Posts Tagged ‘New York Mets’
SORRY, CHARLES
On this date forty years ago, Ed Charles (seen in the above photo, to the left of Jerry Koosman and Jerry Grote, celebrating the last out of the 1969 World Series) became the first player released by the newly crowned world champion New York Mets.
Charles, then 36, had played in 61 games for the Mets in 1969, hitting .207 with 3 home runs and 18 RBI. One of the home runs came in the division clinching game on September 24 off Steve Carlton, who’d started the All-Star Game for the National League in July.
Charles did not play in the NLCS against the Braves, but he played in four of five World Series games against the Orioles, hitting just .133. His biggest contributions in the Series came in Game Two. He singled and scored the go-ahead run in the top of the ninth inning. Then, with two on and two out in the bottom of the ninth, he gloved a hard grounder and threw to Donn Clendenon to preserve a 2-1 win.
“The Glider” played in eight Major League seasons after signing as an amateur with the Boston Braves in 1952. His best offensive season was his rookie year in 1962, when he hit .288 with 17 home runs and 74 RBI for the Kansas City Athletics.
Known as a smooth fielder, Charles came to the Mets in 1967 in a trade for Larry Elliott and cash. Charles had a perfect 1.000 fielding percentage in the ‘69 series.
After his release, Charles retired from baseball with a career average of .263 and 86 home runs. He scored 438 runs and knocked in 421 in 1005 games played.
Charles was on hand at CitiField when the Mets honored the 40th anniversary of the ‘69 team this summer.
HOW DID ‘69 METS WIN SERIES? PITCHING, PITCHING AND MORE PITCHING (AND CLENDENON AND WEIS)
Now that we’ve completed our day-by-day recreation of the 1969 World Championship season, we can take some time to analyze how the Mets pulled off their miraculous upset of the Orioles in five games.
First, if someone had said that New York’s top two hitters from their everyday lineup, leadoff man Tommie Agee and third-spot slugger Cleon Jones, would hit a combined .162 (6 for 37) in the series – and that Art Shamsky, the only other Met (aside from Jones) to post a .300 average in the regular season, would be hitless in 6 at-bats in the World Series after hitting .538 against the Braves in the NLCS - one might have thought Baltimore had swept the series.
So how did the Mets win? Simple: pitching. True, New York had a less than amazin’ .220 team average in the series, but their pitching staff held the O’s to an anemic .146 team mark in the five games. After scoring 4 runs off Tom Seaver in Game One, the AL champs scored just 5 runs over the final 4 games. Jerry Koosman, the team’s second best hurler in the regular season, was its best in the series with a 2-0 record and a 2.04 ERA in 17 2/3 innings. With Koosman’s two wins bookending Gary Gentry’s 6 2/3 scoreless innings in Game Three and Seaver’s 10-inning masterpiece in Game Four, New York subdued the Birds by holding them to just 4 extra-base hits across the 5 games. Out of the bullpen, Ron Taylor, Nolan Ryan, and Don Cardwell threw 5 2/3 innings without allowing a run.
The top two men in the Baltimore lineup, Paul Blair and Don Buford, had just 4 hits in 40 at-bats. Boog Powell led the Orioles with a .263 average but had no home runs or RBI.
Meanwhile, the Mets got enough offense from two members of their right-handed platoon lineup - one expected and one unexpected. Seeing the majority of the action at their positions with southpaws Mike Cuellar and Dave McNally starting 2 games aipiece for the O’s, cleanup hitter Donn Clendenon hit .357 with 3 home runs, and eighth-place hitter Al Weis opened eyes with 5 hits in 11 at-bats (.455) including the game-winning RBI in Game Two and a game-tying home run in Game Five. As they had throughout their 100-win campaign, the 1969 Amazin; Mets used timely hitting and dominant pitching to bring a happy end to a miracle season.
MIRACLE METS SING ON ‘ED SULLIVAN’
After their thrilling World Series victory, your 1969 New York Mets were honored with an invitation to appear on The Ed Sullivan Show, on which they delivered an unforgettably forgettable rendition of “You Gotta Have Heart.”
Click on the link below to see the Miracle Mets look downright out of their element. “G. Thomas” Seaver and ”Gerald” Grote seem to be enjoying themselves, but most of the team seems like they’d rather be somewhere else. And is it just me, or does Wayne Garrett remind you of Richie Cunningham?
‘THERE ARE NO WORDS’
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.
