Author Commentary:
The odds were 100-to-1 against the previously
moribund Mets in spring training, but Gil Hodges’s club created its own numbers
in the closing weeks of the season: 21 complete games out of their last 49
starts, 14 runs allowed over Tom Seaver’s last 11 outings en route to a
club-record 25 wins, relievers Tug McGraw and Ron Taylor combining to go 7-2
with 11 saves and a 1.00 ERA down the stretch, and a 10-game deficit transformed
into an eight-game lead over the Cubs in a little over six weeks.
A postseason berth secured, the Mets weren’t about to stop there. They won the
first National League Championship Series ever, sweeping the Braves. The
overconfident Orioles won the first game of the World Series, but spectacular
catches, shutdown pitching, a throw glancing off a runner’s wrist, a ball with
just the right amount of shoe polish on it, and home runs at the perfect moment
propelled the Miracle Mets to a world championship that is still amazin’ forty
years later.
The Miracle Has Landed: The Amazin' Story of How the 1969 Mets Shocked the World
celebrates the loveable Mets like no other book, complete with previously
unpublished images from that era and photos of the 40th anniversary celebration
in 2009. A project of the non-profit Society for American Baseball Research,
this volume gathers the collective efforts of more than 40 writers, featuring
profiles of every player and coach, plus the broadcasters, manager, GM, owner,
and even the infamous chairman of the board. The book also includes essays on
seminal moments before, during, and after 1969, as well as sidebars on other
groundbreaking events. The foreword is provided by Jerry Koosman, who won the
first Mets World Series game and then won the first Mets world championship.
Forty years later—and counting—the Miracle Mets are still revered, the first
world champion expansion team and a club that stole New York’s heart.
$21+ s/h