NewsRose: Miracle Mets showed the way
Broadcaster learned to defy the odds from team of destiny
By Howie Rose / MLB.com
10/16/09 11:25 AM ET
The Boston Red Sox wrote the preamble in 1967. Their "Impossible Dream" American League pennant was inspirational far beyond New England. It was their first pennant in 21 years, and followed a litany of losing seasons culminating in a ninth-place finish the year before. They were unable to finish the job, losing the seventh game of the World Series to the St.Louis Cardinals.I was 13 years old that year, and rooted hard for the Red Sox, all the while dreaming of what it would be like for my team, the Mets, to captivate baseball the way that Boston did. Two years later, I had my answer, and Friday, October 16, we celebrate the 40th anniversary of the completion of the Greatest New York Sports Story Ever Told.
We've spent much of this year revisiting the events of 1969, and how the Mets' achievement, given their first seven seasons, made what the Red Sox did in '67 seem simple by comparison. What I feel the need to do today however, on this special date, is put the '69 Mets in a personal perspective, and demonstrate the direct effect that they had on my life, and perhaps yours, too; whether you realize it or not.
Geometry was never going to be a strength of mine in high school under any circumstances. I had a better chance of pitching in the 1969 World Series than I did figuring out the hypotenuse of a triangle or proving required theorem No. 12, but the Mets' success provided enough of a distraction that I was forced to play catch-up all year, beginning on October 17.
Once the World Series was over, and I realized how much geometry had slipped away during my preoccupation with baseball, I found myself much further behind than the Mets had been in mid-August. I was geometrically gone, literally failing every test that I took in Michael Banner's class at Benjamin N. Cardozo High School in Bayside, Queens.
Month after month, we tested and I flunked, and suddenly it was June, 1970, and I was in huge trouble. After failing the class final, Mr. Banner told me that although I was a nice kid, always showed up, caused no trouble and posted no bills, I would have to pass the Regents exam in order to pass the course. If not, I would have to take geometry again, if not the following fall then worse yet, in summer school. Vegas immediately installed me as a 200-1 underdog, but this is where the Mets come in.
After my parents hired a tutor to help try to pull off the impossible, I took practice Regents after practice Regents, and the early results were not good. However, at the depths of my discouragement, I channeled the Mets. I know this sounds corny, and perhaps a bit contrived, but you have to trust me on this. However frustrated I became, I reminded myself over and over how the Mets pulled it off, and that if I believed that I could pass the Regents, and I kept working hard, then somehow I would.
Every night as Regents day approached, I would go to sleep replaying those great moments from the previous fall in my mind and they inspired me to work harder than I had ever worked on anything in school before or after the great geometry crossroads. Gradually, things began to make sense, and when I showed up to take that test I wasn't in my seat alone. Gil Hodges, his coaching staff, and those 25 special players were with me, and believe it or not, with no crib notes, cheating or any such shenanigans, I pulled off a test score of 87! A passing grade was 65. I actually turned that geometry textbook into the '69 Baltimore Orioles. I'm not sure that my entire year's worth of test scores before the Regents even added up to 87, but 40 years later I remain firmly convinced that there is no way I would have passed that test without the inspiration and motivation provided by the 1969 Mets.
I'm sure mine is not the only such story, and that's the legacy of the '69 Mets. They're not a team so much as they're an entity; a force, an example of self confidence and hard work producing desired results. Of course, great pitching doesn't hurt, either.
As a parent, I have tried to hand that message down to my children, to teach them that nothing is beyond their reach if they're willing to work hard for it and to believe in themselves, and hopefully, someday, they can impart that thinking in their children. That's the 1969 Mets -- the gift that keeps on giving.
I think today of how perfect that season was, how poetically brilliant was the choreography of Cleon Jones, going down to one knee to punctuate the final out of the World Series. I think, too, of my English teacher at Cardozo, Paul Freda. We listened to the end of that game in his class with one stipulation -- that as soon as it ended, we were to turn off the radios and get back to reading the epic poem "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
It might be considered a literary classic, but to a 15 year old delirious over the Mets having just won the World Series, it was a terrible segue. However, a deal was a deal, and even with the class half crazy, Mr. Freda began to read aloud. Within seconds, he delivered these words: "The game is done, I've won, I've won."
Upon hearing that, the class roared, and Mr. Freda threw the book over his shoulder and ordered the radios back on to listen to the postgame show.
It is in that spirit that at 3:14 on Friday, the time on Shea Stadium's scoreboard clock when Davey Johnson's fly ball settled into Jones' glove 40 years ago, a satisfying warmth will overtake me. I will think at that moment how my life, never mind my career, was shaped on that magnificent day, and I will thank each and every member of that team for teaching us all, into perpetuity, that if you reach for the stars, you just might grab a handful.
P.S. At the exact moment I hit the period at the end of that last sentence, I heard the song "Aquarius," a theme of sorts for the 1969 Mets, blare from the downstairs television during what must have been a commercial for the Broadway revival of "Hair." Coincidence? I doubt it. I really, really doubt it. Happy Anniversary.
Howie Rose is the radio voice of the New York Mets on WFAN. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.
