My sincere thanks to Steve Somers for having me on WFAN to talk about Shea Stadium Remembered. For someone who has spent many hours listening to the FAN over the years, it is always a thrill to match wits with the Schmoozer. And special thanks to his update partner, Bob Heussler (Mr. Met), who made sure it happened. I met both of them after the last Mets game of 2010 on a frigid day when Oliver Perez walked in the winning run in the 14th inning. I knew who they were and had to go over to shake the hands of true hardcore fans!

If you missed it, or want to hear it again, here is the interview on WFAN. And his Shea monologue to open the show is a classic as well.

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This would normally be where I tell you all about the Black Cat game of 1969. Half-century old spoiler alert: the cat dragged in the Cubs and the Mets won the game and every other blessed thing in 1969. But there is a 50-year-old story I just came across this week from friend of the site Paul Lukas (of Uni Watch fame) at his new gig at a little outfit called Sports Illustrated. Never knew any of this inside stuff he found, but the Cubs were more spooked than I ever thought, and I’ve researched this story many times over the years. Favorite. Cat. Story. Ever.

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For the first time since their first game at Shea in 1964, the Jets open the football season at Shea Stadium. The 14-year wait does not go unnoticed. The Jets, Mets, the city, and the courts wrangled long and hard to grant the Jets early access to Shea. As primary tenant the Mets maintained priority and would not agree to have a Jets game at Shea until the baseball season ended, leading to the Jets continually starting on the road, sometimes spending the first month away from Shea. A home game was even shifted to Pittsburgh during the Mets’ 1973 postseason run. In 1977 the Jets played their first home game at Giants Stadium. The addition of two games to the NFL schedule in 1978 brings the Shea issue to a head, but the rancor will eventually lead the Jets to find a new roommate.

Despite horrific traffic thanks to the holiday weekend and U.S. Open Tennis next door, 49,000 see the Jets upset the Dolphins, 33-20, as Richard Todd tosses three touchdowns. Donned in new uniforms, Walt Michaels’s club will collect their most wins since 1969, but the Jets will drop their final two games to finish 8-8 and out of the playoffs for the eighth straight year.

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On this day at Shea in 1965, as so often happened, Al Jackson lost. He didn’t pitch all that well in an 8-1 loss to St. Louis, but all the usual signs of an Alvin Neill Jackson start were there: He was facing the opposition’s ace (Bob Gibson) and his team had more errors than hits (4-3). Jackson was chased from the game after a boot by right fielder Johnny Lewis sent Ken Boyer and another runner around the bases. Ironically, batter and pitcher would be traded straight up that winter. Boyer, the former MVP with the fine baseball pedigree, was quite a haul from St. Louis in return for a pitcher who’d just completed his second 8-20 season since 1962. St. Louis still remembered the clinch-delaying, 1-0 shutout of Gibson that Jackson tossed during the final weekend of the Cards’ championship 1964 season.

Jackson died this week at the age of 83. He held seemingly every position in the organization except for manager and GM, and he probably could have done better than some of the jokers the Mets hired for those jobs in almost half century in blue and orange. “The little lefty from Waco, Texas,” as announcer Bob Murphy so often said, was selected by the Mets from the Pirates in the 1961 expansion draft with the team’s 11th—and best—pick in a forgettable day of transactions for the fledgling club.

Thank God for Al Jackson or those early Mets would have lost even more games! He threw the first shutout in team history in 1962, he threw the club’s first one-hitter later that year, and he gave the Mets their first win—and shutout—at Shea with an 8-0 blanking of the Buccos on April 18, 1964. Until Tom Seaver came along, Jackson’s 43-80 mark gave him the club record for wins and losses—the latter mark lasted a few years longer. (Jackson had winning records with his other three clubs, but all that did was help him barely avoid triple digit losses in his career: 67-99, 3.98 ERA in 1,389.1 innings.)

Jackson never even appeared on a World Series roster. He was stuck in the minors when the Pirates won the 1960 World Series. Jackson was left off the postseason roster by the eventual world champion Cardinals in 1967. The Mets, who got him back from St. Louis the day after the ’67 World Series ended, were youth powered as they galloped toward their own preposterously unlikely world championship in 1969. The Mets sold Jackson to the Reds in June of ’69 season—his last year in the majors.

