Sickness and the Miracle Mets
Posted: August 13th, 2008 | Filed under: Baseball | 58 Comments »
I don’t think of myself as a sickly person. I’ve probably not missed three days of work in my entire life, and in some box in a spare room of my parents home I should have a couple of perfect attendance certificates from school*, and the only nights I ever spent in a hospital were those nights after my two daughters were born.
*This may be more of a reflection of parents who did not believe in sickness.
All that said, I look back and realize that I’ve gotten sick at great sporting events all over the world. I was sick for the entire 2004 Olympics in Athens, for instance. It was awful — coughing fits, shakes, aches and pains, rhythmic gymnastics –symptoms you don’t hear about on the Nyquil commercials. I got violently ill in Scotland just before the 2002 British Open; I was so cold, I remember, they brought up extra like seven extra blankets and I was STILL shivering underneath, I felt like one of those old cowboys in the movies who had been shot, and he was a goner, but his buddy was a sayin’ “Hold on Tex! Drink this whiskey. You’ll be all right, Tex, there’s still a lot left for you to do in this world.”
And as for shivering, that wasn’t even the worst one — I was once shivering inside Allen Fieldhouse during a Kansas basketball game, which seems impossible because the temperature at Allen Fieldhouse never drops below 148 degrees. Celsius. Allen Fieldhouse is hot enough to kill E coli bacteria. And yet, I was freezing in there, wearing my heavy coat, shaking uncontrollably like I was one of the Solid Gold dancers, and I remember this sportswriting dolt next to me kept asking if the Jayhawks (who were leading by, like, 30 at the time) were playing zone or man-to-man.
And so on. I thought of these things on Tuesday when I woke up in the middle of a funhouse. Well, to be technical I woke up in my bed which is both (A) About 9 inches high and (B) Roughly the density and give of a Black and Decker work bench. No kidding, you could do some woodoworking on my bed. I thought that I had slept on a hard bed in Japan, holy cow, that thing was like the Princess and the Pea compared to this slab of marble. My room here has a desk and a bed, and the first one is more comfortable, the second one easier to write on — this is definitely a different country.
Anyway, I woke up and the room was spinning. It was not entirely unexpected — the room was also spinning when I went to bed too. Still, it was disconcerting — I didn’t really feel too bad except that when I stood up I was like Trevor Berbick after he get elbowed in the forehead by Mike Tyson, I was staggering from one side of the ring to the other. I kept trying to get across the room, and it was like trying to walk in one of those moonwalk bubbles they have at county fairs and kid-friendly car dealerships during year end sales.
It was the strangeness of the moment that threw me. I’ve never had that kind of dizzy spell before. To be honest, I’ve never had any kind of dizzy spell before. The trouble with having a whole new thing hit you in China, at least for me, was that I had no idea what to do (do you take aspirin when you’re teetering around the room like the crew of the Starship Enterprise? How about Tums?). I had no idea how long it would last. I had no idea if the next step was an alien emerging from my stomach or my face melting or what.
This was the state I was in when I watched Michael Phelps win his third gold medal, breaking another world record, this time in the 200 meter freestyle. I’m not sure what Phelps’ swimming OPS+ is — it would obviously be affected by the new LAZR suits, which apparently can break Olympic records without the actual swimmer, and the depth of the pool, which apparently makes it the fastest in the world, the Coors Field of swimming pools. But I can tell you that even while I was sitting there watching the world go round and round (I really love to watch it roll), Phelps was still swimming fast.
Then i spent the rest of the day trying to get the everything to stop turning. Things slowly did return to normal, or at least something resembling normal, which was a bit of a relief. And I was able to catch up on some Internet reading. It was while doing an Internet search that I caught the news that the Tampa Bay Rays have set a record for most victories in a season. Already. I love this story. It’s still not even August 15th, and they have already set the record. How great is that?
And it got me thinking about the ‘69 Mets. You know before 1969, the Mets had never won more than 73 games in a season. So the Mets set the team record for most victories that year on August 27, when Jerry Koosman two-hit the Padres. If you’re curious or Jerry Koosman himself, well, he gave up both those hits in the first inning — one of them was a home run to Downtown Ollie Brown*. Koosman also had two hits in the game — that’s got to be a rarity, when a pitcher gives up and gets precisely the same number of hits in a game.
