Baseball Reporter- A look back at the 1969 'Miracle Mets'...truly an amazing story.

This was a glorious time in Major League Baseball history.



The New York Mets were 61-53 in early August of 1969....just another slightly above average team.

Here's where it really does become 'Amazin' as Casey Stengel the original manager of the franchise in 1962 at age 72 called his new team.

The Mets won 39 of their last 48 games that season. (39-8) that rivals the great run of Detroit in 1984 (35-5)

This was not just some fluke team that happened to win a WS, the Mets finished with 100 wins....they were still very heavy underdogs to the Orioles who were in the midst of a dynasty of their own winning 320 games over the 3 seasons, starting in 1969.

The Mets finished that season out by winning 46 of their last 53 games!!!!

That is just insane for a baseball team. 46-9 counting playoffs :think2:

I'm not sure I have ever heard of a modern era baseball team winning 46 games out of 55 first of all....Tigers went 35-5 in 1984 , the Orioles of the early 70's had some great streaks ...

Maybe the 1999 Yankees had a streak close to that, not sure though....46-9 to close out a season!

Nolan Ryan was on that team with the collection of many misfits and characters.....what a summer....remember the movie Awakenings with Robin Williams??, that also happened in New York during 1969....Journeyman, sorry they beat the Orioles, but they would have beaten anyteam that year....

The 1969 World Series had all the making of a clash of teams that were opposites. Mets mgr Gil Hodges had his platoon system., something that Earl Weaver the Orioles manager also became famous for over the years.

Tom Seaver was the Mets ace ,he won 25 games, Jerry Koosman gave the Mets a great one ,two righty- lefty punch, the rest of the starters were all just average though...the Mets had a young flame thrower named Nolan Ryan out of the bullpen , they had a great pen, Tug McGraw .

When you look at this team, you ask yourself 'how did this team win all those games the final three months'?

VIEJO DINOSAUR said:

Nolan Ryan was on that team with the collection of many misfits and characters.....what a summer....remember the movie Awakenings with Robin Williams??, that also happened in New York during 1969....Journeyman, sorry they beat the Orioles, but they would have beaten anyteam that year....

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:lolBIG: I have been studying this very closely today. Just can;t see how this team won all those games....statistically they were below average offensively.

Journeyman said:

I'm not sure I have ever heard of a modern era baseball team winning 46 games out of 53 first of all....Tigers went 35-5 in 1984 , the Orioles of the early 70's had some great streaks ...

Maybe the 1999 Yankees had a streak close to that, not sure though....46-7 to close out a season!

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what about the Twins last year..i know they went on some unreal run in the middle of the season.

The thing you posted said 39-8, then it also said 46 out of 53....which one is it?

The 1969 Mets 46-7 to end their season.

Had -
two players with more than 101 hits for the season
their top two RBI men 75-76 RBI.
just two players on their entire team scored more than 50 runs.
one player had more than 14 homeruns

The team added Don Clendenon from the Pirates and then the team went nuts....Jerry Grote, Ed Kranepool, Cleon Jones, Ron Swoboda had career years....they won all the close ones, one particular game the Mets beat the Cardinals 4-3 with just two hits....2 two run homers from Swoboda.....simply amazing...

steeser said:

The thing you posted said 39-8, then it also said 46 out of 55....which one is it?

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39-8 was the regular season, the went 7-1 in the post season. 46-9 overall.

It should read 46-9...counting 7-1 post season.

VIEJO DINOSAUR said:

The team added Don Clendenon from the Pirates and then the team went nuts....Jerry Grote, Ed Kranepool, Cleon Jones, Ron Swoboda had career years....they won all the close ones, one particular game the Mets beat the Cardinals 4-3 with just two hits....2 two run homers from Swoboda.....simply amazing...

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I have not even begun to breakdown the series of events that saw them miraculously win the 1969 World Series....the catches they made to save each game literally were just off the charts.

A higher power was involved in this. :thumbsup:

VIEJO DINOSAUR said:

The team added Don Clendenon from the Pirates and then the team went nuts....Jerry Grote, Ed Kranepool, Cleon Jones, Ron Swoboda had career years....they won all the close ones, one particular game the Mets beat the Cardinals 4-3 with just two hits....2 two run homers from Swoboda.....simply amazing...

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imagine beinga diehard Baltimore sports fan around this time.

The Jets stun the heavily favored Colts and this Mets team beats the Orioles all within a short time....they had to be sick over this.

