Remember 1969: Remember's Ramblings

 

Remember's Reminiscing – Volume 1, Article 1

 

October 15, 2024

October 15.  There are a lot of non-descript, non-memorable days on the calendar, but October 15 is not one of them.   Being a Mets fan, there are two October 15ths that stand out in my mind very vividly - October 15, 1969 and October 15, 1986. 

October 15, 1969 was the date of “The Perfect Game”, TomSeaver’s first and only World Series win.   Despite his long and great career, Seaver only pitched in four World Series games, finishing with a 1-2 record with one no-decision.

Game 4 of the 1969 World Series turned out to be the subject of the book “The Perfect Game” that Seaver wrote with Dick Schaap, published in 1970 while still fresh in his mind.   

Tom Seaver pitched a complete game 2-1 10-inning victory that day giving up 6 hits, striking out 6 and walking 2.   Donn Clendenon hit a solo home run for the first run with the winning run scoring from 2^nd base on a J.C.Martin pinch sacrifice bunt and a throwing error by the pitcher while fielding the bunt.   

The October 15, 1969 game was the game of Ron Swoboda’s tremendous catch on a Brooks Robinson line drive to save at least a run (although it was Boog Powell, not the fleetest man on earth, on first base).    A piece of trivia about the catch is that it was the second out of the inning and was actually a sacrifice fly which allowed the tying run to score in the top of the 9^th inning,     More trivia:   Swoboda did not have any chances in right field the entire game prior to the 9^th inning and he recorded all three outs in that inning (and another in the 10^th). 

Baseball has changed some since in the 55 years since the 1969 World Series.    That game was a day game.   The game was played in 2 hours in 33 minutes (with an extra inning!)     Seaver pitched a complete game throwing 146 pitches in 10 innings.   Can you imagine the starting pitcher even pitching to a hitter (Brooks Robinson) in the ninth inning with the tying run on third base in today’s game?    Or even staying in the game after that tying run scored and pitching another inning after that?    In addition, he was spiked in the back of the ankle on a put-out at first base in the 4^th inning in which he was cut and wore a gauze bandage under his sock and shoe for the last six innings.    

Al Weis and Ron Swoboda were a combined 5 for 7 with a walk in the game, which put the Mets up 3 games to 1 in the series to set up JerryKoosman’s 5 hitter (and Al Weis’s first ever Shea Stadium home run) the next day to wrap up the series 4-1.  

As my writing name is Remember 1969, I do remember 1969, but certainly do not pretend to remember all the gory details of the games without refreshing my memory by occasionally reading Seaver’s book.  It was one of the first books of my own that I ever received, and I have used it as a reference many times.  It had the game scoresheets in the front and back covers – I learned how to score a baseball game from that book about October 15, 1969. 

I will not dive deeply into October 15, 1986, although it was also a famous game in Mets lore – game 6 of the NLCS against the Astros which sent the Mets to the World Series against the Red Sox, who won later that night to complete a comeback after being down 3 games to 1 to the California Angels.    Had they not won that day, they would have had to face Mike Scott in game 7 the next day. 

I only truly remember a couple things about the Mets game that day.   First it started about a half hour before my daughter was born and ended 16 innings later,  with Jesse Orosco hanging on for the win.    In researching the game and looking at the box score, it was quite a game – tying it with 3 runs in the top of the ninth, going ahead 4-3 in the top of the 14^th, only to give up the tying run in the bottom of the inning, then scoring 3 runs in the 16^th to go up 7-4, only to give up 2 in the bottom of the inning to finish it off.     I watched the start of the game on the TV in the hospital, listened to the ninth thru the eleventh on the car radio on the way home, and watched the end of it on the couch at home.   Happy Birthday Ellen!

Mets Birthdays to Celebrate

As far as Mets birthdays, there are only two Mets that have birthdays today:    Lou Klimchock (who?) turns 85 today, making him the 28th oldest living Met, and Huascar Brazoban celebrates his 35^th  birthday.

Klimchock, a light hitting utility infielder, had a cup of coffee with the Mets in early 1966, going 0 for 5 with 3 strikeouts.    With a 60% strikeout rate, they sent him to AAA Jacksonville where he played in 120 games with almost 500 plate appearances.   Lou Klimchock was one of a very few players that was traded to and from a team with the same other player - in this case he came to the Mets in September 1965 with Ernie Bowman and was traded to Cleveland in October 1966, with Bowman heading out of town with him.  (Bowman was a AAA player at the time and never played a major league game with the Mets).  

And finally, although he never played with the Mets, but did pitch against them in the 1969 World Series, Jim Palmer celebrates his 79^th birthday today.