In the stands, one Karl Ehrhardt – a.k.a. “Sign Man” – the commercial artist who has attended Mets games since 1964 with a catalog of message-emblazoned signs to hold up for seemingly any occasion that might arise during the game, held up a sign that summed up the improbability of events that New Yorkers and the rest of the baseball world had just witnessed:
THERE ARE NO WORDS.
WORLD SERIES GAME FIVE: Mets 5, Orioles 3. W: Koosman (2-0) L: Watt (0-1)
METS WIN SERIES 4-1
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)
METS EVEN SERIES ON KOOSMAN’S GEM, WEIS’S TWO-OUT HIT SCORES GAME WINNER
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)
BUFORD, CUELLAR LEAD O’S PAST METS IN GAME ONE
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)
METS WIN PENNANT! AGEE, BOSWELL, GARRETT GO DEEP AND RYAN SAVES DAY AS AMAZINS SWEEP BRAVES IN NLCS, TO FACE ORIOLES IN WORLD SERIES
Monday, October 6, 1969
The New York Mets, winners of 100 games in the regular season, are going to the World Series.
For the third time, the Mets offense outslugged the might Atlanta Braves, and Nolan Ryan turned in a seven-inning relief performance as New York won 7-4 in the first ever postseason baseball game at Shea Stadium.
The Braves took an early lead on Hank Aaron’s two-run homer in the first off Gary Gentry. Aaron had a roundtripper in each of the three NLCS games. Two innings later, Aaron doubled to put runners on second and third with no outs. Manager Gil Hodges acted quickly and summoned to the bullpen for Ryan. The fireballing rookie struck out Rico Carty and Orlando Cepeda and then got Bob Didier on a flyout to end the Atlanta threat.
Tommie Agee got the Mets on the board with a solo home run in the third off Pat Jarvis, and then Ken Boswell struck a two-run homer to put New York up 3-2. Cepeda went deep off Ryan with one on to grab the lead back for the Braves. But again, the Amazin’s bounced back. Ryan surprised everyone with a single to lead off the home fifth, and two batters later, Wayne Garrett’s blast gave the Mets the lead again. Cleon Jones followed with a double and scored an insurance run on Boswell’s single. An inning later, Jerry Grote doubled and scored on a single from Agee to bring the score to 7-4.
By then, Ryan had settled into a groove and did not allow a run over the final four innings of the NLCS. The sometimes starter struck out seven while yielding just three hits. When Garrett fielded Tony Gonzalez’s grounder and threw to Ed Kranepool for the last out, the Mets had won the National League pennant.
For the ‘69 Mets, who’d won the East on the strength of a dominant pitching staff, the story of the NLCS was the team’s offensive outburst. While neither Seaver, Koosman, nor Gentry recorded strong starts in the series, the Mets lineup hit .327 and scored 27 runs in the three games against the Braves. Art Shamsky paced the team by hitting .538, while the first five men in the lineup - Agee, Garrett, Jones, Shamsky, and Boswell - combined to hit .409 with 6 home runs and 17 RBI.
The National League champion Mets will face the American League champion Baltimore Orioles in the World Series. The 1969 edition of the fall classic will begin on Saturday, October 11, in Baltimore’s Memorial Stadium.
NLCS GAME 3: Mets 7, Braves 4. W: Ryan (1-0) L: Jarvis (0-1)
***
After two dramatic, extra-innings wins in Minnesota, the Baltimore Orioles decided to do it the easy way, pounding out 11 runs on 18 hits against Twins pitchers. Minnesota’s Bob Miller lasted just 1 2/3 innings, as Don Buford and Paul Blair led the O’s with a combined 9 hits – Buford scoring four times and Blair recording 5 RBI. Elrod Hendricks went 2 for 5 with 3 RBI. Jim Palmer continued the excellent pitching by Baltimore starters in the ALCS by going nine full innings while working around ten hits. The Twins managed just five runs in the three-game series.
ALCS GAME 3: Orioles 11, Twins 2. W: Palmer (1-0) L: Miller (0-1)
METS BOUNCE BRAVES 11-6, NOW LEAD SERIES 2-0; MCNALLY THROWS 11-INNING SHUTOUT AS ORIOLES TAKE COMMANDING LEAD IN ALCS
Sunday, October 5, 1969
For the second straight game, the New York Mets beat up Atlanta Braves pitchers and now have a two games to none lead in the National League pennant series.
Tommie Agee, Ken Boswell, and Cleon Jones all homered and combined for seven RBI. Agee got the scoring started after he led off the game with a single off Atlanta’s Ron Reed. Wayne Garrett walked, Agee and Garrett pulled off a double steal, and Ed Kranepool singled in Agee.
