Then Versus Now

One of the greatest series of all-time will have its conclusion televised to its rabid followers in a few days. And I don't necessarily mean The Sopranos.

I hope everybody who has SNY has been able to catch at least a little of the 1969 World Series, Games Two, Three and Four these past three Mondays. Even if you haven't, tune in for Game Five Monday night, 7 PM — three hours before the Mets-Dodgers game and 21 hours after we find out what becomes of what's left of the New Jersey mob.

Whichever T.S. you prefer, Tom Seaver or Tony Soprano, these figure to be can't-miss affairs. I may have even found something tangible to link them.

If you've been watching The Sopranos since 1999, you know Tony is obsessed with keeping the old ways alive or at least relevant. As the program comes to an end, we are learning how difficult it is to maintain long-accepted traditions and folkways (hint: the whacking doesn't help). Baseball, of course, is enmeshed with traditions and folkways, lots of “in my day…” bemoaning from fans who have been around long enough to have judged that today is not their day.

I've never strictly considered myself one of those fans, even with nearly 40 seasons in the bank. I'd like to believe the best game ever will be tonight's (can't be much worse than last night's). Yet I'm also not immune to thinking myriad aspects of baseball were better at some point prior to right now.

Rewatching the 1969 World Series — I've seen at least portions of these broadcasts a few times over the decades and am blessed with a handful of memories from when they were new — is a great exercise not just in nostalgia but comparison. I tend to think of the entire continuum of my rooting as eternally compressed; if I've been around for it, it couldn't have happened that far back. Nevertheless, 1969 was 38 years ago and I am compelled to concede that indeed baseball looks like, feels like and was a substantially different enterprise from what it is in 2007. The broadcasts have certainly revealed those differences.

Is it better? Worse? Just evolutionary? Could we rightly expect 1969 to resemble 2007 any more than 1931 would have resembled 1969? And how much isn't all that different? I'm reading Crazy '08, a wonderfully frothy account of what author Cait Murphy unabashedly calls the best season in baseball history. That's the year of Merkle's Boner and a whole lot else. One of the many points I'm picking up from Murphy is 1908 is a surprisingly linear ancestor of modern times. “If you were to beam yourself back to a 1908 football or basketball game, the play would look unskilled, the strategies primitive, and much of the action incomprehensible,” she writes. “Take yourself out to the ball game, though, and you would be right at home.” Cosmetic niceties aside, it's much the same game between the lines now versus a century earlier.

If baseball can withstand a hundred years and remain reasonably constant, 38 years should be a drop in the bucket. And yes, the Mets and Orioles who came to play on October 15, 1969 (I'm using Game Four, which I just watched Monday, as my prime research material) do not look like visitors from a distant planet vis-à-vis 2007. But as one who has managed to live and watch baseball on a constant basis since 1969, I was struck by a lot, catalogued below.

I'll be shifting in and out of tenses since baseball past and present seem to have merged in my mind.

Dirt. When it's windy at Shea in 1969, dirt flies everywhere. They must be using better dirt today. Chalk that one up as a point for progress.

Smoke. Hey, what's a good World Series game without a cigarette? You wouldn't have known in 1969. No smoking allowed in the stands today. Score one for the nanny state.

Camera Angles. NBC used the behind-home angle for most pitches, had one camera stationed to capture plays at first, had another that would show us the pitcher in conjunction with a runner leading off first and a centerfield camera that was not yet the industry standard. Maybe there were one or two others. Special effects were limited to a diagonal split screen featuring the first and third base coaches. Today you see almost everything from almost everywhere. The more you see, the more you learn.

Daytime. Who doesn't think baseball doesn't look better in daylight? Especially its crown jewel? Practical matters dictate the games are at night now. In 1969 the World Series was a big enough draw that you could place it in the relative warmth of the October sun and attract an audience. Today they don't like to have LDS games before 8 o'clock. More people can watch at night which is no small consideration. But daytime remains ideal.

Music. What music? Between pitches…nothing. Between batters…nothing. To announce pitchers…nothing. (How would the Sandman know when to Enter?) There's a little Jane Jarvis here and there, which is charming as all get-out (she played “Meet The Mets” after a breathtaking 10-inning World Series victory, for goodness sake), but nothing obtrusive. And of course DiamondVision is 13 years from construction. My instinct is to say that's the way it should be, but not so fast there, fogy. I like the way the crowd, me among it, is revved up today. I like the Peter Finch exhortation to go to my window and such. I like Ace Frehley accompanying me back…back in the New York groove. There's an excess of noise, of course, but I think in small doses it genuinely gooses the atmosphere in a positive way. So bring back the organ (Ms. Jarvis is still around) and spin a few MP3s and beam the Curly Shuffle all anew, but do it in moderation. 1969 was just too darn quiet.

