October 6, 1969: The 1st League Championship Series Are Won

 

I have been assured that this photo is from the NLCS clincher,

not the NL Eastern Division clincher or the World Series clincher.

October 6, 1969: Tommie Agee, Ken Boswell and Wayne Garrett all hit home runs, leading the Mets to defeat the Atlanta Braves, 7-4 at Shea Stadium, and sweep the 1st-ever National League Championship Series. As they did after the NL Eastern Division clincher on September 24, the Met fans storm the field.

The Mets trailed 2-0 after the 1st inning, and Gary Gentry, on his 23rd birthday, is pulled after 2 innings, with Nolan Ryan pitching the rest of the way for the win.

It is the 1st Pennant won by a New York team in 5 years. A long time by New York standards. But for Met fans, the children of a "shotgun wedding" between 2 groups of fans who once hated each other, to use the late scientist and former Giant fan Stephen Jay Gould's phrase, "with that love that only hate can understand," it is the 1st Pennant in either 13 years (Dodgers) or 15 years (Giants).

After 7 bad years, 5 of them absolutely horrible, in Year 8 the Mets have won the Pennant. It is the fastest any team has reached the World Series since the early days of the competition. It will be 1980 – or 1973, if you count the Mets' 2nd Pennant – before a team other than one of the "Original 16" reaches the World Series again.

The 1st-ever American League Championship Series also ends in a sweep today. Paul Blair gets 5 hits and Don Buford 4, as the Baltimore Orioles beat the Minnesota Twins 11-2 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota. The Series is set: The heavily-favored 109-win Orioles will face the surprising 100-win "Miracle Mets."

Number 20, clearly, is Frank Robinson.

Number 3 is backup catcher Clay Dalrymple.

As a member of the ill-fated 1964 Philadelphia Phillies,

this must have been a very special moment for him.

October 6, 1969 was a Monday. It would be another year before ABC Monday Night Football debuted, so there was no football today. The NHL season wouldn't begin for another 5 days; the NBA, 8 days; the American Basketball Association, 11 days. So these 2 Pennant clinchers were the only scores on this historic day.