*Has there ever been hard-hitting player in any walk of life named “Brown” who did not have the nickname “Downtown?” There was Downtown Freddie Brown, Downtown Ollie Brown, Downtown Julie Brown (of course), and Downtown Leona Brown, a woman’s boxer from Buffalo. There was also Marcel “Downtown” Brown from Simon and Simon. If Three Finger Brown had a full hand, he would have, no doubt, been called Downtown Mordecai Brown.
The Mets lost their next game after that to the Giants — Juan Marichal shut them out — and at that point they were four games behind the Chicago Cubs. On September 5th, after losing the second-game of a doubleheader, the Mets were 4 1/2 games behind the Cubs. That was a fascinating Cubs team, of course. They had three Hall of Famers (Ernie Banks, Billy Williams and Ferguson Jenkins) and a fourth guy who should be in the Hall (Ron Santo). They had an All-Star Catcher in Randy Hunley, a six-time All-Star at shortstop in Don Kessinger, a four-time All-Star second baseman in Glenn Beckert, and pitching, they had a young Ken Holtzman, the pride of Hackensack Bill “Froggy” Hands (who won 20), closer Phil Regan (who was becoming known as the vulture for stealing 12 victories out of the pen) and very young Joe Niekro and Jim Colborn who did not pitch much yet. You’ve got to believe that you give that team a 4 1/2 game lead with 27 games left, they should hold on.
And that’s when the Mets went one one of the greatest stretch runs in baseball history, and the Cubs went on one of the worst. I’ve always known that this happened, and yet I don’t think I ever fully appreciated the details.
After Sept 5:
The New York Mets went 22-5.
The Chicago Cubs went 8-16.
When that happens, well, yeah. The Cubs didn’t just not hold on. They finished eight games back. Eight. It wasn’t even close. The Mets won 10 in a row at the start of their streak, and the Cubs lost nine of 10. That will do it. That means in a week and a half, the Mets went from 4 1/2 down to 3 1/2 up. And it only got worse from there.
That Mets run at the end is especially incredible because, well, they didn’t hit. During that stretch, the Mets as a team hit .231/.319/.321 and averaged barely 3.6 runs per game. And they still went 22-5. How is that even possible? Well, it was a different time …
Tom Seaver went 5-0 with a 0.80 ERA.
Jerry Koosman went 5-0 with a 1.44 ERA.
Tug McGraw won two games, added two saves and gave up one run in 17 innings.
As a staff, the Mets went 22-5 with a 1.92 ERA, the league batted .201 against them, and they threw 10 (10!) shutouts.
The Cubs meanwhile, hit even worse than the Mets. And the pitching was not quite as good.
Fergie Jenkins went 2-4 with a 5.27 ERA and the league hit .318 off him.
Ken Holtzman went 1-5 with a 4.56 ERA.
Phil Regan went 0-1 with a 7.04 ERA in relief.
I think about that Mets team because although I wasn’t especially baseball aware at the time — being two years old and not having ESPN yet — I’ve got to believe the conventional sportswriting wisdom was that there was no way the Mets could win. They couldn’t hit, they had all that young pitching, the Cubs had so many established great players and so on.
That’s precisely the general vibe I get when it comes to the Rays … I think most people still expect them to fold. They’re young, they’re beat up, the Red Sox have so much talent and experience, the Yankees are the Yankees and so on. But, I don’t know. The Rays have that talented young pitching (and when do they try to change the whole landscape of this pennant race by bringing David Price into the picture?). I’ve been on the Rays since the start. I’m still on them. I think they win it.
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I remember a basketball announcer in the early 80s comparing Georgetown’s Fred Brown (the one who threw the pass to James Worthy) to his namesake on the SuperSonics, the Original Downtown Freddie Brown, and saying that the Georgetown version was more of a “Midtown Freddie Brown” because he didn’t have the same range on his jumper. I want to say it was Billy Packer who said it, but that doesn’t seem like something he’d say.
“that’s got to be a rarity, when a pitcher gives up and gets precisely the same number of hits in a game.”
I imagine this is the case for most pitchers who have thrown no-hitters.
Joe, next time you get dizzy, try taking some Benadryl. It will probably make you sleepy, but the dizziness will go away.
