THE 1969 MIRACLE METS: THE IMPROBABLE STORY OF THE WORLD’S GREATEST UNDERDOG TEAM

THE 1969 MIRACLE METS: THE IMPROBABLE STORY OF THE WORLD’S GREATEST UNDERDOG TEAM by Steven Travers

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Authors: Steven Travers
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Toronto and curiously Houston
at an advanced age, but his overall records are beyond reproach.
His 20-3 win-loss mark in 2001, however, requires some getting used
to, as it is not a typographical error. Get The Baseball
Encyclopedia or some other good reference source and start
looking up pitching records with the express purpose of
determining, Who is the greatest pitcher who ever lived? Clemens most definitely holds up.
    ****
    One other pitcher remains on the short list,
the pantheon. He too is a member in good standing amongst the
fraternity of true New York Sports Icons. He is the man whose
“birth” into this elite fraternity occurred at precisely 9:55 P.M.
Eastern Standard Time on the evening of Wednesday, July 9, the Year
of Our Lord 1969, at Shea Stadium in Flushing Meadows, Queens, New
York City.
    It was at this moment that one George Thomas
Seaver of the Fresno, California Seavers, USC, Bayside, Queens and
the New York Metropolitans National League Baseball Club,
approached home plate in the eighth inning of the Mets’ game with
the Chicago Cubs.
    His is the story before that moment and then
after that moment. His team’s tale also is divided by this “tipping
point” in Mets history. It was precisely at this time that a crowd
of more than 59,000 fans, standing room only on what now was
nothing less than a midsummer night’s dream, came to their feet as
one, rocking the stadium for more than a minute while young Seaver
soaked it all in. It was the kind of roar that Marilyn Monroe only thought she had heard in Korea; the kind Joe DiMaggio did in
fact hear directed his way in another stadium, some 20 years
earlier and10 miles to the north-east of where Seaver now stood. It
was the kind of roar reserved only for the true New York Sports
Icon, and once it has been heard it can never be forgotten!
     

The reincarnation of Christy Mathewson
     
    “Seriously. There isn’t a person in the world who
hasn’t heard of Tom Seaver. He’s so good blind people come out to
hear him pitch.”
     
    - Reggie Jackson
     
    He was the “24-year old reincarnation of
Christy Mathewson, Hobey Baker and Jack Armstrong,” according to
sportswriter Ray Robinson. He was “so good blind people come out to
hear him pitch,” said Reggie Jackson.
    He was born George Thomas Seaver on November
17, 1944 in Fresno, California. He went by the name Tom, except for
his wife Nancy, who called him George. He remains the only Met
player to be selected a true New York Sports Icon. He is the
greatest player in Mets history and the key figure in the most
amazing event in the annals of sports. In his prime he was the best
pitcher in baseball, and arguably the best either of all time or in
the post-World War II era, depending upon how one analyzes the
records and eras. He enjoyed several of the most spectacular single
seasons in history and sustained a career built on consistent
success over a long period. He transcends sports and New York City.
In a rough ‘n’ tumble town, a town of Irish Catholics, of rough
hewn neighborhood Italians, of Brooklyn Jews and Harlem blacks,
Seaver was a Park Avenue, or to be precise, a Connecticut WASP.
    “Even at USC, I was a
six-pack-and-a-pick-up-truck guy, but Tom was a
champagne-and-cigar-in-the-back-of-a-limousine guy,” recalled
ex-Trojan and Boston Red Sox favorite Bill “Spaceman” Lee.
    New York City likes it athletes to be
regular guys. With Seaver it was as if they found somebody from the
fanciest prep school, a best-selling author, a U.S. Senator or
college professor; put a uniform on him, and discovered to their
amazement that he could bring high, hard heat with the best of ‘em.
Over time, Seaver’s singular impressiveness as a pitcher and a
person wore thin with teammates and the press. He never suffered
fools well, but over time it was demonstrated to be who he was. It
was not an act. He was one of the rarest of the breed.
    Other athletes have been smart. Moe Berg was
an OSS spy. Bill

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