfeit if the fans didn’t get themselves under control. It was then that Mets manager Yogi Berra, centerfielder Willie Mays, Seaver, right fielder Rusty Staub and left fielder Cleon Jones marched out to left field to beseech the fans to stop. The fans complied and play resumed.
I remember watching this game on NBC, but can’t seem to find any video of the Mets players pleading with the fans in left — outside of this footage that was shot by a fan with a home movie camera. Skip to 3:22 to see the relevant clip. For an audio account from Mets broadcasters Bob Murphy and Lindsey Nelson, skip to 1:56:08 of this radio call. While Murphy clearly describes how Rose was being attacked — he even tossed some objects back into the stands — the pilgrimage to the left field bleachers made by Berra and his players is never mentioned.
To this day, Mets fans fault Berra for the way he managed the starting rotation. Going into Game Six in Oakland, the Mets held a 3-2 series lead. Berra opted to start Seaver on short rest rather than Stone, who hadn’t started a game since Game Four of the NLCS. The Mets lost Game Six, 3-1, and the Mets started Matlack for the third time in Game Seven instead of a rested Seaver. Berra said that he had chance to win it all in Game Six and Seaver was the best pitcher in baseball. I think his choice was more than defensible.
According to the seminal article by Bill Simmons on the “levels of losing,” the Mets loss to Oakland should properly be classified as Level XIII: The Princeton Principle.
I didn’t realize the Mets had won the 1969 World Series until sometime in the mid-1970s, when I read the condensed boxscores from a scorecard. I remember confidently striding up to my Dad to ask him if he knew that the Mets had won it all the same year we landed a man on the Moon. He was appropriately amused.