Heh, that’s funny Bob, I was thinking the same thing when I read that. I guess we’re both no fun. : )
I’ve heard of Downtown Julie Brown, but hadn’t realized her nickname was mandatory, like how everyone named Rhodes ends up called “Dusty”. The lack of imagination there is, of course, staggering — just think how much you could say about a player by choosing carefully among Gravel Rhodes, Icy Rhodes, Secondary Rhodes, Feeder Rhodes, or Scholar Rhodes — and I’m inclined to think Brown has at least as many euphonious options, although off-hand I’m only coming up with Found Sound, Ground Round, or of course Quick Fox Brown (now that, Julie shoulda used). But clearly someone should study the issue before the next hard-hitter comes along.
I appreciated the Simon & Simon reference. That was a great show.
Wait. What does that mean, you think they’ll win it? You think they’ll win the World Series? Or the pennant? Or the division?
you forgot Downtown Terry Brown
Jim Brown played offense, but he was hard hitting and, to my recollection, not “Downtown”.
Two things – I remember Downtown Julie Brown used to be on MTV all the time and it seemed like the only thing she did was say “Wubba wubba wubba” every two minutes. Where is she now?
Second, did you know that Bobby Brown played for the Padres and was on their Wold Series team in 1984? Supposedly he used to dance and sing in the lockerroom and got his big break one day in LA when a talent scout saw him singing and dancing while shagging flies in the outfield. Who knew?
“*This may be more of a reflection of parents who did not believe in sickness.”
This reminds me of one of my favorite Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey:
“Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis.â€
Ah, there were TWO Julie Brown’s on MTV. I’d forgotten that, but luckily wackypedia hasn’t.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downtown_Julie_Brown
If I weren’t a Yankee fan, I’d be right there with you cheering them on. But since I am, I’m hoping (beyond hope) for another historic collapse. Fingers crossed.
The Unsinkable Molly Brown – now THERE was a hard hitter!
Not sure what kind of news you’re allowed to get over there, Joe, but the Rays lost Carl Crawford for 6-8, and Longoria for at least 15 days…you think David Price can offset those losses? Their pitching was able to keep them on top when they were a middle-of-the-pack offense, but now with the worst offense in the division…?
Well, they Rays have the lead, and they have slightly better pitching than the Red Sox, so they certainly have a great shot. That said, the similarities with the ‘69 Mets come to a crashing halt when you realize that:
1. The Mets had no pressure because they were the ones chasing, whereas the Rays are the ones being chased.
2. The Mets were chasing the Cubs, who were not exactly the defending world champs.
3. The Mets didn’t lose their best hitter with seven weeks to go in the season, as the Rays just did.
All things considered, the team with the better run differential generally wins, and though it’s true that means the Cubs should have finished ahead of the Mets in ‘69, I’ll still take the odds and go with the +114 Red Sox over the +64 Rays.
My dad was in Vietnam in 1968 and 1969. He tells this great story — I tend to doubt this is true, but I like it anyway. They were chatting, before the season, about who was going to win the World Series that year. My dad, just for the hell of it, said the Mets would. Everyone thought he was crazy, but my dad stuck to his best poker face and said, no, he was serious: the Mets. Thankfully, he came home in July 1969.
If my last name were Rhodes, I’d stop shaving and combing my hair and bathe infrequently, hoping for the nickname “Minimum Maintenance”
Conventional wisdom always favors the team with the most experience. It’s amazing how often it’s wrong. I enjoy listening to announcers rhapsodize about how Some Guy knows how to get it done, since he’s been there before. I liked Bernie Williams as much as I’ve ever liked any Yankee, but he was treated this way more often than any player I can think of. I would always shout at the TV (oh, my poor wife!), “You know, Willie Mays is still alive, too.”
I like to imagine John Kruk analyzing the free agent signing of 77-year old Willie Mays. “I don’t see how this possibly hurts them. You’re talking about a guy with 660 career home runs, a .300 batting average, more than 300 steals … and people are saying he’s too old? That’s just crazy! Look, I know he struggled in his last year with the Mets, but you’re talking about one of the greatest [pause] hitters [pause] of all TIME. He knows how to win. And that’s exactly what this team needs right now. Anyone who doesn’t like this signing jut needs to shut up.”
Didn’t Orel Hershiser get as many hits as he gave up in a WS game in 1988? That might be a distinction he shares only with Don Larsen.
