1969 World Series
The 1969 World Series was the championship series of Major League Baseball's 1969 season. The 66th edition of the World Series, it was a best-of-seven playoff between the American League champion Baltimore Orioles and the National League champion New York Mets. The Mets won the series, four games to one, to accomplish one of the greatest upsets in Series history, as that particular Orioles team was considered to be one of the finest ever. The World Series win earned the team the sobriquet "The Miracle Mets". This was the first World Series of MLB's divisional era.
The Mets became the first expansion team to win a division title, a pennant, and the World Series, winning in their eighth year of existence, and for decades remained the fastest expansion team to win a World Series up to that point. Two teams eventually surpassed the latter record, as the Florida Marlins won the 1997 World Series in their fifth year and the Arizona Diamondbacks won the 2001 World Series in their fourth year of play. The 1969 World Series was the first World Series since to have games played in New York that did not involve the New York Yankees. It was also the first World Series in which neither the New York Giants nor Brooklyn Dodgers represented New York from the NL; all subsequent World Series with a New York-area NL team participating have involved the Mets, who have been the only NL baseball team located in New York City since that era.
Route to the World Series
This was the fourth meeting between teams from Baltimore and New York City for a major professional sports championship, which previously occurred in the 1958 and 1959 NFL Championship Games, and Super Bowl III earlier in the year.New York Mets
The New York Mets, who had never finished higher than ninth place nor won more than 73 games in a season since joining the National League in 1962, were not highly regarded before the 1969 season started. In fact, the best that could be said for them was that because the National League was being split into two divisions that year, the Mets were guaranteed to finish no lower than sixth place. The fact that the Mets began the season by losing 11–10 to the then-expansion Montreal Expos seemed to confirm this.With three weeks to go in the season, the underdog Mets stormed past the Chicago Cubs, who had led the Eastern Division for most of the season, winning 38 of their final 49 games for a total of 100 wins and becoming the first National League Eastern Division champions. Third-year pitcher Tom Seaver won a major-league-leading 25 games en route to his first Cy Young Award; the other two top Mets starting pitchers, Jerry Koosman and rookie Gary Gentry, combined to win 30 more games. Outfielder Cleon Jones hit a club-record.340 and finished third in the National League batting race, while his lifelong friend and outfield mate Tommie Agee hit 26 home runs and drove in 76 runs to lead the club; they were the only players on the team who garnered more than 400 at bats. Manager Gil Hodges also employed a platoon system like the Yankees of the Casey Stengel era, in which Ron Swoboda and Art Shamsky became a switch-hitting right fielder who hit 23 home runs and drove in 100 runs, and Ed Kranepool and Donn Clendenon added up to a switch-hitting first baseman who hit 23 more homers and knocked in another 95 runs.
In the first League Championship Series, the normally light-hitting Mets, once again considered underdogs despite having a better regular-season record than their opponent, put on a power display by scoring 27 runs in sweeping the favored Atlanta Braves in three games.
Baltimore Orioles
The Baltimore Orioles, by contrast, were practically flawless and featured stars at almost every position. They breezed through the 1969 season, winning 109 games and became the first American League Eastern Division champions by 19 games, then brushing aside the Minnesota Twins three games to none in the ALCS to win their second pennant in four years. The Orioles were led by star sluggers Frank Robinson and Boog Powell, who each hit over 30 home runs and drove in over 100 runs; third baseman Brooks Robinson, perhaps the best-fielding hot-corner player in baseball history; and pitchers Mike Cuellar, Dave McNally, and Jim Palmer, who combined for 63 victories.Summary
Matchups
Game 1
With this win, the Orioles looked to be proving all the prognosticators right, as it was a dominant performance. Don Buford hit Tom Seaver's second pitch of the game for a home run, which just evaded Ron Swoboda's leaping attempt at catching it. The O's then added three more runs in the fourth when, with two outs, Elrod Hendricks singled and Davey Johnson walked. Mark Belanger then singled in a run, followed by an RBI single by pitcher Mike Cuellar. Buford capped the inning off by doubling in Belanger.The Mets got their run in the seventh on a sacrifice fly by Al Weis. Orioles starter Mike Cuellar was the winner, allowing just that run in a complete-game effort.