Agee’s two-run homer and Art Shamsky’s RBI single stretched the Mets’ lead to 4-0 in the second. In the third inning, Bud Harrelson’s double and Garrett’s single both plated a run, and Boswell’s two-run shot in the fourth made it 8-0.
The Braves broke through in the bottom of the inning when Orlando Cepeda singled off New York starter Jerry Koosman to drive in Rico Carty. The Mets answered back in the fifth when Garrett doubled and Jones singled.
But for the second straight game, a New York starter had a surprisingly poor outing. A winner of 17 games and possessor of a 2.28 ERA in the regular season, Koosman imploded in the bottom of the fifth. A three-run shot by Hank Aaron highlighted a five-run rally, and Ron Taylor, usually the Mets closer, came on with two outs and two men on to get Bob Didier to line out to second. Taylor and Tug McGraw combined for 4 1/3 shutout frames to right the ship, and Jones’s two-run home run in the seventh put the game away.
Both teams now head north for Game Three, to be played tomorrow at Shea Stadium.
NLCS GAME 3: Mets 11, Braves 6. W: Taylor (1-0) L: Reed (0-1)
***
The Minnesota Twins and Baltimore Orioles squared off in an old-fashioned pitcher’s duel in Game Two of the American League series. Dave Boswell and Dave McNally both blanked the opposition through regulation and carried a shutout into the 11th inning. After McNally retired the side in the top of the 11th, Boswell walked leadoff batter Boog Powell. Brooks Robinson sacrificed him to second and Dave Johnson was walked intentionally. After Mark Belanger popped, Ron Perranoski came on to relieve Boswell. Pinch-hitter Curt Motton stepped up and singled to rightfield to give the Orioles their second straight extra-innings and a two-game lead in the series.
McNally, a twenty-game winner in the regular season, recorded one of the best performances in postseason history. He allowed just three hits – none after the 4th inning – and struck out 11 batters.
ALCS GAME 2: Orioles 1, Twins 0 (11 inn.). W: McNally (1-0) L: Boswell (0-1)
METS’ BATS BEAT BRAVES IN GAME ONE, ORIOLES TRIP UP TWINS IN 12
Saturday, October 4, 1969
In Atlanta, the New York Mets outslugged the Braves to win the first game of the National League pennant series.
The Mets scored first when Jerry Grote singled off starter Phil Miekro to drive in Art Shamsky for the franchise’s first ever run. Ken Boswell scored moments later on a passed ball by Atlanta’s Bob Didier.
But Tom Seaver, winner of 25 games in the regular season, squandered his team’s early lead. Rico Carty doubled to lead off the second and scored on Clete Boyer’s sac fly. In the third, three straight doubles from Felix Millan, Tony Gonzalez and Hank Aaron gave the Braves a 3-2 lead.
Bud Harrelson, who had just 24 RBI in the regular season, knocked in two runs with his fourth-inning triple to put the Mets back on top. But again, Seaver couldn’t hold the lead, as he surrendered solo home runs to Gonzalez in the fifth and Aaron in the seventh.
But then New York broke through in the eighth. Wayne Garrett led off with a double and scored on Cleon Jones’s single. Art Shamsky followed with a single, and Jones scored when Ken Boswell reached on an error by first baseman Orlando Cepeda. Later in the inning, the bases were loaded with two outs when Seaver’s spot in the lineup came up. Pinch-hitter J. C. Martin stepped into the box and struck a single into right-centerfield. All three runners scored, the final one on an error by Gonzalez.
From there, Ron Taylor came on to pitch two scoreless innings to preserve a 9-5 victory. Seaver was credited with the win despite his uncharacteristic rocky outing. Art Shamsky starred with three hits in four at-bats for the NL East champs, and Wayne Garrett was two for four.
NLCS GAME ONE: Mets 9, Braves 5. W: Seaver (1-0) L: Niekro (0-1) SV: Taylor (1)
***
Baltimore’s Mike Cuellar went eight innings and then handed it over to the Orioles bullpen, which tossed four scoreless frames as the home team won Game One of the American League pennant series over Minnesota.
The Twins’s Gaylord Perry carried a 3-2 lead into the bottom of the ninth, but he surrendered a game-tying home run to Boog Powell. The game stayed tied until the bottom of the twelfth. Mark Belanger lead off with a single and moved to third after Andy Etchebarren’s sacrifice bunt and Don Buford’s groundout. Paul Blair then surprised the Twins with a bunt single to score Belanger with the winning run.
ALCS GAME ONE: Orioles 4, Twins 3 (12 inn.) W: Hall (1-0) L: Perranoski (0-1)