“Essentially, though, these were young men, seizing the opportunity to make the careers all normal ball players yearn for — victory, earning power, fame, respect. They were no different from the dozens of other young clubs that had suddenly found themselves, all through baseball history, in some dramatic season. The comic origins of the name on their shirts did not really relate to them.
“However, what was untrue for the players was true for the hard core of old Met fans. For them […] it really was fulfillment after seven years in the desert. In their memories and emotions, there was an unbroken line back […] — and the glory now within reach was anything but sudden. They, it was true, were the lowly raised high — but only after several agonizing eternities.”
The above could have been written 45 minutes ago, but it dates back 45 years, with the bracketed ellipses inserted today to purposefully conceal the passage’s true vintage. The author was Leonard Koppett, from the book, The New York Mets: The Whole Story, originally published in 1970 to reflect (and cash in on) the touchstone events of 1969, such as the first night the Mets spent in first place.
We still touch its mystical properties more than four-and-a-half decades later when contemporary circumstances so dictate. We still haul out as talisman the single sentence that lit up the Shea Stadium scoreboard on the evening of September 10, 1969, one of the most definitive directives ever issued in the entire history of the star-crossed franchise we call our own.
LOOK WHO’S NO. 1
That’s what it said once the Mets eked past the Cubs by percentage points, having captured the first game of their twinight doubleheader against Montreal. It was just percentage points’ worth of difference and the situation couldn’t have been more provisional, given that Chicago’s contest in Philadelphia remained in progress and the Mets and Expos had a nightcap penciled onto their dance card. But because it was 1969, all the decimals continued to fall into place. The Cubs lost. The Mets won again. The night ended with New York one full game ahead of their rivals, sitting atop the standings of the National League East.
The Mets had never sat atop any standings before. They would stay atop these for the duration of 1969. The would now and then return to that position in the dozens of seasons ahead, sometimes for a moment, sometimes for keeps. The slate is wiped clean every year, so no one maintains it on a permanent basis.
But when you initially arrive there late enough in a given season so that it’s deemed competitively significant after you haven’t been there for a very long and arid stretch, you can’t help but light up like that scoreboard of yore.
Look who’s No. 1 now!
Go ahead, look [1]!
Why, it’s the New York Mets!
The most famous attainment of first place in New York Mets history remains the first attainment of first place in New York Mets history, September 10, 1969. It will always be preeminent in our thoughts [2] on nights like Monday’s in Miami. But nights like Monday’s in Miami should also be kept somewhere where they can be readily accessed and referenced and treasured. Nights like Monday’s in Miami don’t come around nearly enough.
The New York Mets pounded the Miami Marlins in Miami on Monday night, 12-1, while the Arizona Diamondbacks were holding off the Washington Nationals in Washington, 6-4. The combination of results untangled the virtual tie the Nats (winning percentage .52427) and Mets (winning percentage .52381) found themselves knotted in at the close of business Sunday night [3]. Being sort of in first place in early August wasn’t exactly a knotty problem of baseball compared to where the Mets were stuck the previous six Augusts of their lives. From 2009 to 2014, if you wanted to find them around this time of year, you’d start scanning at the bottom and end no higher than in the middle. After being nowhere near the entrance ramp to the last half-dozen pennant race stretch drives, virtual definitely had its virtues — though not so many when you’re mentally good and ready to get back…get back…get back to where you once belonged.
We finished first the first year there was a National League Eastern Division. The Mets’ pursuit of and ascension to No. 1, during the September when I was six, represents my first specific memory of what our team can do and, therefore, my unshakable exemplar of how a pennant race is meant to unfold. Several agonizing eternities notwithstanding, you’ll never convince me first place isn’t our virtual birthright.
Standards and expectations transform in a flash when you find yourself angling for the lead. After this past weekend — the best weekend Citi Field has ever seen — it was difficult to fathom that the team from whom few of us had expected anything beyond recurring frustration dotted by occasional heartbreak wasn’t already the best team in the world, let alone the best team in the East. They raucously and joyously took three of three from the Nats, serving notice to onlookers everywhere that a new broom was poised to keep sweeping its way up the divisional pecking order. All that needed to be tidied up were those nasty little fractions of percentage points.
Consider those whisked away, too.
