AMAZIN! METS ONE GAME AWAY FROM SERIES TITLE AFTER SEAVER GOES 10 AND SWOBODA’S SNARE SAVES THE DAY
Wednesday, October 15, 1969
Tom Seaver pitched his best game of the postseason, Ron Swoboda made the catch of his life, and now the Mets find themselves one game away from a world championship.
After allowing 9 runs over 12 innings in two starts, Cy Young candidate Tom Seaver crafted a masterpiece in Game 4 of the World Series. The Franchise threw 10 strong frames, allowing just one run on six hits and two walks, as the Orioles and Mets went into extra innings at Shea Stadium.
Donn Clendenon’s solo home run in the second inning off Baltimore’s Mike Cuellar gave New York an early lead. The score remained 1-0 until the top of the ninth, when Seaver appeared to tire. He surrendered back-to-back hits to Frank Robinson and Boog Powell to put men on first and third with one out. Brooks Robinson sent a sinking liner into rightfielder. Swoboda, who was dubbed “Rocky” because of his defensive struggles earlier in his career, made a split-second decision and dove to his right with his body parallel to the ground and his arm reaching out as far as he could. Quoting from 1969: The Year Everything Changed:
If not for perfect timing, the ball would have skipped past Swoboda’s glove and likely gone all the way to the wall. Perhaps in some parallel universe, it did just that: Both runners scored as Robinson pulled into third with a triple, and Baltimore scored a come-from-behind win in Game Four to regain momentum in the Series. Perhaps in this alternate reality, the Orioles went on to win the Series, while the ’69 Mets had to settle for being an intriguing footnote in baseball’s long, storied history.
But Swoboda’s timing was perfect, and he caught the ball just inches above the outfield grass. Frank Robinson tagged up and scored from third to tie the game, but the Shea crowd didn’t seem to care. The fans of this miracle team had witnessed yet another miraculous catch, and one batter later, Swoboda made another fine (though not nearly as difficult) catch on a line drive to halt the Orioles rally.
After the game, commentators would compare the play to the greatest catches in World Series history.
Swoboda made a jogging catch on Elrod Hendricks’s liner to end the inning. Swoboda’s single in the bottom of the ninth, his third of the game, pushed Cleon Jones to third with two outs, but reliever Eddie Watt got pinch-hitter Art Shamsky to ground out to second, and the game proceeded into extra innings.
Still on the mound, Seaver worked around a jam in the tenth. Davey Johnson reached on an error by Wayne Garrett, and Clay Dalrymple’s pinch hit put two on with one out. But Don Buford flew out to right, and then Seaver struck out Paul Blair.
In the bottom of the tenth, Jerry Grote led off with a flyball double that fell just out of reach of shortstop Mark Belanger in shallow leftfield. After an intentional walk to Al Weis, Pete Richert came on to face pinch-hitter J. C. Martin. Martin laid down a perfect sacrifice bunt, and when Richert fielded it and wheeled to first, his throw hit Martin and bounced away. Rod Gaspar, running for Grote, came around to score the winning run.
The Orioles would argue that Martin should have been called out and the play called dead because he had been running outside the basepath when the ball struck him. But the play stood, and now this miraculous Mets team will look to close out the series on Thursday at Shea.
WORLD SERIES GAME FOUR: Mets 2, Orioles 1 (10 inn.). W: Seaver (1-1) L: Hall (0-1)
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Tags: 1969, Al Weis, Art Shamsky, Boog Powell, Brooks Robinson, Clay Dalrymple, Cleon Jones, Davey Johnson, Don Buford, Eddie Watt, Elrod Hendricks, Frank Robinson, J. C. Martin, Mike Cuellar, New York Mets, Paul Blair, Pete Richert, Rob Kirkpatrick, Rod Gaspar, Ron Swoboda, Shea Stadium, Tom Seaver, Wayne Garrett
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