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If you’re looking for a good book about the late ’60s – one that I didn’t even write – check out Orange Sunshine: The Brotherhood of Love and Its Quest to Spread Peace, Love, and Acid to the World by O.C. journalist Nick Schou:

http://us.macmillan.com/orangesunshine

Schou’s book just received a “four cannabis review” from High Times, author Mike Davis says this true story reads “like classic Thomas Pynchon,” and yours truly blurbed it by saying it’s a “wild ride of a story that seems straight out of Easy Rider or Zabriskie Point.”

Orange Sunshine is available now for pre-order on Amazon.

Here’s a link to an article from Sunday’s New York Times on the first interracial college football game played in the South – between Florida A&M, a black college, and the predominantly white University of Tampa, in 1969:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/26/us/26florida.html?em

Thursday, October 16, 1969

The New York Mets are World Series champions.

The Amazin’s overcame an early three-run deficit to beat the Baltimore Orioles 5-3 in Game Five and close out the series at home. Jerry Koosman pitched a complete game to earn his second series win, series MVP Donn Clendenon homered in his third straight appearance, and Al Weis hit a key game-tying home run, his first ever homer at Shea Stadium.

After hitting .215 in the regular season, Weis finished with a .455 series average.

The Mets fell behind in the third when Orioles pitcher Dave McNally smacked a two-run shot over the leftfield wall. Three batters later, Frank Robinson drove a towering home run over the centerfield fence for a 3-0 Orioles lead.

But it was the last time Baltimore would score in ‘69.

Koosman settled into a groove, and the Mets got on the board in the sixth when Cleon Jones was hit by a pitch and Clendenon followed with a drive that ricocheted off the upper deck in leftfield. At first, umpire Lou DiMuro ruled that McNally’s pitch had missed Jones’s feet before it hit the ground and bounced into the Mets dugout. But manager Gil Hodges emerged with a ball that bore the mark of shoe polish, and after inspecting it, DiMuro awarded Jones first. This enraged Baltimore manager Earl Weaver, as in the top of the inning, Frank Robinson had struck out after claiming to have been hit by a Koosman pitch.

With the Mets trailing by one, Al Weis sent the fans to their feet with his game-tying home run off McNally in the seventh. In the eighth against reliever Eddie Watt, Jones led off with a double high off the centerfield fence, and he scored the go-ahead run one batter latter on Ron Swoboda’s bloop single to left, which landed just in front of a lunging Don Buford to the delight of the enraptured Shea faithful. After Ed Charles flew out, Jerry Grote lined a hard grounder to Boog Powell at first, and when Watt mishandled Powell’s toss to first, Swoboda came around to score a key insurance run.

Protecting a two-run lead, Koosman made a mistake in walking Frank Robinson to begin the ninth. But Koosman got Powell to ground into a force play and retired Brooks Robinson on a fly to right.

Davey Johnson stepped to the plate next. I recount what happened next in 1969: The Year Everything Changed:

Second baseman Davey Johnson hit a deep fly ball to left that might have made many a fan hold their breath, but when Jones stopped moving backward and calmly settled under the ball just shy of the warning track, it was all over.

He collected the ball and brought his hands down as he practically knelt to the Shea grass in a solemn gesture. Veteran baseball writer George Vecsey wrote, “Shea Stadium was caught quivering as Jones sighted the ball, and the whole city erupted as he caught it, and the fans poured onto the field, and the New York Mets were the champions of baseball. There were a million exciting things happening and it was hard to focus on any one incident. But out in left field, if you had been looking there, you would have seen Cleon Jones, with fans racing over to pummel him, stop for a moment, drop quickly to one knee. Later, he explained his brief genuflection. ‘Someone was good to us.’ ”

The Mets, the laughingstock of baseball in their first seven years of existence, were now the best team in all of the land. All jubilant hell broke loose. Fans ran onto the field in celebration. Some collected dirt from the infield; others dug out home plate as a souvenir. It was just before 3:30 on that Thursday afternoon, October 16, and throughout the city, New Yorkers began their celebration. White-collar confetti danced downward upon spontaneous revelers. Strangers danced in the streets, young with old, black with white—one of the few moments of harmony during a year that had seen the nation divided by age and race.

Sunday, October 12, 1969

A Mets starting pitcher finally threw a good game in the playoffs, and the bottom of the order delivered when it counted most for New York in Game Two of the World Series.

After three rocky outings in the NLCS by its the team’s top three hurlers - Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman, and Gary Gentry – and a loss by Seaver in Game One of the World Series, Koosman took the mound in Memorial Stadium and carried a no-hitter into the seventh inning against the potent Baltimore Orioles lineup.

