October 16, 1969: The Mets' Miracle

October 16, 1969: Yes, the Miracle on 126th Street really happened. Was it actually a "miracle"? Not really: The Mets unquestionably outplayed the Baltimore Orioles in the World Series. And while varying amounts of luck are necessary for any sports victory, the Mets pretty much made their own luck in this Series.

A crowd later listed as 57,397 -- including Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, her children Caroline and John, and her 2nd husband, Aristotle Onassis -- files into "The William A. Shea Municipal Stadium" for Game 5. The skies on this Thursday afternoon are a mix of Sun and clouds, and the temperature is in the mid-60s throughout the game.

Left to right: Caroline, then, 11; John-John, 8; Jackie; Ari.

I wonder how much of the game Ari understood.

The Orioles do their best to win the game and send the Series back to Baltimore. They take a 3-0 lead in the bottom of the 6th, thanks to the pitching and home run of Dave McNally, and it looks like the Series is going back to Baltimore for at least a Game 6.

Cleon Jones‚ the only Met to have hit .300 that season – in fact, his .340 remained a Met single-season record until John Olerud's .359 in 1998 – is hit on the foot with a pitch, much like the unrelated Nippy Jones of the Milwaukee Braves in the 1957 World Series. And, like Nippy, Cleon is awarded 1st base after his manager proves he was hit, by showing the umpire a shoe-polish stain on the ball.

On the official World Series highlight film, Pearl Bailey, who had sung the National Anthem,  can be seen asking if the pitch had hit Jones, and being delighted that it had, she used the slogan: "Did it hit him? Oh, it hit him! It's amazing! It's amazing!"

He is awarded 1st base, and then Clendenon hits a home run to close the Mets to within 3-2. Light-hitting 2nd baseman Al Weis ties it up with a homer in the 7th, and in the 8th, Swoboda doubles, and the Orioles uncharacteristically make 2 errors, leading to Mets 5, Orioles 3.

Koosman goes the distance. Just as the 2000 film Frequency used the '69 World Series as a major plot point, connecting the past with that film's present, so, too, does the final out link the Mets' 2 and, so far, only World Championships. The last Oriole batter is 2nd baseman Dave Johnson. Or, as he was sometimes known, Davey Johnson. And, 17 years before he manages the Mets to the 2nd title, he flies to left, where Cleon Jones is under it. At 3:17 PM -- the game took just 2 hours and 14 minutes -- that's the Mets' 1st title.

As Curt Gowdy says on NBC, "The 2-1 pitch: There's a fly ball to left, waiting is Jones, the Mets are the World Champions! Jerry Koosman is being mobbed! Look at this scene!"

Thousands upon thousands of fans ran onto the field, and took whatever souvenirs they could find, a repeat of the September 24 Division clincher and the October 6 Pennant clincher, and then some. In the locker room, both Mayor Lindsay and Pearl Bailey are doused with champagne.

Naming the Most Valuable Player of the World Series was a tough call. Koosman had won 2 games. Agee had won Game 3 with a home run and 2 sensational catches. Weis was a surprising star. In the end, though, the sportswriters decided they couldn't ignore 3 home runs, including the one that got the Mets back into the ballgame in Game 5, and awarded it to Clendenon. Formerly given out by the now-defunct SPORT magazine, in 2017, this award was renamed the Willie Mays Award.

The New York branch of the Baseball Writers' Association of America (the guys who vote for the Hall of Fame) awarded a separate Babe Ruth Award, and had just expanded its scope to cover the entire postseason (and would again in 1995). They gave it to Weis. Sports Illustrated named Seaver their Sportsman of the Year.

It had been 5 years since New York had a World Series appearance. It had been 12 years since Met fans, most of them previously fans of the New York Giants or Brooklyn Dodgers, lost their old teams. It had been 13 years since the Dodgers last won a New York Pennant, 15 years for the Giants. And it had been 14 years since the '55 Dodger title, 15 years since the '54 Giant title.

And New York was in a hell of a mess in '69, with rising crime, bad weather (the February blizzard), poverty, racial discontent, the sense that the whole world was spiraling out of control, and the feeling that Mayor Lindsay didn't know what the hell to do, with anything. But by tying himself to the Mets' World Series win, he managed to get re-elected.