Sound. I don't think NBC's microphones worked very well. Lindsey Nelson and Curt Gowdy kept going on about the boisterous Shea crowd and then all I heard were crickets. Even owing to the relative reserve of a World Series gathering — all the swells nabbing all the tickets — I didn't hear more than a little Metsish enthusiasm peep from the seats. I've been told it existed. Hell, I was told all through childhood how crazy we were. But I can't hear it resounding from 38 years ago.

Umps. Damn they looked good in their suits and little caps. Shag Crawford seemed well within his judgment to dismiss Earl Weaver. He seemed dignified doing so. Since no horrible calls went against the Mets, I have to say umpiring was way better then.

Suits and Ties. Even if we allow that high-powered clients of advertisers received all the field level seats and then doled them out to their cohort, that's a well-dressed baseball crowd right there. I even saw a few straw boaters. A disdain for hypocrisy, however, impels me to admit I don't find this a fine thing. I would wear no upper-body garments but Mets t-shirts for the rest of my life if decorum didn't call for me to own one or two items with buttons and no printing. It's a ballgame! Yet you see virtually no baseball apparel. Replica teamwear is simply not in the circulation it would gain in later decades. Not more than a handful of Mets caps either, though a few Mets batting helmets were on some kids. You don't see that much anymore.

Lindsey Nelson. We'll assume he sported a plaid number as was his trademark. I don't care what he wore. Man he sounded great! Having spent the last 29 seasons without him, I forgot, quite frankly, how awesome he was. He's warm, he's authoritative, he doesn't screw around on Donn Clendenon's home run. Too bad MLB no longer invites a home voice to join a flagship announcer for the World Series. Lindsey was home, but he was no homer. I've read football was truly his game, that you get outside of New York and he's best identified with calling Cotton Bowls and such. If so, then what a pro for being that good with baseball. Hearing that syrupy-smooth voice brought back a lot of fantastic feelings.

Curt Gowdy. When Gowdy died last year, there was much media mourning, appropriate given his longevity and his peripatetic presence on big-time sporting events. That had to be it because, also quite frankly, I didn't like him. I didn't care for him when he was in his prime and I really began to despise him hearing him from 1969. He conveyed no sense of the moment, no feel for the history being made by these Miracle Mets besting these powerhouse Orioles and completely botched the aftermath of the Swoboda catch. You know what he talked about? How heads-up Frank Robinson was in not tagging up too soon! Yes, it was a big deal, tying the score at 1, but how about some props for Rocky? Gowdy was more impressed that Brooks Robinson hit the ball than he was that Swoboda extended himself in such a memorable fashion to catch it. I was incensed enough to file a protest with NBC like one of those cranky fans who thinks the national crew is rooting against the local team until I remembered this took place nearly 40 years ago.

Analysis. There was none. I'm not sure I missed it, even amid a 2-1 duel of fairly epic proportions. Despite my misgivings about Gowdy (he reminded me why I was so happy when ABC got half the baseball contract in 1976), I'd still take him and Lindsey over Buck and McCarver for a game like this if given the choice. As I told Stephanie, give me announcers like these in 2007 for a Fox or ESPN Mets game and you wouldn't see or hear me turning down the sound on the TV in favor of the FAN (even in favor of Tom McCarthy who, by the way, has not grown on me).

Research. When Weaver was ejected, Gowdy phumphered about the last time a manager was thrown out of a World Series. Did it ever happen even? Eventually word filtered down from a few wags on “press row” that it indeed occurred in 1935. Imagine that — research based on rumor, recollection and codger. Let's hear it for Elias and others who prepare this stuff today. You wouldn't wait more than a few seconds for the info in 2007.

Replays. One replay, one angle, move on. Hardly ample for the World Series but it probably seemed pretty progressive. Every ground ball merits at least five replays today. If it's overdone now, it was underdone then. The viewer benefits from information. Imagine a play like the ball that ricocheted off J.C. Martin's wrist (judged his back by Lindsey) not being dissected to death. But at least the scant replays were cut to without a raft of network logos. (I hate Fox.)

The Outfield Fence. Shea's was green then. It's been blue since the middle of 1980. I liked when it went from green to blue. I kind of miss the green having seen it again. I've grown used to the walls doubling as ad space since the mid-'90s but watching a game with none of that makes me think the “YOUR MESSAGE HERE” culture we live in currently is astoundingly minor league.