Don Clendenon had given the team its first lead in a Series game with his home run off Dave McNally to begin the fourth inning. Koosman, owenr of a 17-9 record in the regular season, made that single stand up until Paul Blair lead off the seventh with a single to left, stole second, and scored on Brooks Robinson’s two-out single into center.

The score was knotted in the top of the ninth when Ed Charles singled with two outs and moved to third on a perfectly executed hit-and-run by Jerry Grote. Manager Gil Hodges left eighth-place hitter Al Weis, who hit just .215 in the regular season and had just one at-bat in the NLCS, in to face McNally. Weis had singled off the Orioles southpaw back in the third, and he rewarded Hodges’s confidence by rapping a single into left to score Charles with the go-ahead run.

Koosman took that lead into the bottom of the ninth and retired the first two men in the Orioles order, Paul Blair and Don Buford. But there the lefty faltered, issuing walks to both Frank Robinson and Boog Powell to put the tying and winning runs on base. Hodges called for closer Ron Taylor to put out the fire.

Up stepped the dangerous Brooks Robinson, who drove in 84 runs in the 1969 season and starred with a .500 average in the ALCS. Robinson swung at a Taylor offering and bounced a hard smash to Charles at third base. The man they call The Glider gloved it and took a step toward third for the force out. But realizing he might not beat Frank Robinson to the base, Charles stopped and fired across the diamond to first. Clendenon stretched and dug Charles’s throw out of the dirt to get the final out and preserve a 2-1 win in the Mets’ first World Series victory.

Both Charles and Weis were 2 for 4 in the game. McNally suffered his first postseason loss despite giving up just six hits while striking out seven batters.

The series now moves to New York, where the Mets and Orioles will square off in Game Three at Shea Stadium on Tuesday, October 14.

WORLD SERIES GAME TWO: Mets 2, Orioles 1.  W: Koosman (1-0)  L: McNally (0-1)

Saturday, October 11, 1969

The New York Mets ran into the Baltimore Orioles buzzsaw in Game One of the World Series.

Don Buford homered on the second pitch thrown by Tom Seaver to set the tone for the game. Buford and Mets shortstop Bud Harrelson seemed to jaw at each other as Buford circled the bases to the delight of the Memorial Stadium crowd. Three innings later, the home fans had more to celebrate. Elrod Hendricks singled to spark a two-out rally. Orioles pitcher Mike Cuellar provided the big hit of the inning with a single to score two runs, and Buford followed with a double for his second RBI of the game and a 4-0 Baltimore lead.

The Mets attempted a rally in the seventh. Singles from Don Clendenon and Jerry Grote sandwiched around a walk to Ron Swoboda brought the tying run to bat with one out. But all Al Weis could manage was a sacrifice fly for one run, and Rod Gaspar grounded out to end the threat.

Cuellar then closed out the game to give the Orioles a 1-0 lead in the series.  He struck out 8 New Yorkers while allowing 6 hits and 4 walks.

After compiling a 2.21 ERA in the regular season, Seaver now has a 6.75 ERA in two postseason starts. Clendenon, who sat out the NLCS in favor of Ed Kranepool against the Atlanta Braves’s right-handed staff, had a double and single in four at-bats against Cuellar. Cleon Jones recorded the first Mets World Series hit with his first-inning single.

WORLD SERIES GAME ONE: Orioles 4, Mets 1.  W: Cuellar (1-0)  L: Seaver (0-1)

Sunday, September 21, 1969

The Mets rebounded after getting no-hit the day before to sweep a Sunday doubleheader at Shea and take a big step toward claiming the National League Eastern Division title.  Jerry Koosman and Don Cardwell gave the New York bullpen the day off by each going nine full innings.  Art Shamsky went a combined 4 for 7 with a home run, 4 runs scored, a two RBI; and Ken Boswell went 3 for 6 on the day. 

The Mets’ magic number is now 4. 

Mets 5, Pirates 3 (1).  W: Koosman (16-9)  L: Ellis (10-17)

Mets 6, Pirates 1 (2).  W: Cardwell (8-9)  L: Blass (15-10)

Fergie Jenkins has been a workhorse for the Cubs in ‘69, and on Sunday he threw his 22nd complete game and collected his 21nd win. Reserve shortstop Paul Popovich went an impressive 3 for 3 and scored twice, and Randy Hundley hit a two-run shot for Chicago.