If the Mets had finished 2nd to the Cubs in the new 6-team NL East, after 7 seasons of either 9th or 10th in the single-division 10-team NL, most Met fans would have gladly taken it. If they had won the Division but lost the Pennant to the NL West Champion Braves, it would have been a disappointment, but they would have gotten over it.

And if they had won the Pennant but lost the Series to the overwhelming favorite Orioles, it would have been fairly easy to take, as just being in the World Series is quite an honor – that is, so long as you don't lose it on a bonehead move or play, as the Red Sox did against the Mets in '86 (and I mean John McNamara's managerial decisions and Bob Stanley's wild pitch, not Bill Buckner's error), or as the Mets did against the Yankees in 2000 (the baserunning blunders and Armando Benitez's walk of Paul O'Neill).

The '69 Mets acted as if there was no pressure, as if the pressure was all on the other guys. It really wasn't on the Mets. They had fun. And their fans had fun. It was fun they did not expect to have. And sometimes, that's the best kind of fun of all. And that's why the win was not just glorious, but, to use the cliché, Amazin'.

It was also the last Major League Baseball game played before I was born, exactly 9 weeks later. So I was born with both the Mets and the Jets as defending World Champions.

But I still hate the Mets. But that's not why. I hate them because I'm a Yankee Fan.

For all that the Yankees have achieved, for all that the New York Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers achieved before moving to California, for all the joy brought to the New York Tri-State Area by the Super Bowl wins of the Giants and the Jets, the Knicks' 1970 NBA Championship, and the Stanley Cups won by the Rangers, the Islanders, and the New Jersey Devils, the 1969 New York Mets remain the most beloved single-season sports team in New York history.

Nolan Ryan, who seemed like a minor figure on the team, though with a key performance in Game 3, was the last active player for the 1969 Mets, pitching until 1993.

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October 16, 1969 was a Thursday. No other baseball games were played on this day. No football games. One game was played in the NBA: The Phoenix Suns beat the San Diego Rockets, 116-114 at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum. Jim Fox of the Suns led all scorers with 29 points. The Rockets moved to Houston in 1971. The American Basketball Association opened its season the next day.

And one game was played in the NHL: The Minnesota North Stars beat the Detroit Red Wings, 3-2 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit. Gordie Howe scored a goal for the Wings, but Claude Larose scored 2 for the Stars.

Singer Wendy Wilson, daughter of Beach Boy Brian Wilson and a member of Wilson Phillips, was born on this day.

April 2, 1972: The Death of Gil Hodges

April 2, 1972: Gil Hodges dies of a heart attack in West Palm Beach, Florida, while playing golf with his New York Mets coaches. He was 2 days short of turning 48.

Gilbert Ray Hodge was born on April 4, 1924 in Princeton, Indiana, and grew up in nearby Petersburg. By the 1930 Census, the family name had been changed to "Hodges." He played baseball and basketball at St. Joseph's College in Collegeville, Indiana, but dropped out to sign with the Brooklyn Dodgers on September 6, 1943.

He played in 1 game, the regular season finale on October 3, then enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps. So often described as "quiet," he nonetheless served as an anti-aircraft gunner in the battles of Tinian and Okinawa, and was awarded the Bronze Star.

After playing the 1946 season in the minor leagues, he was moved from catcher to 1st base, and was part of the Dodger team that became known as "The Boys of Summer," winning National League Pennants in 1947, 1949, 1952, 1953, 1955 and 1956, and just missing in 1950 and 1951. He was an 8-time NL All-Star, and received the Gold Glove for NL 1st basemen the 1st 3 times it was awarded.

Infamously, he went 0-for-21 in the 1952 World Series. It got so bad that priests, knowing that Gil was a devout Catholic, asked their parishioners to pray for him. In the 1955 World Series, he batted .292 with a home run and 5 RBIs, and was key to the Dodgers finally beating the Yankees and winning a title.

After the 1957 season, the Dodgers were moved to Los Angeles. But Gil, having married a Brooklynite, Joan Lombardi, kept a house in Brooklyn. The Dodgers won another World Series in 1959, not that it mattered to Brooklyn. The following off-season, Gil and his Dodger teammate Duke Snider were contestants on the baseball-themed game show Home Run Derby.