Shea in its Youth. On one hand, it's almost haunting to watch our doomed park in its salad days, completing just its sixth season. Oh Shea if only you knew… On the other, harsher hand, the whole joint looks cheap and underdone, bringing to mind John Franco's latter-day assessment that anything built by the city isn't going to be that nice. They've actually done a pretty decent job of sealing some of its edges (cutting down on the wind that blew that dirt around so much) and making the presentation somewhat festive versus 1969 when the team and the fans had to carry the day. Those wooden seats don't look like any bargain either even though I know they were perfectly fun to sit in from 1973 to 1979.

Running to First. That first-base camera seemed to record one bang-bang play after another. It didn't. It was just that in those days, by cracky, players hustled from home to first on every ground ball and they ran — ran — through the bag. Nobody (except Tom Seaver conserving his energy in the eighth) gave up on the possibility of beating out an infield hit and everybody gave it all they had. It was one of the most refreshing retro qualities to this game. I remember a gym teacher telling us to run through the bag like that. It's sad to think I hustled more down the line than, say, Carlos Delgado does today.

Sliding. You mean you don't have to risk life and limb and dive face-first into bags and spikes? Somebody show Jose!

Tom Seaver. There was an All in the Family episode in which Edith dragged Archie to her high school reunion and one of her classmates drove Archie to distraction with her assessment of Edith's old boyfriend Buck Evans by repeating incessantly, “Gawwd, he was beautiful!” Well, watching 24-year-old Tom Seaver pitch…he was singularly glorious. He got the ball, he threw, it was a strike, he got it back. He struck out Dave May in about nine seconds. He was the embodiment of power pitching and didn't waste a moment or a motion. Tom was also in that “if you don't get to him early, you're not going to get to him at all” mode. The Orioles had a chance early, in the third, and Seaver stopped them cold, retiring 19 of 20 until the ninth. That's the Tom Seaver I fell in love with as a six-year-old. My voice was practically cracking explaining to Stephanie that she should watch this Tom Seaver and just forget the bloated, enigmatically bitter one with whom she came in contact on Channel 11 from 1999 to 2005. There is nobody like him in the game today. There hasn't been for my money since Tom Seaver.

Mike Cuellar. Kind of a forgotten ace (23-11 in '69), but he wasn't bad either, I exclaim by way of understatement. Not only did Cuellar give up only that Clendenon blast over seven innings, but he warmed up alongside the Oriole dugout during the pregame introductions. Has any pitcher done that in any ballpark since 1969? You only see that in The Stratton Story.

John Powell. Boog to everybody else. John during the reading of the lineups. Damned if I know why.

Crowd Shots. The cast of Julia or Bonanza or anything else on NBC's fall schedule was not featured in the first row. Unless a foul ball landed in the box seats (and we saw only the box seats), we didn't get closeups of this fan or that fan Looking Concerned when the situation grew tense. The only concession to the people off the field were the recurring peeks at tam o'shantered Nancy Seaver, so famous by game's end that she was asked for an autograph.

Filing Out. The Mets win on a ludicrously improbable play in the tenth inning, go up three games to one and the crowd files out calmly moments later. No hugging and bopping and Takin' Care Of Business. How anticlimactic from the perspective of this century. Even the players' congratulations were far more subdued than for your average 2007 walkoff. I missed the emotion. How did they keep it in? Without expansive commercial breaks, the game was over in 2:33, or right around 3:40. Was this suit-and-tied crowd heading back to the office? Out for vodka gimlets and highballs? To sit in those boats masquerading as cars while the parking lot slowly emptied?

The Mets Bullpen. Uncalled upon for ten solid innings. No talk of Seaver's pitch count. No pitching changes for our side. He was on deck in the tenth before Martin was sent up. Taylor and McGraw warmed up a bit but since we didn't go to eleven, neither came in. Though I knew the outcome and have known it for 38 years, I'm always a little sorry to see the Tugger not get a chance in the 1969 World Series.

The Mets Hitters. No wonder the Orioles were so honked about losing. Cleon may have hit .340 and Tommie may have led off with power through the season and Clendenon was Clendenon…but geez, you won 109 games and couldn't stop a lineup dotted by Bud Harrelson, Al Weis, Ed Charles, Ron Swoboda and Jerry Grote before he learned to hit? We had great pitching and great timing, didn't we?

Graphics. What are those? The score occasionally popped up in the left-hand top corner of the screen and one or two facts seeped out (Agee homered 14 times at Shea during the season), but how about a balls-and-strikes count now and then? The things we take for granted today.