But that was just the start of the story for Jackson and the Mets. He was the pitching coach for Don Zimmer’s Red Sox (1977-79), but his return to the Mets as a minor league coach was illuminating. In his first book, The Complete Game, not to mention during broadcasts, Ron Darling makes no bones about how much Jackson influenced and prepared the remarkable crop of pitchers coming up through the system in the 1980s for the rigors of the major league lineup, schedule, and life.

Jackson did such a good job in Tidewater, the Orioles swooped him up as pitching coach under Frank Robinson for Baltimore’s remarkable turnaround season in 1989. Jackson was back in the Shea bullpen in 2000 as Bobby Valentine’s bullpen coach—this time he was not left at home when his team marched into the World Series. This time his team lost, but Jackson knew a thing or two about tough defeats.

He remained with the club as a roving instructor, advisor, and ambassador, as part of the contingent that brought baseball to Guyana a few years ago. Jackson was too nice to say it, but I will. The Mets Hall of Fame (you may have forgotten about it, no one has been inducted in six years) should have Al Jackson in it—even as an associate member. Little Al did plenty to earn inclusion. He was a Mets treasure.

For the full story on Al Jackson, read his wonderful bio by Greg Prince of Faith and Fear in Flushing. Greg also put together the Mets fan eulogy to big-hearted little Al.

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Late in the show, Sting told the crowd, “We’d like to thank the Beatles for lending us their stadium.” As I sat in the stagnant, sticky, back of the mezzanine with a side view of the spectacle, my thought was: “God, I wish this was a Mets game.” And the ’83 Mets were a last-place team—whose outfield was ruined by Police fans stomping on it.

I was in bassinet when the Beatles played Shea the first time and in a crib when they returned a year later. I was probably watching Get Smart re-runs when Grand Funk Railroad played Shea in 1971. I was cruising the neighborhood on my 10-speed when Jethro Tull arrived at Shea in 1976. In October 1982 I was in trouble with my mom and barred from seeing The Who—and The Clash—at Shea on a school night (I did see The Who—and David Jo-frigging-hansen?!?—at the Meadowlands the weekend before the Shea show, but that’s the rock equivalent of a few years later when I was at Shea for Mets-Red Sox Games 1 and 2, not Games 6 and 7).

So this was my concert. The Police were a big deal, everybody said. A couple of weeks later half of Long Island emptied out into the bottom end of Virginia in my freshman dorm. The Police were played so often and so loud in our cinder-blocked hothouse that I soon went from ambivalence to burning dislike for them.

The Police broke up after Shea, with Sting figuring they’d reached the pinnacle. I’d have traded his pinnacle for a Mets-Phillies doubleheader. With a rain delay.

Sponsored by Shea Stadium Remembered: The Mets, the Jets and Beatlemania

For non-Mets—and non-Jets fans—the most memorable day at Shea Stadium occurred 54 years ago. The Beatles at Shea ushered in the era of the stadium show that remains the best way for the masses to see their favorite bands in person and throw lots of money their way at the same time. John, Paul, George, and Ringo saw the top of the mountain at Shea. It’s a dizzying height and hard to stay up there long. They played just over half an hour at their iconic show, and banged out a dozen songs that could not hear because of the incessant screaming. Don’t take my word for it—Rolling Stone, the arbiter of such things, called it the best there ever was, too.

Check out the set list (complete with songwriter, if not Lennon/McCartney):

1. “Twist and Shout” (Phil Medley, Bert Russell)
2. “She’s a Woman”
3. “I Feel Fine”
4. “Dizzy Miss Lizzy” (Larry Williams)
5. “Ticket to Ride”
6. “Everybody’s Trying to Be My Baby” (Carl Perkins)
7. “Can’t Buy Me Love”
8. “Baby’s in Black”
9. “Act Naturally” (Voni Morrison, Johnny Russell)
10. “A Hard Day’s Night”
11. “Help!”
12. “I’m Down”

The Beatles returned to Shea for an encore a year later, August 23, 1966. It turned out to be one of their final shows. They stopped performing for audiences, but created some of their greatest work until the inevitable breakup in 1969, just when Shea reached a fever pitch for something completely foreign: Winning baseball!