In 1962, the expansion New York Mets made him their 1st baseman, but age and injuries had caught up with him. On May 23, 1963, the Mets traded him to the Washington Senators, who immediately made him their manager. He then retired as a player. His 370 career home runs don’t sound like much now, but, at the time of his retirement, they ranked 10th all-time.

In 1968, he was named manager of the Mets. In 1969, he led them to win the World Series, making himself a New York sports hero all over again. The contrast between Gil's quiet leadership and the boisterousness of the opposing manager, Earl Weaver of the Baltimore Orioles, helped to underscore the difference in the teams' performances.

He guided the Mets to 3rd-place finishes in 1970 and 1971. But he had already suffered a heart attack in Washington, and he may have known another one was likely. It happened at the end of Spring Training in 1972. He was the first of the Brooklyn "Boys of Summer" to die. (The last survivor of the players that Roger Kahn identified as such in the book with that title was another Indiana native, pitcher Carl Erskine.) He remains the last manager or head coach of a New York Tri-State Area team to die in office.

The Mets retired Gil’s Number 14 on June 9, 1973. On April 4, 1978, what would have been his 54th birthday, the Marine Parkway Bridge, which connected Marine Park, Brooklyn to Rockaway, Queens, was renamed the Marine Parkway-Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge in his memory. Also in Brooklyn, P.S. 193 and a Little League field were named for him. Between Avenue L and Avenue N, Bedford Avenue, about 3 miles south of where that road bordered the right field wall of Ebbets Field, is named Gil Hodges Way.

For many years, Hodges was mentioned as one of the best players never elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Although his baseball career, between playing and managing, was one of the noblest in the sport's history, the Hall does not combine such accomplishments into a "Contributor" category, the way the Basketball Hall of Fame does. On December 5, 2021, 53 years after he was first eligible for election to the Hall, he was finally elected, by the Hall's Golden Days Committee.

UPDATE: The Dodgers subsequently retired Number 14 for him, on June 4, 2022, on a day when the Mets were the visiting team. It was appropriate for another reason: My grandmother, who was from Queens, was a Dodger fan who became a Met fan, and June 4 was her birthday. Alas, while she lived to see several commemorations and honors of her old team, this was not one of them.

Nor was his induction ceremony at Cooperstown, New York, on July 24. His daughter, Irene, 1 of 4 children that Gil and Joan had, delivered the acceptance speech. Joan, 96 years old, was too ill to make the trip, had to watch on television, and died a few weeks later. But she had lived long enough to see Gil elected and inducted.

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April 2, 1972 was a Sunday. Baseball, as I said, was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. There were 4 games in the NBA Playoffs:

* The New York Knicks lost to the Baltimore Bullets, 104-103 at the Baltimore Civic Center (now the CFG Bank Arena). Archie Clark scored 35 for the Bullets.

* The Atlanta Hawks beat the Boston Celtics, 112-110 at the Alexander Memorial Coliseum (now the McCamish Pavilion) in Atlanta. Pete Maravich scored 36 for the Hawks.

* The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Chicago Bulls, 108-97 at the Chicago Stadium.

* And the Milwaukee Bucks beat the Golden State Warriors, 106-99 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena.

There were 3 Playoff games in the American Basketball Association:

* The New York Nets beat the Kentucky Colonels, 105-90 at Freedom Hall in Louisville, Kentucky. Rick Barry scored 35 for the Nets.

* The Virginia Squires beat the Miami Floridians, 118-11 at Miami-Dade Junior College North (now named Miami Dade College) in Miami. A rookie named Julius Erving, already known as "Doctor J," scored 53 points.

* And the Indiana Pacers beat the Denver Rockets, 122-120 in overtime at the Denver Auditorium Arena.

And the Stanley Cup Playoffs were underway, with these 4 games:

* The New York Rangers beat the Montreal Canadiens, 5-2 at Madison Square Garden.

* The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Boston Bruins, 4-3 at the Boston Garden. Jim Harrison scored the winning goal, 2:58 into overtime.

* The Chicago Black Hawks beat the Pittsburgh Penguins, 3-2 at the Chicago Stadium.

* And the Minnesota North Stars beat the St. Louis blues, 6-5 at the Metropolitan Sports Center in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota. Bill Goldsworthy scored the winning goal, 1:36 into overtime.