Cubs 4, Cardinals 3.  W: Jenkins (21-14)  L: Taylor (7-5)

***

NL EAST                             W    L    T   PCT    GB   M# 
New York Mets                   93   61    0  .604     -      4 
Chicago Cubs                    89   66    1  .574   4.5    -

Wednesday, September 10, 1969.

The unthinkable has happened.  The New York Mets are in first place.

The Mets began play a half-game behind Chicago, which had been in first place in the National League East since the very first day of the season, and had as recently as August 13 led New York by 9 1/2 games in the standings.

The Shea Stadium crowd cheered the Amazins Wednesday evening as the home took the field for the first game of a doubleheader against the last-place Montreal Expos. New York’s Jim McAndrew worked through a rocky first and second innings, giving up a single run in each, before settling into a groove and turning in a heroic, 11-inning gem – allowing just one hit over his last nine frames. At the same time, Expos starter Mike Wegener was just as good, lasting 11 innings himself and allowing just two runs himself – one on a first-inning Art Shamsky single that scored Tommie Agee, and another when Wegener balked in Agee from third in the fifth inning.

From there, it was a nail-biting test of endurance, with neither team crossing the plate in the next six innings. Ron Taylor relieved McAndrew in the top of the 12th, and Agee threw out Remy Hermoso at the plate for the last out of the inning. In the bottom half of the 12th, the Expos’ Bill Stoneman came on for a rare relief appearance. Cleon Jones singled with two outs and moved to second on Rod Gaspar’s walk, and Ken Boswell proved the hero with a game-winning RBI single.

Mets 3, Expos 2 (1, 12 inn.).  W: Taylor (8-4)  L: Stoneman (9-17)

Meanwhile, the slumping Chicago Cubs were on their way to another loss. Starter Ken Holtzman left after seven innings with his team trailing 3-2, and reliever Phil Regan poured gasoline on the fire by allowing three more runs without recording a single out. After winning 10 of his first 11 decisions, Holtzman has now lost nine of his last 15.  Rick Wise tossed a complete game for the Phils, allowing just one unearned run.

Phillies 6, Cubs 2.  W: Wise (13-11)  L: Holtzman (16-10)

With the second game of the Mets-Expos doubleheader underway, the home fans took to watching the out-of-town scoreboard. When the electronic “F” flashed to signal the end of the Cubs game, the Mets fans began to dance in the aisles.  Regardless of the outcome of the nightcap, the Mets were now assured of waking up the next morning in first place. The scoreboard operator ran a celebratory message that seemed aimed just as much to the rest of the league as it was to the Shea faithful: LOOK WHO’S NO. 1.

In the third inning of game two, Jerry Grote’s leadoff double sparked a 6-run rally, and Nolan Ryan made the lead hold up en route to a 7-1 blowout. Ken Boswell recorded three hits, with Art Shamsky and Bud Harrelson each tallying two. When John Bateman flied out to Rod Gaspar for the final out, the Mets had moved into a full-game lead in the National League East.

Mets 7, Expos 1 (2).  W: Ryan (6-1)  L: Reed (6-6)

NL EAST STANDINGS

                                                 W    L    T   PCT    GB    RS   RA
New York Mets                   84   57    0  .596     -   565  494
Chicago Cubs                     84   59    1  .587   1.0   656  532

To mark the 40th anniversary of Jimi Hendrix’s performance at Woodstock – which occurred on August 18, 1969, the morning after the festival was officially scheduled to end – here are a couple of related excerpts from 1969: The Year Everything Changed…

American Indians seemed to be much on the minds of counterculture members at the end of the decade. In his short story, “Because my Father Always Said He Was the Only Indian Who Saw Jimi Hendrix Play ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ at Woodstock,” Sherman Alexie wrote, “During the Sixties, my father was the perfect hippie, since all the hippies were trying to be Indians.” As part of their back-to-the-land yearnings, many hippies took to Native American fashions as a gesture to the peoples who originally had the land to themselves, before the onset of industrialization brought by European whites. Even Hendrix, himself part Cherokee, performed his famous Woodstock set in a fringed tribal jacket and moccasins. Historian Philip Deloria said that such hippies were merely “playing Indian”: “‘Indians’ could be both civilized and indigenous. They could critique modernity and yet reap its benefits. They could revel in the creative pleasure of liberated meanings while still grasping for something fundamentally American. … Not only in the communes but in politics, environmentalism, spirituality, and other pursuits, Indianness allowed counterculturists to have their cake and to eat it.”

***

By the time Jimi Hendrix, the final performer and the festival’s true headline act, took the stage Monday morning, all but roughly 50,000 of the festival crowd had departed, driven away by filth, hunger, and exhaustion. “Having waited up all night, the audience understandably seemed as groggy as we were, and it was horrible to see people packing up and leaving as we came on,” Mitch Mitchell said. “Monday morning was back to the grind for a lot of people who’d come and it couldn’t be helped.”

