And finally a well deserved and long overdue honor of being elected into the Baseball HOF! He did a lot indeed, Rudolph, especially in my home borough of Brooklyn where I grew up and where Hodges lived for many years!
51 years ago tonight! I will never forget it! RIP Gil Hodges, Charles and Joan Payson, Herb Walker, Johnny Murphy, Ralph Kiner, Bob Murphy, Lindsey Nelson, Rube Walker, Eddie Yost, Yogi Berra, Tom Seaver, Ed Charles, Tommie Agee, Donn Clendenon, Don Cardwell, Tug McGraw, Cal Koonce, Jim Bibby, Dan Frisella, Gus Mauch and Joe Deer! Gone but never forgotten! Thank you for a wonderful season and memories!
It's been 49 years since this took place and it STILL brings tears to my eyes everytime watch this. I was 11 years old and my parent allowed me to stay up to watch this game .
Brownstone Guy we are the same age. Luckily for us, Game started and hour earlier than usual , at 7:05, and played in 2 hours. It was an unforgettable night.
I turned 11 a month later and I am crying with happiness watching this now but sad for those who are no longer around! Still I thank God for being from and being raised in New York City and seeing the Jets, Mets and Knicks winning for the first time during that even with New York City and the country having problems then! Wish the current NYC teams can build a championship culture like back then and unfortunately it’s been difficult! Steve Cohen, you grew up as a Mets fan! Please build a team that can remind us of beautiful memories like 1969-a year and era that we will NEVER forget as long as we live!
I honestly do not think there was ever a more joyous group or celebration! It is somewhat haunting to see all of these guys in their prime. What a moment in time!
Thank You Gregg for your contribution to great NY Baseball History. We were very Lucky to Grow up in the last 50 Years. I am very happy to have been able to share these memories with you as a Friend. We experienced it all from memories like this to the great 1979 Super Mets . I only wonder if with Asshole Jeff Wilpon, will we ever have a chance to see another Championship!!!!!
Wow! I can't believe you had this. This is never seen. I remember it well and it's amazing to watch. the interviews are great. You appreciate the great Met Announcers of Bob Murphy, Lindsay Nelson and Ralph Kiner. This celebration started it all for that great team and thanks for posting this.
I didn't think I'd ever see a footage of this game... one in which I watched back in 1969 on tv as a kid (I was turning 12 on November 20th)… when "The Amazins" clinched the NL Eastern division with a 6-0 victory over the Cardinals. Gary Gentry pitched an awesome game that wonderful evening!! Thank you much for posting this!!! 👌
At 4:09 is my hero, Gil Hodges. He deserves to be in the HOF and one day he will be. I stayed up past my 3rd grade bedtime to watch this miracle and stayed home 'sick' to watch the W.S.
Seaver just KILLS me... It's all so sweet and wonderful... and I remember From the Mets with Love too, from the 80's... check SNY now- many Winik brothers films are finally being used after years of being forgotten, thanks to fans shaming Wilpon into understanding METS history and not bogus Dodgerdom.
Thanks so much for this great memory. I was 9 in 1969 went to met games since 65. My dad got his hands on two tickets for game 4 droped my brother and I off at shea, he then went to lums chinese resturant in flushing to watch from the bar tv. Thanks dad for letting us go (since he had two boys and only two tickets) Thanks greg for the great memories "lets go mets".
wow!!! Thank you so much...so great to hear Gil Hodges voice!..these guys were pretty special...a total team effort....time for WOR to break out the archives!
I was there that night, just 3 weeks before my 13th birthday. It's hard to describe what it felt like. When you're that young, it seems like the biggest and best thing that ever happened in the history of the world. I remember a woman in the upper deck fainting when Donn Clendenon hit the second homer.Thanks so much for posting it
On September 24, 1969, 2 days before "The Brady Bunch" premiered on ABC, the New York Mets beat the St. Louis Cardinals 6-0 to clinch their 1st ever National League East title in franchise history.
