NewsMets '69 sweep of Braves a forgotten feat
Memory of first NL playoffs obscured by Fall Classic
By Marty Noble / MLB.com
08/22/09 12:00 AM ET
NEW YORK -- Tommie Agee's catches, Al Weis' home run, Cleon Jones and the shoe polish, J.C. Martin's unpunished run outside the box, Donn Clendenon's home runs and, of course, Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman and Gary Gentry. Oh, how familiar we all have become with how the Mets came to be World Series champions 40 years ago. We'd seen all the components of their conquest 100 times each, even before the launch of SNY brought us more frequent access.Now we've committed so much of it to instant recall. Some of us can recite the play-by-play grandeur of it. More recall the day-by-day implausibility of it. And anyone ever stuck with "underdog" status can revel in any part of it.
The Mets' improbable ascent to first place in the regular season has been chronicled, recalled and enjoyed nearly so much as the five-game disposal of the heavily favored Orioles in the Series. The Imperfect Game, Gil Hodges escorting Jones off the field, the black cat, Ron Swoboda's two home runs off Steve Carlton, the 1-0/1-0 doubleheader sweep and all those shutouts -- 17 in the final 62 games.
September 1969 was so delicious, even to those who couldn't distinguish Elrod Hendricks from Jimi Hendrix come October. The Mets' bandwagon was more crowded than the early-evening 7 train that simultaneously brought fans to Shea and commuters to their homes. The Mets bled into other sections of newspapers and earlier portions of newscasts. Water coolers existed for one purpose -- to quench the thirst of those who needed to discuss the Miracle in the making. The Mets were omnipresent and omni-popular.
They had made the summer sweet. We had endured Chappaquiddick and Charlie Manson and marveled at the moonwalk and Woodstock, though neither was universally embraced. Some folks thought NASA had gone too far in keeping JFK's promise and carrying out RK's (Ralph Kramden's) threat. Others found the festival in Bethel, N.Y., too far out. Elvis declined an invitation; so did Roy Rogers.
It was left to the Miracle-making Mets to forge the happy trail that almost anyone outside Atlanta and Baltimore could enjoy following toward the end of the decade.
Lost in the ripples of what was done by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Armstrong was much of what happened with the Mets between Sept. 24, the day they became the first National League East champions, and the home run Don Buford hit on Seaver's second pitch in Game 1 of the World Series. You might recall that Gentry's four-hit shutout of the Cardinals on Sept. 24 was the first of four straight shutouts. And, of course, you know that the Mets beat the Braves in the first NL Championship Series, identified then as merely "the playoffs."
But think. How much do you know about that sweep in the best-of-five series? Did you know it was a sweep? Can you identity the turning points, the winning pitchers, the critical hits, the heroes and villains? Chances are you can't unless you've had a long-term friendship with Howie Rose, or Ralph Kiner is your next-door neighbor. The playoffs have fallen through the cracks in our memories. Much of what happened in those three games never stuck with us.
Everyone knows that Neil Armstrong took the first lunar step, but how did Apollo 11 get to the moon? Who drove? We know the Mets engaged the Orioles in the World Series, but what happened on their final mission before they faced Robinsons -- Brooks and Frank -- and the rest of the Mighty O's?
"Very seldom does anyone ask me about playing Atlanta in the playoffs," Koosman says. "And really, I don't remember that much about them myself."
The 1969 NL playoffs are akin to the 18 1/2-minute gap in Rose Mary Woods' Watergate tape. Instead of the whole history, we have a hole in the history. The Mets clinched the division and beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep won the World Series. Time and a videotape void have erased our memories.
Did you know, for example, that the Mets' vaunted starting pitching barely was up to the task against the Braves? The Mets had beaten the Braves eight times in 12 regular-season games, three times with shutouts. But in the playoffs, the Mets starters -- Seaver, Koosman and Gentry -- pitched merely 13 2/3 innings and allowed 13 runs -- an ERA of 8.56. Seaver was the only one of the three to emerge as a winning pitcher. He won the first game despite allowing five runs in seven innings. The Mets won, 9-5.