Monck incorrectly introduced the group—with Mitchell on drums but Billy Cox on bass, Larry Lee on backing guitar, Jumma Sultan and Jerry Velez adding percussion—under the old name of the “Jimi Hendrix Experience.” Hendrix came out dressed in his fringed Native American tribal shirt and jeans and moccasins and red bandana. “I see that we meet again, hmmm…,” he said to the crowd, and reintroduced his new group as Gypsy, Sun and Rainbow….[F]or his instrumental interpretation of Francis Scott Key’s patriotic tune, Hendrix pulled out all stops, bending and torturing the tune’s melody to create an anthem for the land of free love and the home of a brave new world. In his pyrotechnic sound effects, one heard machine guns and falling bombs, the sounds of chaos straight out of the Southeast Asian jungles. David Fricke writes: “If the Experience tried to play power-jazz at the speed of light, Hendrix at Woodstock was a rough prototype for a new black-rock futurism, the missing link between Sly Stone’s taut, rainbow-party R&B and George Clinton’s blown-mind, ghetto-army funk: ‘Dance to the Music’ plus ‘Message to Love’ equals ‘Cosmic Slop.’” “It was the most electrifying moment of Woodstock, and it was probably the single greatest moment of the sixties,” wrote Al Aronowitz of the New York Post. You finally heard what that song was about, that you can love your country, but hate the government.” Hendrix would describe: “They made me sing it in school, so it was a flashback. We’re all Americans, aren’t we? When it was written then, it was played in what they call a very, very beautiful state, nice and inspiring, your heart throbs and you say, ‘Great, I’m American!’ But nowadays when we play it, we don’t play to take away all this greatness that America’s supposed to have. We play it the way the air is in America today. The air is slightly static, isn’t it? You know what I mean?”

It was forty years ago this past weekend that the Beatles walked across the pedestrian crossing on London’s Abbey Road in the photo shoot for the final album they recorded as a group.  Hundreds of people showed up on rock’s most famous crosswalk this weekend to commemorate the image.  In 1969, supposed clues on the album cover fed an urban legend that Paul McCartney was dead and had been secretly replaced by a double.  I discuss both the album and the “Paul Is Dead” rumors in 1969: The Year Everything Changed. 

Here’s the Yahoo! link:

http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/Abbey-Road-Beatles27-Abbey-Road-album/photo//090808/481/03d2c6a9e43a44c2b0bb0d159893976d//s:/ap/20090808/ap_on_en_mu/eu_britain_beatles_anniversary_4

Sunday, August 10, 1969

Team                             W    L    T   PCT    GB   
Chicago Cubs                    71   43    1  .623     -  
New York Mets                   62   48    0  .564   7.0  
St. Louis Cardinals             63   51    0  .553   8.0 

Tommie Agee and Wayne Garrett continued their hot hitting and the Mets continued their dominance of the Braves.

Agee had two doubles and a home run, and Garrett went 2 for 4. Nolan Ryan left with an injury after 2 1/3, giving way to Don Cardwell, who went 4 innings. Tug McGraw then finished the game, preserving the shutout.  New York has taken six of its last seven games against Atlanta. 

Mets 3, Braves 0.  W: Cardwell (4-9)  L: Britton (6-3)  SV: McGraw (7) 

***

Don Sutton got the better of Ken Holtzman in Los Angeles. Dodgers leadoff man Ted Sizemore went 3 for 4 and scored twice. Randy Hundley went 2 for 4 with a run and RBI for the Cubs.

Dodgers 4, Cubs 2.  W: Sutton (14-11)  L: Holtzman (13-6)  SV: Mikkelsen (2)

Saturday, August 9, 1969

Tommie Agee went 3 for 4 with 2 runs scored and an RBI, and Wayne Garrett drove in two as the Mets continued their mastery of the Atlanta Braves. Bobby Pfeil and Cleon Jones also added 2 hits each.  Tom Seaver went 7 1/3 for the win, while his counterpart Pat Jarvis exited early after allowing 3 runs on 6 hits in just 2 1/3 innings.

Mets 5, Braves 3.  W: Seaver (16-7)  L: Stone (9-8)  SV: Koonce (7) 

***

Jim Hickman had two home runs and a double as Bill Hands shut out the Los Angeles Dodgers 4-0.  Randy Hundley also homered.

Cubs 4, Dodgers 0.  W: Hands (14-8)  L: Foster (3-7)