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

Americans
determined that other Americans were not German spies more often
than not by asking who won the previous year’s World Series, who
led the American and National League in batting, how many home runs
Babe Ruth hit. The answers more often than not engendered
passionate battlefield discussions expressing pride or
dissatisfaction in the doings of the Dodgers, Giants and Yankees.
Japanese kamikaze pilots shouted vain expletives, using the name of
Babe Ruth – not Red Grange or Bronco Nagurski – as they met their
Maker in the smokestacks of our ships.
    The first of the great American sports
dynasties – before the Yankees; before Notre Dame and Southern
California in college football or the Packers in the NFL; before
the Celtics and UCLA on the hardwood; were the Giants. The first
great, true New York Sports Icon was Christy Mathewson . Mathewson was everything a hero is supposed to be: handsome, an
All-American from Bucknell (giving him a touch of Ivy League
veneer), upright, easily one of the greatest pitchers of all time,
a World Champion who did his best pitching in October, and a tragic
figure who died young after serving his country.

His manager was John McGraw. McGraw forged
the Giants into the greatest team in baseball in the 1900s, 1910s,
and early 1920s. McGraw, known as “Mugsy,” symbolized the New York
style. He was a street brawler, a tough guy who never gave an
inch.
    First baseman Bill Terry was the last
National Leaguer to bat .400 and managed the 1933 World Champion
Giants. His teammate, left-handed screwball artist Carl Hubbell,
struck out five of the greatest players in baseball history (Babe
Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, Al Simmons, Joe Cronin)
consecutively in the 1934 All-Star Game. Mel Ott was the Giants’
answer to Babe Ruth, belting over 500 home runs over the short
right field porch at the Polo Grounds. He eventually took over as
the club’s manager.
Willie Mays may be the greatest all-around
baseball player who ever lived. As a five-tool superstar (hit for
average, for power; field, throw and run), none were his equal
before or since. He was completely new and unique in the years
immediately following the breaking of the “color barrier.” His persona of exuberant youth on the stick
ball streets of Harlem epitomized the way he lifted his tired team
to pennant glory twice (1951, 1954), creating innocent images never
to be seen again.
    Then there are the Dodgers. In a bottom line
town of winners, they were Brooklyn’s Boys of Summer . Their
fan base found an attraction to them in ways the Giants’ and
Yankees’ followers never did. Their appeal was also as much social
as it was victory-oriented. Countless Jewish fans assimilated via
the Dodgers. When Branch Rickey signed Jackie Robinson, they became
a team of underdogs off the field (they always had been on it).
Rickey and Robinson are linked by fate, and both are true New York
Sports Icons in good standing.
    Duke Snider may have been New York’s “third
center fielder,” but he was the “Duke of Flatbush.” Roy Campanella
was a three-time Most Valuable Player and tragically courageous
figure who overcame a crippling car crash injury to live a life of
meaning.
    With all due respect to the Giants, Dodgers,
Jets and Knickerbockers, there would be no such thing as the
true New York Sports Icon if it was not for the Yankees. The
Yankees are the sports version of America: bigger, better, richer,
more successful, utterly dominant over all competition. The very
image of New York City itself; as the most important of all world
capitals, is tied first and foremost to the Yankees. It is
Washington, D.C. where the levers of political power are, but the
longtime failures of two Senators franchises hung over D.C. the
unfortunate moniker, “First in war, first in peace, last in the
American League.” Despite all the grandeur of American supremacy,
Washington is considered a backwater to the Big Apple, a town of
“movers and shakers”