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The day after Yogi Berra is fired, the Mets begin the Roy McMillan era. Berra had led the Mets to one of the most unlikely pennants in National League history in 1973, taking a team that had been last at the end of August to the World Series six weeks later, and losing in seven games to the Oakland A’s dynasty. But 1974 was flat—with no miraculous September. And the 1975 Mets had not been within five games of first place since June. Mix in the players’ continued grumbling about his decisions and the feud with Cleon Jones, who’d been humiliated by the team after being caught by police with someone not his wife. Berra won his battle with the released Cleon but Yogi lost the war. His Waterloo was a doubleheader 7-0 sweep by identical 7-0 scores at Shea by a lousy Montreal team on August 5. Yogi would land on his feet, staying at his New Jersey home and rejoining the Yankees as a coach.

The first game under new management saw the Mets quickly fall behind, 4-0, with Montreal knocking out George Stone—a hero of the 1973 Mets and the pitcher whose non-start by Berra in the 1973 World Series remains one of the great “what ifs” in Mets history. Wayne Garrett’s two-run home run produced the first runs of the McMillan regime. Still trailing by two runs with two outs in the sixth, the Mets exploded for seven runs—all unearned. Consecutive run-scoring doubles by Del Unser, Felix Millan, and Ed Kranepool put the Mets in front. Montreal walked in two runs, which came in handy when Bob Apodaca suddenly could not find the plate in the ninth. With the bases loaded, nobody out, and two runs in, God smiled down on the Mets and the rain poured down. The game wound up called and the Mets were credited with a 9-6 win. A rain-shortened victory saving an imploding pen was about as inspired as things would get for the 26-27 interim regime of the mild-manner McMillan.

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Forty-four years to the day after the doubleheader that was Yogi Berra’s last day as Mets manager, the 2019 Mets made the team and the current manager look relevant with a rousing sweep of the Marlins. In preparation for that twinbill, I went back, way back, to write a history of Mets doubleheaders for Rising Apple.

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And here’s to Bob D’Angelo’s Sports Bookie site (no money was wagered on the writing or reading of this book). Thanks for taking the time to review Shea Stadium Remembered, and the kind words. A part of me is always sitting in the mezzanine at Shea, watching a game or reading the yearbook—back when it was worth reading. It always pleases me when I can strike similar chord in someone else. Anyone who feels so moved is welcome to write your memories or thoughts on the book’s page on Amazon.

Sponsored by Shea Stadium Remembered with help today from The Happiest Recap, First Base 1962-1973 by Greg Prince

On this day in 1972 a Mets Banner Day twi-night doubleheader stretched the bounds of even a Mets fan’s patience. The Mets had slumped hard since the greatest start to that point in team history. Injuries and a complete lack of hitting had sunk the Mets to seven games behind the Pirates as August began. Nonetheless there were still 31,846 who came out on this Tuesday night, and 3,900 of them left their seats to stand beyond the center field fence with banners ready for the annual between games festival of whites (bed sheets that is). Would they have a long wait.

It looked good when Cleon Jones homered in the eighth against Philadelphia starter Wayne Twitchell. The Phillies, with the worst record in baseball, looked like easy pickings. But even with another great start by Jon Matlack, who would be NL Rookie of the Year, there was a bump, courtesy of Don Money. His home run tied the game to start the ninth.

As Greg Prince described in his awesome book, The Happiest Recap, First Base 1962-1973, “The would-be banner wavers, deprived of viewing the game, waited patiently…or as patiently as possible.” The game went on and on as more and more fans bagged their banners, went back to their seats, or went home. These were two bad teams without much offense. After the equivalent of another game had been played, the Phillies finally blinked. The Phillies walked Ed Kranepool to set up a force in the 18th with Cleon Jones, who had driven in the other two runs for New York. He knocked in this one, too. According to Prince, “Shea Stadium personnel hustled the swarm of 2,176 banners inside… and got them hustled back into the stands in about 45 minutes.”

There was still that second game. It would be over quickly. Steve Carlton, who, despite pitching for a horrible club, finished the year at 27-10 with a 1.97 ERA and 310 strikeouts to unanimously win the Cy Young winner, made mincemeat out of those Mets in a 4-1 win that got everyone out of there by 12:45 a.m. It was still not even a club record. The 27-inning twinbill was still five innings short of the 32-inning doubleheader played at Shea in 1964, still the most innings an MLB twinbill has gone.