Bambi. Second baseman Davey Johnson's presence in an Orioles uniform is quite legendary given his final out in the fifth game and his later career path, but the Bird who really caught my attention was pitching coach George Bamberger. Just like that I was transported from the bliss of 1969 to the disgust of 1982. Get off the field you bad memory! After Jeff Torborg, Dallas Green and Art Howe, it's hard to remember just how much I disdained Bamberger and his whole “it's not my fault they can't throw strikes” tenure. But seeing him again did conjure this observation. He and Johnson were Orioles. Hodges managed the Mets. Berra coached first. Buddy played short. That's five Mets managers in uniform in the same game (along with plainclothes Casey Stengel throwing out the first pitch). I've tried to piece together the possibilities based on future coaching tenures and who was playing where when between 1962 and now, but I can't come up with another circumstance besides the 1969 World Series that brought five Mets managers into the same game. If anybody would like to offer a potential skipper-laden scenario, please let me know.

Editor's Note: I did a little checking and there were combinations of Stengel, Berra, Westrum, McMillan and Miwaukee catcher Torre in uniform for a Mets-Braves series in early 1965; Westrum, Berra, McMillan, Harrelson and Torre when those two teams played later in '65; and Westrum (by then managing the Giants), Harrelson, Torre, McMillan and Berra when the Mets hosted San Francisco in 1975. So there were indeed other instances of five Mets managers in the same game, but Casey throwing out the first ball makes it six in '69…so there.

Sideline Reporters. They're mostly useless but between Weaver's ejection and Martin not being called out, it would have helped had Tony Kubek been deployed differently (which was against the rules in those days). Come to think of it, what did they do with Tony during Game Four? His interview with an ebullient Nelson Rockefeller in Game Three was a chestnut.

Infomercial. Curt Gowdy harped on 1969 having been a great year for baseball, that Nixon invited the All-Stars to the White House, that an all-time team was chosen for baseball's hundredth anniversary. It seemed more like an MLB advertorial than the hybrid sports-entertainment platform for the network, which is how Fox uses the World Series, sadly. It's all intrusive, but it was a lot less so then.

Airplanes. A roaring jet brought explanations of Shea's proximity to LaGuardia. Seems planes have been rerouted for playoff games in the last few postseasons. Good move…unless the air traffic was one of the reasons the Birds were so spooked.

Charlie Lau. The Orioles were mentioned as employing their ex-catcher as a hitting coach, which wasn't in vogue yet. The Mets wouldn't have an official hitting coach until 1975 when it was Phil Cavaretta taking the job. Ralph Kiner noted Saturday there were no hitting coaches when he played. It begs the question as to why baseball waited so long to create a job that doesn't seem so extraneous. The Orioles had budding guru Lau and they could certainly hit…though not that week.

Colors. Damn, those Mets uniforms looked good. The Orioles' too. This must have been the first World Series ever between two orange-accented teams. Who doesn't love the stirrup look? And extra credit for Grote's orange knee guards. Sweet! NBC's living color, however, died a little as the sun moved west — unless they painted the fences shocking green around the seventh inning.

Second Base. Jerry Grote's tenth-inning double is usually described as a bloop that just fell in. It wasn't quite the fluke it's made out to be. Belanager ran a mile for it (if he caught it, it would have to be paired with the Swoboda catch among miracle grabs, but Belanger wore the wrong uniform in October 1969). But kudos echoing down the halls of time for Grote running hard from the second he hit it. When David Newhan placed a ball just beyond the firm grasp of Aaron Rowand last night, it was stunning to see him wind up on second because nobody runs like that anymore (now who's the codger?). But Newhan, taking nothing away from his modern-day hustle, is actually fast. Grote was not. Good move by Gil pinch-running Gaspar there.

Appeal Plays. If Grote or Hendricks didn't like a ball call, they sucked it up. It was nice not having that bit of obnoxious theater disrupting this pitchers' duel.

Who Would Have Guessed? Any rebroadcast, reproduction or other use of the pictures and accounts of this game…did anybody in 1969 dream anybody would show an actual broadcast of some old baseball game way in the future? The first rebroadcast I can recall of any kind was when Channel 11 repeated the Bucky Dent game in the winter of '79 (WPIX sportscaster Jerry Girard joked a Boston station would pick up the feed, but only for the first six innings). SportsChannel showed this very special Game Four as part of Baseball's Greatest Games circa 1992. MSG, when it was trying to make nice to the Mets, did the same about 10 years later. Now this airing, albeit minus the fifth and top of the sixth, lost to “a power outage”. It's a fantastic innovation, and it doesn't seem to take a great deal of effort by today's cable channels to favor us with these treats. So thanks to SNY for dusting it off, for not mustaching the Mona Lisa with lots of irrelevant 21st-century fun facts as they did the '86 Series and, if I may be so bold, SHOW US MORE OLD METS GAMES!

I like finding new old things to get riled up about.