Sponsored by Shea Stadium Remembered
Felix Millan had four singles and was erased all four times when the next batter in the lineup, Joe Torre, banged into a record four double plays: 1-4-3, 6-4-3, 4-6-3, and 6-4-3. With Torre helping out, Houston’s Ken Frosch threw a complete-game, 6-2 win in under two hours. Centerfield Maz dug up the Torre quote after the game: “I’d like to thank Felix Millan for making this all possible, I’ll just tell the kids they were all bullets.”
The Mets were around .500 and Houston was 30 games under .500 entering the night. Has a familiar ring, doesn’t it? Except that Houston is now in the American League.
My older brother, Michael, was at this game on a Monday night, while I had to be at Camp Pelican the next morning. I was really cheesed off that I was stuck at home. I had never been to a Mets game—or a major league game—at that point. Maybe my complaining paid off because over the next month I saw both a Mets and a Yankee game at Shea—this being the year of Shea being shared by four pro teams. Shea was never the same after that year. And neither was I.