The Mets have pulled off some interesting trade deadline deals through the years. Marcus Stroman being the most recent, as of 16 hours before the July 31 trade deadline. Fifty years ago the trade deadline was in the middle of June. Trades were really the only way a team could transform its roster midseason. There was no free agency—the largest contract in baseball that year was the $135,000 doled out to Willie Mays in San Francisco. As a result, trades could be spectacular and catch you by surprise.

The Mets had made only a couple of deadline week trades in their first seven seasons of existence—and both of those coming during Bing Devine’s transaction-happy 1967 seasons (two deals brought the Mets veterans Nick Willhite and Bob Hendley, both of whom pitched for the Mets during the Summer of Love and never appeared in another major league game). But in June of 1969 the Mets were in contention for the first time. The average age on the inexperienced Mets was 25; the Cubs were closer to 30. On the morning of June 15—a Sunday—the Mets stood 8 ½ games behind the first-place Cubs, and that was after Tom Seaver had beaten the Dodgers in Los Angeles. (The Cubs had beaten the Reds that day, with the win going to reliever Phil Regan, the 2019 Mets pitching coach. That can make a body feel old.)

The fact that the previously moribund Mets were within 10 games of a first place team on Father’s Day weekend—and had a winning record for the first time (30-25) was remarkable in its own right. The Mets could pat themselves on the back, play for second-place money, and concentrate on building toward some day when they might reach for that shiny ring. For a team that had never won more than 73 games, the 1969 Mets were pretty cocksure. They rolled the dice, but it was a calculated roll.

Donn Clendenon was a clubhouse lawyer. Almost. Clendenon had graduated from the prestigious African-American institution Morehouse College in his hometown Atlanta—Martin Luther King Jr. had been his “big brother” when Clendenon was a Morehouse freshman. Clendenon would study law at both Harvard and Duquesne Universities, but had to drop out of both because of the time and travel constraints of his current field of employment. (He completed his law degree from Duquesne in 1978, after his retirement from baseball.)

Though on an academic scholarship at Morehouse, the 6-foot-4 Clendenon had played football and basketball well enough to be offered contracts by both the Cleveland Browns and Harlem Globetrotters. His stepfather, Nish Williams, had been a Negro Leagues catcher with connections—no less than Satchell Paige helped teach the young Clendenon how to stay in on the curveball. Clendenon was coerced to attend a 1957 Pirates trout camp by the legendary Branch Rickey—Clendenon and future All-Star Julian Javier were the only men out of 500 to earn contracts from that camp.

On the road to becoming a big league slugger, the slights in the minors in the Jim Crow South had led to major wounds. Rickey had to smooth Clendenon’s feelings and pull the chain when needed. Clendenon wanted to quit and play in the NFL—the reserve clause was iron-clad enough to keep him from jumping sports without the Pirates’ approval, according to the excellent SABR biography by author Ed Hoyt.  The next year Clendenon received a $5,600 bonus from Rickey after hitting .356 in the minors.

Clendenon was runner-up for National League Rookie of the Year in 1962. Popular power hitter Dick Stuart was shipped out to keep the path clear for Clendenon. He remained at first base while Willie Stargell patrolled the Pittsburgh outfield with Roberto Clemente. All were key pieces of the newly-christened Pittsburgh Lumber Company, but the 1968 season—with the added pressure of the deaths of mentor Martin Luther King and stepfather Nish Williams—saw Clendenon’s spot at Forbes Field grow tenuous, especially as young slugger Al Oliver seemed poised for the big leagues.

The 33-year-old Clendenon was left unprotected by the Pirates in the 1968 expansion draft. He was sixth player selected by the Montreal Expos.

Clendenon had options. Not only could he complete his studies, but he had a management position at Scripto Pen Company in Atlanta. He told the Expos he would stay at Scripto rather than report to Montreal. So the Expos flipped him to Houston—along with Jesus Alou—in exchange for Rusty Staub. That proved to be an even bigger problem for Clendenon. His former manager in Pittsburgh, Harry “The Hat” Walker, was now running the bench in Houston, and the two had clashed—as had most of the Pirates—with the old school, “my-way-or-the-highway” soldier turned 1947 batting champ. Life was too short for a second helping of The Hat.