:youmad:
Mets and Jets stun Baltimore hno:

As a little kid(and Pirate fan of course) saw the Mets play the Bucs a DH in Pgh at Forbes Field during that closing run. Mets swept 1-0,1-0 with both runs being driven in by Mets' pitchers(Koosman was one and forget the other). I wonder if that has ever happened before or since. That was some pitching as Bucs had some real sticks including Clemente and Stargell in prime among others at time.

bulldog77 said:

As a little kid(and Pirate fan of course) saw the Mets play the Bucs a DH in Pgh at Forbes Field during that closing run. Mets swept 1-0,1-0 with both runs being driven in by Mets' pitchers(Koosman was one and forget the other). I wonder if that has ever happened before or since. That was some pitching as Bucs had some real sticks including Clemente and Stargell in prime among others at time.

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Here are those box scores...

Baseball-reference has really risen up a notch! Box scores for EVERY game played in the last 40+ years...

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/PIT/PIT196909121.shtml

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/PIT/PIT196909122.shtml

Brock:
Thanks for the great site! Was 9/12/69. Koosman and Cardwell over Ellis and Moose. Other than I didn't realize it was as late in season as it was my memory was pretty accurate as to details as it turned out.
Superb source!

bulldog77 said:

As a little kid(and Pirate fan of course) saw the Mets play the Bucs a DH in Pgh at Forbes Field during that closing run. Mets swept 1-0,1-0 with both runs being driven in by Mets' pitchers(Koosman was one and forget the other). I wonder if that has ever happened before or since. That was some pitching as Bucs had some real sticks including Clemente and Stargell in prime among others at time.

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Correct, they were called the "Lumber Yard" and their 7th place hitter, catcher Manny Sanguinine(sic?) was hitting about .300. If you knew how bad a hitter Jerry Koosman was, it was even more amazing. Another surreal game was against Steve Carlton, who struck out 18 met, and they(the Mets) made 4 errors, so their hitting and defense collapsed simultaneously. However, Ron Swoboda, of all people, hit two 2 run dingers and the Mets won 4-3. They were dogs against Henry Aaron's Braves for some reason-the Braves won 92 games, if memory serves-and the Met starters got shelled in each and every game-but the Mets hitters shelled the Braves pitchers even more, and swept them. I remember their
third baseman, Wayne Garret, had only one major league homer, but he hit a monstrous shot in the playoffs. And finally, I remember, word for word, the dead-on-the-money prediction of writer Phil Pepe of the New York Daily News:

"The Mets vs. the Orioles is a mismatch: the Orioles are the best team in baseball, maybe the best since the '62 Yankees. They have it all: pitching,
hitting, power, and defense, and there's NO WAY the Mets will win, but they will. Say, five games? Why not?"

Tom Agee made two tremendous catches to save one game, and Swoboda made, IMO, the greatest catch in World Series history (if you factor in importance at the time of the catch, difficulty of the catch, and-and here's where I give it the edge over Mays' '54 catch of Vic Wertz-surprise of he attempt being successful-Swoboda was below average defensively at best) to save another. In the last game, Frank Robinson got hit by a pitch-so the replays shown-but the ump disallowed it. Weaver bitched, to no avail, and Robinson knew he was getting fuked and started to walk away from the plate almost before the called strike three arrived on the next pitch.
In contrast, the Mets were losing 3-0 in that final game when Cleon Jones
danced away from a pitch that went near his foot and richoceted into the Mets' dugout. At first the ump said the pitch didn't hit Jones, but Met manager Gil Hodges calmly strolled out out his dugout brandishing a ball with shoe polish on it. Weaver argued that Hodges could've scooped up the ball and scuffed his OWN shoe with it, but that didn't cut any ice with the ump, who awarded Jones first base. Next up, World Series MVP Don Clendenon hit a moon shot, making it 3-2, and shortly thereafter, the scrawny Met utility infielder Al Weiss, who had never homered in Shea Stadium in 2.5 years, went deep as well. They always show that homer from ground level, and you can see Oriole left fielder Don Buford actually break IN on contact, so incredulous was he that Weiss could go deep. I had never seen an outfielder break IN on a ball that utimately went OUT before, and I haven't seen it since. That ostensibly tied the game, but the Orioles, Mets, and everybody else knew that the last two innings were a formality, and so they were. Why not, indeed?:lol: :aktion033 :banger:

Brock Landers said:

Here are those box scores...

Baseball-reference has really risen up a notch! Box scores for EVERY game played in the last 40+ years...

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/PIT/PIT196909121.shtml

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/PIT/PIT196909122.shtml

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Great stuff, the play-by-play too.

On paper the Pirates looked like a better team, of course it wasn't long after they were in the thick of it themselves..