Tom Brennan - GAME 5 OF 1969 WS AND GAME 7 OF 1986 WS: PARALLELS

This article is mostly about Dave McNally, who I watched the other night on SNY hit a two run homer of Jerry Koosman in a replay of game five of the 1969 World Series to give the Orioles an early 2-0 lead. 

Dave wasn’t much of a hitter, but he did have decent power for a picture with nine regular season home runs in two postseason home runs, one of which I believe was a grand slam. 

Interestingly, in game five of 1969 World Series, the Orioles behind their superior lefty McNally led the Mets 3-0 going into the bottom of the sixth inning. 

In game seven of the 1986 World Series, Bruce Hurst was the excellent lefty hurler who led the Mets 3-0 going into the bottom of the sixth inning. Both were truly excellent left hand pitchers.

Neither however could muster up the ability to send off the Mets in those two miracle years. In both cases, the Mets began to rally late in the game against those pitchers, and eventually, and perhaps inevitably, came from behind to win. 

There was just something in the air those two years. I think it was Miracles.  You believe what you want.

A scuffed Cleon Jones shoe, a 2 run Donn Clendenon bomb, and a game tying homer by totally powerless Al Weis, followed by a go ahead double by Ron Swoboda, driving in the great Agee, who had doubled also, and the Mets had their miracles.  They were soon headed to a ticker tape parade.  

But it got me to thinking about how good of a left-handed pitcher Dave McNally was. 

In a four year stretch, Dave was 87 and 31. Let that sink in a bit.

He pitched just one game as a 19-year-old in the major leagues, and it was a 2 hit shutout. 

By the time he was 31, he was a superb 181-113, with an ERA of around three. The next season he said he seemed to have lost his fastball, went 3-6 with an ERA in the mid 5s and just retired. Just like that. 

He wasn’t making a whole lot of money in the game in those pre-free agency days (he actually got a raise to a paltry $105,000 after going 21-5 in 1971!), nor was there a lot of surgical ability, and who knows if it was a surgery related situation that would have been a breeze in this day and age, and with him making mega millions, he would have stayed and pitched on, but he just hung the spikes up right then and there. 

($105,000, by the way, is about what Max Scherzer now earns - per inning).

McNally in 1975 was one of the players who helped topple the wall against free agency, but it was too late to do him much financial good, since 1975 was his final season.

Dave McNally never made the Hall of Fame. 

I think he should have.

He was an incredible lefty pitcher, 120 career complete games and 32 shutouts, and I just wonder if he put together a career like that now would be elected to the Hall of Fame.  

Of course, it did not help him when, in 1972 and 1973, pitching for still strong Orioles teams, he somehow went all Jake deGrom in terms of luck, going just 30-34, despite an ERA around 3.00 and 29 complete games and 10 shutouts.  

He also struck out 200 just once, and in his 17-17 season in 1973, he somehow pulled it off despite fanning just 87 in 266 innings.

Anyway, not to go on too long here, but that was how I was reminiscing about those miraculous, incredibly parallel two World Series games and remembering how good a Mets opponent Dave McNally truly was.

He just wasn't good enough to defeat a miracle.