"The series was supposed to be pitchers' duels," Koosman said. "Us against Phil Niekro, Ron Reed and Pat Jarvis. But it turned out to be hitters' duels. Who would have thought our pitching couldn't hold it?"
But Koosman, who would became a postseason force in the '69 World Series and again in 1973, allowed six runs in 4 2/3 innings in Game 2 after the Mets had afforded him an eight-run lead. Winning pitcher Ron Taylor and Tug McGraw (three innings) allowed no runs. The Mets won, 11-6.
"All I remember is that Henry Aaron had a great series [two doubles, three home runs and seven RBIs], and we won anyway," Koosman said. "He hit one off me, and he was playing with stitches in his hand and a glove on the whole series."
Gentry, whose pitching would stun the Orioles in the World Series -- he and Nolan Ryan combined for a four-hit shutout in Game 3 -- was gone after allowing two runs in the first inning and facing two batters in the third of Game 3 of the playoffs. Ryan replaced him, allowed two runs and achieved seven of the remaining 21 outs via strikeout. The Mets won, 7-4.
There. Three games and three victories that were as improbable in method as they were in essence.
Hardly known for their offense, the Mets scored 27 runs in three games. They had done the same in July 1964, but they lost two of the games. They scored eight, 11, nine and eight runs in a four-game sequence that was part of a seven-game winning streak in early July 1969, but in no other three-game instance in eight seasons did they score 27 runs.
But they did it in their first trip to the postseason.
"We did a lot of things that year that you would have bet against," Buddy Harrelson once said. "People say we came of age or came out of nowhere. I think we came out of a genie's bottle that Gil rubbed."
The playoffs did have their moments, ones that probably would have developed permanence in our minds had we experienced them more than once.
"We're so well versed in the World Series," says Rose, who will serve as the master of ceremonies on Saturday when the '69 team reunites at Citi Field at 6:50 p.m. ET before the Mets play the Phillies.
Rose was 15 when Shea Stadium became the home of the World Series champions.
"We've had easy access to the product," he says, "but I've never seen any footage from the two games in Atlanta playoffs and not that much for the game at Shea."
His recall, and that of some contemporaries, is where we find images and moments that rival what we readily remember from the World Series.
• The bases-loaded pinch-hit single Martin hit against Niekro that, with an assist from the Braves' defense, led to the final three runs in a five-run rally in the eighth inning of Game 1
• Harrelson's two-run triple in the fourth inning to produce a 4-3 Mets lead
• The late Agee nearly being beheaded by the swing of his buddy Jones as he approached the plate on an attempted steal of home in the seventh inning. Jones made solid contact with the pitch, hitting a long foul ball, and nearly with his friend. The two paused for moments to gather themselves following the near mishap, and after two more pitches, Jones hit a two-run homer that extended the Mets' lead to five runs.
• Perhaps the seminal moment of both the series and Ryan's tenure with the Mets. He was summoned to face Rico Carty with none out, two runners on base, the Mets trailing by two runs and a 1-2 count. The first postseason assignment of Ryan's career was to face the Braves' cleanup hitter with Orlando Cepeda on deck. Carty had just hit a loud foul off Gentry before Hodges made the pitching change. Carty's manager, Lum Harris, would later say, "That Carty could turn around God's fastball." But Carty couldn't sniff Ryan's. One pitch, one out.
An intentional walk, a strikeout of Clete Boyer and a flyout followed. And when Ryan pitched a clean ninth inning, the Mets had won the first postseason game at Shea, before 54,195 patrons, and moved on to something bigger and better ... and more familiar.
"We knew the playoffs were important," Swoboda said a few years ago. "But the World Series is what you thought about then. The playoffs were new that year. The playoffs had to be won. You could become the National League champions if you won. We knew that. But it was kind of strange. They didn't have the prestige they have now."
And the Mets' adventures in the 1969 playoffs still don't have the Q-rating of subsequent League Championship Series. They remain mysteries to some degree, prompting little of the fascination the Mets' World Series always summons from our minds.
"We handled a pretty good team in three games," Seaver says. "But really, the World Series is what people talk about and overtaking the Cubs [in the regular season]. It's like the Braves series has been expunged from our record or that we were given a bye into the Series. I'm telling you, it wasn't that easy."
Marty Noble is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.