WOW! This is amazing, thanks so much for this! I wish the Mets were like this now, but our time will come...and damn it, they might be Bums but they're our Bums--and always Amazin'! From a fan who's never been to New York, lived in California his whole life and grew up idolizing Mike Piazza and the Mets, scrounging through newspaper accounts and radio and treating the occaisonal Dodgers-Mets TV game with Vin Scully as the hbighlight of the season short of the series... LET'S GO METS!
You do realize, genius, that the Mets' pitching staff that year (Seaver, Koosman, Ryan, Gentry, Cardwell, etc.) went on to win almost 1,000 games. If they had played that Orioles team 100 times they would have won 80. And they would taken 99 of 100 from that Pirates team.
Me and my best friend we were both fourteen were there on that day, both of us went on the field where we collected some of the turf and some dirt. I kept my patch of grass alive until the next spring and the dirt I had for years, don't know what happened to it. What great memories!
Tommie Agee and Cleon Jones we’re boyhood pals back in Mobile, Alabama…the same town that gave us two great Hall of Famers…BILLY WILLIAMS and one HENRY AARON
Baseball has always been a radio sport. When television began to expand baseball’s reach I think that’s when the showboating really started to take over.
There's never been team like the 1969. One paper, they weren't the greatest team ever, but from mid August till they went on to win the series, no team ever played better.
As soon as Clendenon hit that three run homer off Steve Carlton in the first inning, I KNEW it was all over! I didn’t care if there were 8 innings to go! The 1969 Mets were destined to win it! Even with the early run support, Rookie Gary Gentry was up to the task and he did an outstanding job! As a 10 year old Brooklyn boy, I enjoyed the thrill of watching this game on WOR-TV, Channel 9 from the start when Bob Murphy told the audience that if the Mets win it, it’s all over! He did state that young Mr. Gentry had quite a task in front of him against a young but an already established Steve Carlton and he sure out pitched Carlton big time! Carlton gave up a total of 4 homers in his last two starts against the Mets! Then the pandemonium on the field at Shea Stadium and the clubhouse celebration was wild and incredible! I won’t ever forget it! What was important was NONE of the Mets players got hurt when they had to run for their lives and made it home even when they drank and sprayed all that champagne!
My God, how did you get your hands on this tape ? It's probably the only surviving footage of the '69 regular season. Do you have the whole game? Wish it could be broadcast on SNY. Thanks so much, Brickyard !! :-)
Thanks! This is all that exists as far as I know, and it came from a Channel 9 WOR special called From Mets With Love, aired prior to the inaugural League Championship Series. I've read that the master tape was given to Lindsey Nelson's family. But I don't know if that's true. Yes, it would be nice if this could be found and aired or made available. What I love is the simplicity of the production: 4 Cameras, High home, 1st and 3rd and the best angle ever - ground level behind home plate. No camera man running on field after homer.
Hey Brickyard (this is actually Helenpol's husband, John, a Mets fan fan since '71 :-) )...Thanks so much for the reply !! It mystifies me that we don't see any tapes of the September runs in '69 & '73 on SNY. I put that question out there once on their web site...and a guy said he believes that WOR might have re-used their sports video tapes over & over again in those days, meaning that the master tapes have been lost forever. God, I hope that's not true (Wow, this is the first time I'm hearing of a possible connection to Lindsey Nelson's family !!). You took me back with the reference to the special "From the Mets, With Love". I recall seeing it on Channel 9 sometime in the late 80s...and, yes, footage of the NL East clincher was included.
If you check the 1969 Cubs stories on RU-vid, you will find highlights of the come from Behind win On July 8, and Seaver’s near perfecto the next night! WOR and WGN had Channel 9 and both stations shared the same cameras! Of course WGN in Chicago! I smiled when the Cubs legendary announcer Jack Brickhouse said in disgust “CAUGHT and DROPPED by Young!” 😅
I was at this game with my father I was in left field and 10 years old at the time. When they hit the last homerun you can get a really good look at the people in left field where I was. I just wish I knew what blur was me and my father but I am sure we are both in the picture.