Fate in the form of Kirk Nieuwenhuis [4]’s pinched nerve rescues Michael Conforto [5] from a demotion to the minors, and the rookie rescues the Mets right back with his first major league home run, good for an almost-immediate 3-0 lead. Yoenis Cespedes [6] reveals what the fuss is all about with three doubles, four ribbies and a medallion nearly as large as his presence in the batting order. Travis d’Arnaud [7] (2-for-5) emerges anew. Curtis Granderson [8] (3-for-5) stays steady. Bartolo Colon [9] goes eight innings for his tenth win. At 10:14 PM, it is official.
Washington is first in war, first in peace and second in the National League East.
The romp [10] that vaulted the Mets past the Nats by a full game was a team effort worthy of a first-place team, and it included a single, a run and a pair of particularly professional third base plays (each cutting down the nettlesome Dee Gordon [11]) from Daniel Murphy [12], who rates a mention here not merely for the sake of issuing gold stars to one and all.
On the night of September 10, 1969, that night of LOOK WHO’S NO. 1 legend, Ed Kranepool [13] took two turns batting in the second game against the Expos after he pinch-hit for Donn Clendenon [14]. Krane didn’t do anything of note, but that was all right. The Mets were already well on their way to the 7-1 win that sealed their standing. In Koppett’s summation, where I edited in those bracketed ellipses, the sentences that were printed actually read like this (italics added):
“For them, as for Kranepool, it really was fulfillment after seven years in the desert. In their memories and emotions, there was an unbroken line back to 1962 — and the glory now within reach was anything but sudden.”
Thirty-nine years later, on Friday night, September 19, 2008, Murphy — in his second month in the big leagues — was inserted by Jerry Manuel [15] to pinch-hit against Julian Taverez at Turner Field in a 5-5 game. Carlos Delgado [16] was on second. Argenis Reyes [17], safe on an error committed by Brave second baseman Kelly Johnson [18], was on first. There was one out. Young Murph saw one pitch, a slider, and he lined it into left-center to score both runners. The Mets led, 7-5, and were on their way to winning, 9-5. Combined with a Philadelphia loss to the then-Florida Marlins, the Mets moved into first place.
For the last time relatively late in a season until August 3, 2015.
Kranepool had seen most everything the Mets had to offer from when he joined a relentlessly tenth-place club in September of 1962 to the moment it all began to pay off in September of 1969. Most everything the Mets had to offer was mind-boggling and not until very recently the least bit successful. “If I could have seen ahead in 1962,” Ed admitted seven years he broke in, as the Mets approached their maiden divisional title, “I would have signed with another club.”
Murphy is the current Mr. Longevity on the active roster. If he’s ever felt any regret about remaining a Met through the bad and the worse that followed September 19, 2008, he’s kept it to himself. He, too, has seen it all since the Mets fell out of first place on September 20 seven years ago. At least he probably thought he had until the last week or so of wonders that he, like us, has been experiencing in a state of blue moon gobsmack. In fact, he was just asked if he has previously witnessed an array of events and emotions akin to those that have accompanied the Mets on their merry way to first place.
“No,” he said [19] after Sunday night put the Mets on the precipice of sole possession. “To answer your question in the simplest terms, I have not.”
The team to which Murphy was promoted in 2008 was similar to the one Kranepool was called up to in 1962 in name only. The 1962 Mets were the shakiest of construction projects, to put it kindly. The 2008 Mets were built to contend. They were supposed to play for first place. When they entered it on September 19, they had only last vacated it on September 16. It was less a cause for celebration than relief [20] when they moved back in after a three-day absence. You know: standards and expectations.
One can infer from how soon the Mets were gone from first again and how long it has taken them to get back to where they once belonged that we should appreciate every second of our stay at the top. It may last from here to October 4. It may be over on August 4. There’s every decent chance we and Washington will swap places multiple times between now and the end of the season.
As playoff seedings aren’t awarded or denied based on who beat who on August 3, this isn’t quite the occasion to break into a victory lap. But do feel free to add a spring to your step clear to 7:10 tonight. You’re a fan of a first-place team in August after not having been a fan of a first-place team in August or September for seven years. Per Koppett’s timeless assessment of the Metsian condition, the glory that is now within reach has been anything but sudden. Given the unbroken line we have walked, a little jauntiness is surely in order.