Angels in the Mets' outfield

If I had my druthers, I would rather be sitting in the Wrigley Field bleachers watching my beloved Cubbies play long ball as ol' Harry Caray mispronounces every name in the lineup or checking into Fenway for a 'dog and eyeballing Yaz or Pesky sitting in an honoured place in the Boston dugout instead of being at this dang computer.
Snap out of it, Corbett, this is 2005, and your 'Holy Cow' Cubbies are tied with Milwaukee for second place, seven back of St. Louis in the National League Central, while the World Series champion Red Sox are two back of Baltimore Orioles in the American League East.
Can you handle that, Bubba?
Where did this infatuation with baseball begin?
I'm 10 years old, lying on my Grandpa Corbett's front lawn in Bass River, Nova Scotia, with my green plug-in radio sitting under a lilac bush, listening to WBZ-Boston ... WBZA, Springfield, the voice of the Boston Red Sox. Ah, yes, the Splendid Splinter, Ted Williams, is at the plate. Here comes the pitch, and there it goes ... going, going, gone.
Teddy Baseball wasn't alone. I can never forget: Goodman, Doerr, Pesky and ... the other DiMaggio, Dom. Of course, his brother, Joe, played for the hated Yankees.
Some 20 years later, I am in Shea Stadium, New York. The fifth game of the World Series between the Miracle Mets and Earl Weaver's evil Orioles.
Let me take you back to 1969. Are you ready?
As a young sportswriter on one of my first out-of-town assignments for the now-defunct Toronto Telegram, there I was plunked in the middle of the Big Apple.
What was a country hick from Bass River, a blink-or-you'll miss it village in Nova Scotia, doing rubbing shoulders with the likes of Casey Stengel and a Broadway cast of thousands? Hey, there's Ed Sullivan standing on the sidewalk, waiting for his limo.
And heroes from the newspaper trade. I expected Grantland Rice and Damon Runyon to yell "Stop the Presses" and hand their copy to a pale-faced kid with pimples and an at-the-ready bike.
The Amazing Mets won the World Serious on Oct. 16, 1969, by mysteriously hoodwinking the American League champion Baltimore Orioles in the fifth game.
The 57,397 believers immediately went berserk by tearing up the sod at Shea.
The late and great writer, Jim Murray of the Los Angeles Times, wrote that he had interviewed one of those believers, who said he was going to put his snippet of grass in a glass of water and "it would grow forever."
When the Mets were born in 1962, they finished 80 games under .500 and Marvelous Marv Throneberry, who fumbled and bumbled his way around Shea, epitomized their ineptitude. He gave "bad" a bad name.
From their inception through 1968, they finished 10th in six of those eight seasons and twice, including 1968, they rose from the depth to finish ninth.
Then, with suddenness, they were kings of the world.
"We give heart to all the losers in the world," Mets' right-fielder Ron Swoboda told a horde of ink-stained wretches as he leaned against his sweaty cubicle.
Murray was at his best in describing how it was like the movie, 'Angels In The Outfield.'
"There were angels everywhere in the outfield, infield, the dugout, even the trainer's room. They had more seraphs in the woodwork than they have in the Vatican."
He topped his column by saying, "One should have gone and checked the locker room to see if St. Christopher was taking a shower."
While filing a story for the old Tely, I swear I saw an angel picking up the towels.
Fronting the 1969 Mets was their owner, once described by Murray as a little old lady in a floppy hat and sensible shoes. However, their heart was manager Gil Hodges, who had plied his trade a hop, skip and two jumps away at Ebbets Field as a Brooklyn Dodger.
The team consisted of such no-names as Ron Swoboda, Al Weiss, Cleon Jones, Wayne Garrett, Ed Charles, Bud Harrelson, Rod Gaspar, Ed Kranepool, Tommie Agee, Art Shamsky and someone named Donn Clendenon. On the mound were Tom Seaver, Jack DiLauro, Gary Gentry, Jerry Koosman, Tug McGraw, Nolan Ryan and Toronto's Ron Taylor, who practiced medicine on the side. Also on the team that year was OF Amos Otis, who said: "I get on base by making good contact with the ball, but whenever I hit a home run, I'm as surprised as everybody else."
On that day, Baltimore became a "bombed-out" city of shattered dreams. They have since recovered to rebuild again.
But on Oct. 16, 1969, it was a day of miracles and angels everywhere. It wasn't just a game, it was an awakening for a young sportswriter. He became a fan for a day. That was definitely a no-no.
Then reality set in and I went back to covering drab happenings.
However, the memories remain.
Now where's that snippet of grass? I bet it's still growing.
***
If the Mets were to play the Orioles in the 2005 World Series, what would the New York lineup look like: Reyes, Cairo, Cameron, Floyd, Wright, Anderson, Piazza!
See I told you, not a Swoboda or Clendenon in the bunch.
***
Theodore Roosevelt, 'Man in the Arena' Speech (April 23, 1910)
"It is not the critic who counts, nor the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is not effort without error and shortcomings, but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."