Despite the opening-game loss, nobody on the Mets was discouraged. Tom Seaver – the game's losing pitcher – said years later "I swear, we came into the clubhouse more confident than when we had left it. Somebody – I think it was Clendenon – yelled out, 'Dammit, we can beat these guys!' And we believed it. A team knows if they've been badly beaten or outplayed. And we felt we hadn't been. The feeling wasn't that we had lost, but Hey, we nearly won that game! We hadn't been more than a hit or two from turning it around. It hit us like a ton of bricks."
Game 2
Mets pitcher Jerry Koosman pitched six innings of no-hit ball, trying to match Don Larsen's World Series no-hit feat. Donn Clendenon provided him a slim lead with a home run in the fourth inning.However, Koosman lost the no-hitter and the lead in the seventh inning as Paul Blair singled, stole second, and scored on a single by Brooks Robinson. But that was it for the Orioles' offense. The Mets pushed across a run in the top of the ninth on back-to-back-to-back singles by Ed Charles, Jerry Grote, and Al Weis, the latter scoring Charles. This proved to be the decisive run, and Orioles starter Dave McNally took the loss.
Koosman had trouble finishing the game, as he issued two-out walks in the bottom of the ninth to Frank Robinson and Boog Powell. Ron Taylor came on to retire Brooks Robinson for the final out and earn the save.
Game 3
Agee led off the game for the Mets with a home run off Jim Palmer, then saved at least five runs with his defense. With two out in the fourth and Oriole runners on first and third, Agee raced to the sign in left-center and made a backhanded running catch of a drive hit by Elrod Hendricks. In the seventh, the Orioles had the bases loaded with two out, but Agee made a diving grab of a line drive hit by Paul Blair in right-center.Ed Kranepool added a home run and Jerry Grote an RBI double for the Mets, while Gary Gentry pitched shutout innings and helped his own cause with a second inning two-run double. Nolan Ryan, making the only World Series appearance of his Hall of Fame 27-year career, pitched the final innings and earned a save.
Game 4
Game 4 was mired in controversy. Tom Seaver's photograph was used on some anti-war Moratorium Day literature being distributed outside Shea Stadium before the game, although the pitcher stated that his picture was used without his knowledge or approval. A further controversy that day involved the flying of the American flag at Shea Stadium. New York City Mayor John Lindsay had ordered flags flown at half staff to observe the Moratorium Day and honor those who had died in Vietnam. Many were concerned, including 225 wounded servicemen who were attending the game, and Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn announced that the American flag would be flown at full staff at Shea for Game 4.Tom Seaver atoned for his Game 1 ineffectiveness by shutting out the Orioles through eight innings. Once again, Donn Clendenon provided the lead with a homer in the second off Game 1 winner Mike Cuellar, who allowed just that run over seven solid innings. In the third inning, after arguing ball-strike calls too strenuously with plate umpire Shag Crawford, Earl Weaver of the Orioles became the first manager since 1935 to be ejected from a World Series game. At the start of the argument, NBC's microphones picked up Crawford screaming at Weaver, "You shut your goddamn mouth!"
In the top of the ninth, Seaver ran into trouble. Frank Robinson and Boog Powell hit back-to-back one-out singles to put runners on first and third. Brooks Robinson then hit a sinking line drive towards right that Mets right fielder Ron Swoboda dove for and caught just inches off the ground. Frank Robinson tagged and scored, but Swoboda's heroics kept the Orioles from possibly taking the lead. Elrod Hendricks then flied out to Swoboda to end the inning.
In the bottom of the tenth, Jerry Grote led off by blooping a double to left. Al Weis was intentionally walked to set up a force play and get to the pitcher's spot in the lineup. Mets manager Gil Hodges sent J. C. Martin up to hit for Seaver. Martin laid down a sacrifice bunt, but Orioles reliever Pete Richert hit Martin in the wrist with his throw to first, and the ball went down the right field line. Rod Gaspar, running for Grote, came around to score the winning run.
Replays showed Martin running inside the first-base line, which appeared to hinder Richert's ability to make a good throw and Orioles second baseman Davey Johnson from catching it. Subsequent controversy focused on MLB rule 6.05, which says that a batter shall be out—with the ball dead and the runners returned to their original bases—if "...In running the last half of the distance from home base to first base, while the ball is being fielded to first base, he runs outside the three-foot line, or inside the foul line, and in the umpire's judgment in so doing interferes with the fielder taking the throw at first base."
The umpires' judgment was that Martin did not interfere.