Now Montreal didn’t seem so bad. But Montreal was already crazy about Rusty Staub and the Expos were not shipping “Le Grade Orange” back to Texas. So after a contentious meeting in which the owners and new commissioner Bowie Kuhn glowered at Clendenon and Scripto Pen president Arthur Harris, the Expos shipped $100,000 (American dollars, presumably) and a couple of pitchers to Houston—including future Big Red Machine benefactor Jack Billingham—in exchange for Clendenon. The Expos offered him a three-year contract. Donn was un-retired.

According to Ed Hoyt, Clendenon was in his hotel room one June morning in 1969 when the phone rang. It was Mets general manager Johnny Murphy, who thought he had Montreal GM John McHale on the line. Murphy bellowed, “I want Clendenon.” When Murphy realized that he had the man he wanted on the phone, he asked about his interest in being a Met. Tampering be damned! Clendenon said yes and Montreal, selling high on someone who had proved a lot of trouble and was hitting just .240 with the expansion Expos, swapped him for Steve Renko, Kevin Collins, Jay Carden, and Dave Colon. Renko had a pretty nice career as a starter at kooky Jarry Park for some dreadful Expos clubs until he was shipped to the Cubs in 1976, starting the itinerant portion his career. A 134-146 record, 3.99 ERA, and 23.6 WAR is nice production—and not near what the Mets gave up a couple of years later for Rusty Staub, but Renko never helped the Mets win a World Series. Nor did Staub, but Rusty sure came close.

The funny part of the story is that Clendenon, the veteran thumper the Mets lineup was dying for, didn’t play every day when he arrived in New York. Gil Hodges played a strict platoon at first, second and third base, plus right field, and the right-handed Clendenon was in the Hodges platoon. He started just 46 games after the June 15 trade. He had 12 homers and knocked in 37, but Ed Kranepool got the majority of the starts. After the Mets scrambled from 10 games out in mid-August and won the NL East title by eight games, Clendenon did not even bat in the NLCS sweep of Atlanta.

Fate gave the Mets a lefty-laden Orioles rotation and Clendenon took them apart. He had a small but deadly World Series sample of .357/.438/1.071 and hit crucial home runs in Games Two, Four, and Five—all Mets wins—to claim Series MVP. The one Series game against a righty, future Hall of Famer Jim Palmer, Kranepool hit a home run. Hodges could do no wrong. The Mets could do no wrong. It was a case of right guy, right team, right on! (Hey, it was the Sixties.)

The clubhouse lawyer played two more years with the Mets—fulfilling the contract he signed during his brief Expos stay—and becoming the Mets’ single-season RBI leader with 97 in ’70. Ex-Expo Staub broke that mark in 1975. Clendenon remains the only player the Mets have ever acquired at the trade deadline who helped the team to a world championship. Every years around the trade deadline, a Mets fan can’t help but wonder if another will come along someday.

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The game was forgettable, but the clothes they wore left a mark—like forgetting your sunscreen on the planet closest to the sun. Twenty years ago “Turn Ahead the Clock Day” was a promotion from realtor Century 21 that assumed a lot of changes in this solar system between 1999 and 2021. Chief among those changes were huge logos in odd places with horrible fonts—at least for most of the clubs involved (the old school uniformed Red Sox and Tigers conveniently “lost” their versions of new age togs for the promotion). The Mets were relocated—not across the city or across the country, but across the universe. To Mercury.

Rickey Henderson grew a third eye and pointed ears—at least on the Shea DiamondVision rendering. Robin Ventura was suddenly bald. Bobby Valentine grew horns. And the uniforms were easily the worst the Mets had ever donned on this planet. The Mets, in the midst of a 65-30 run that began after three of Valentine’s coaches were fired in the midst of a June swoon, meekly fell to the Pirates, 5-1, on the third rock from the sun. In the locker room, Mets starter Orel Hershiser, who lost his first outing following his 200th career win, summed it up for many in the 20th century (and subsequent millennia): “If we can’t sell the product as it is, maybe we should give it a rest.”