Brickyard Hill Studios I don't know it. I'll try to research it and see what I find. I found another classic of hers called "Let's Go Mets" which she played before the Mets would take the field. It's on RU-vid and you'll recognize it.
That one I know - the song when the Mets take the field. It's my favorite. I have a clean copy that was posted on WOR's website last year. Good luck searching the '69 home run song. By 1972, Jane played Meet the Mets after home runs.
Brickyard Hill Studios thanks I'm going to give it a good try. Wonder if it was her composition or part of another song. I thank the latter so we'll see what I can find.
+Tom Dockery Boy were you ever lucky to witness this. This was a 6-0 Mets' win, with the game ending at 9.07. Boy, baseball sure used to played a lot quicker at one time. This was probably a 7.00 start. 2 hrs and 7 minutes, commercials included. Nowadays, you could add about 35-45 minutes to that time.
Not too serendipitous, but that's none other than Joe Torre grounding into the double play at 1:25. He, of course, would later manage the Mets. Davey Johnson, who made the last out of the '69 World Series would go on to manage the Mets. Both Torre and Johnson won Championships in New York,
After all these years it's still one of the best lockeroom celebrations despite the numerious Yankee Championships.I asked a Yankee fan and he said ,"Of course the Mets went crazy they don't win as remotely as often as my Yanks.
Joe Torre hit into that double play and that is trivia enough, but here's another trivia question. Can you guess who was the on deck batter when Torre ended the game?
NOT SO FUN FACT…this was turn out to be STEVE CARLTON’s shortest outing throughout his illustrious 23 season HALL OF FAME career…hadn;t quite perfected that devil slider just yet..
At 1:14 I am a blur with my father 15 rows back down the left field line. Also never mentioned in any of the papers but a kid fell off the scoreboard and broke his leg. They were stealing lights off the score board and that's how he fell. I guess this was not big news because it would of been bad publicity for the team.
Yeah I was 10 years old and a Yankee fan so I actually was rooting for the Cardinals. I didn't realize Steve Carlton was pitching he wasn't that well known then.
BTW I was responding to comments on the Brooklyn Dodgers video Ghosts of Flatbush. I reminded all the ones who lamented the loss of the Dodgers to watch this video and reminded them this would never have happened had the Dodgers not left. Redemption for NY National league fans.
I’m paraphrasing here but Lindsay says “at 9:07 Mets won the championship”. Games didn’t start until 8pm Back then. This couldn’t have been a 1 hour game. What am I missing?
It was the final home game and an early 7:05 start for fan appreciation night. Games were played at a much brisker pace then. 2 hours now under 3 hours is considered quick.
At 6:52 one Herbert Walker jr, part-owner. Note the name. Yes, as in George Herbert Walker Bush, #41 George Walker Bush. #43. George Walker Bush wasn't the first one in the family to have ownership of an MLB team.
+dw438 I didn't know that. That kind of puts a damper on this, since I consider almost every member of that family worthy of death by decapitation. The family name simply leaves a bad taste in my mouth. That they are associated with something as positive and inspiring as the 69 Mets is the only blight on that otherwise joyous occurrence.
Those New York Mets fans would throw bottles, batteries, anything they could get their hands on at visiting players. They were nothing but wild animals without conscience or class. They knew nothing about baseball either. I was especially glad to watch Pete Rose kick Bud Harrelson's ass at second base in the '73 NLCS then promptly hit a game winning home run off Harry Parker in game 4. Yankee fans had a little more class, but not much. CINCINNATI REDS '75 '76 WORLD CHAMPS.. team of the '70s
@tishhead Harrelson deserved it! Rose also blackened Wayne Garrett's eye for kicking him in the back during that same fight... If not for Bench restraining Rose, the whole Met's infield would have wound up on the disabled list.