How do you know it’s going to be a good day?
When you read a post with a Simon & Simon reference.
Magnum PI and Simon & Simon back-to-back on CBS (Thursday or Friday night?).
As much as this entry was centered on the Mets/Rays push through the final weeks of the season, it should’ve been noted that the division leading Cubs are once again poised for another historic meltdown. No one really believes they’ll finally pull it off, do they?
Err, sorry Oddibe, Bobby Brown was already singing in New Edition by 1984.
No thanks. I’ll pass.
I was right. Game 2, 1988 WS. Orel H. gave up 3 singles (all to Dave Parker). The first two times Parker was erased in DPs hit into by Mark McGwire. Orel went 3 for 3 at the plate, scoring the Dodgers first run and driving in the last one in a 6-0 win.
That just might be the best game a pitcher not named Don Larsen has ever had in the WS.
Koosman, 4-84 that season, and who set a hitting futility record some time later, was part of a Met doubleheader sweep of the Pirates in which they won both ends, 1-0, with both runs driven in by the starting pitchers, Koosman, and Don Cardwell.
That 69 Mets staff had some freaks–Seaver, Koosman, Ryan and McGraw all pitched effectively til 40 and beyond. And reliever (Dr.) Ron Taylor is now (or was until recently) the Blue Jays team doctor.
The Cubs may have had age-ish experience in 1969, but they didn’t have pennant race experience. In that sense, they were in the same boat as the Mets; and that makes this year’s Sox-Rays a bit different.
I can’t believe you forgot “Downtown” Emil Brown.
Nobody’s ever called him Downtown Emil Brown. He just never earned it.
back when i was destroying t-ball pitching (about the only time i was ever considered ‘hard-hitting’) my nickname was also “downtown”, which beat having my name pronounced “seen” because apparently no one had heard of sean connery in texas in 1984.
Joe, hope you’re feeling better.
. . . that’s got to be a rarity, when a pitcher gives up and gets precisely the same number of hits in a game.
The Bucs’ Jeff Karstens did that just last week against the D-Backs when he took the perfect game into the eighth, getting both hits off of Randy Johnson.
There’s also a locally brewed beer in La Crosse, WI, called Downtown Brown.
“Low-down” Emil Brown would be more apropos.
OK, a little research on the rarity of a pitcher giving up as many hits as he gets in a game. I think it has happened 5 times in the WS.
1) Rube Foster gave up 3 hits and went 3 for 4 in Game 2 of the 1915 WS for the Red Sox vs. the Phillies
2) Bureligh Grimes gave up 2 hits and went 2 for 4 in Game 3 of the 1931 WS for the Cardinals vs. the A’s
3) Allie Reynolds gave up 2 hits and went 2 for 3 in Game 1 of the 1949 WS for the Yankees vs. the Dodgers
4) Don Larsen gave up 0 hits and went 0 for 2 in Game 5 of the 1956 WS for the Yankees vs. the Dodgers
5) Orel Hershiser gave up 3 hits and went 3 for 3 in Game 2 of the 1988 WS for the Dodgers vs. the A’s
If you throw out the perfect game, that is 4 games in what, around 540 WS games where the pitcher was hitting? Admittedly WS games is a pretty small sample in comparison to all games ever played, but that works out to once every 135 games played.
Hold on Joe! You’ll be alright! You have a lot of blogs left to write in this world!
What?! Bobby Brown of the Padres and Bobby Brown of New Edition aren’t the same guy? Are you sure? I think Brown used to complain to Dick Williams about not getting enough playing time in the Padre outfield what with Carmelo Martinez, Kevin McReynolds, and Tony Gwynn filling those spots. Williams would yell at Brown, “It’s my prerogative!” and them relagate him back to the bench with Kurt Bevacqua and Champ Summers. That’s where the song came from.
Has anyone looked at the current poll question?
“Should I go to Springsteen?”
What the hell kind of question is that coming from an avowed Springsteen fan?
Awesome research Brent! My hat off to you, good sir.
On an olympic note, nbc’s web coverage of the olympics is phenomenal. It’s so much better than their TV coverage, it’s like they’re covering different things.
One giant advantage of web coverage over TV coverage : No 5,000,000,000,000 mugshots of Phelps’ mom. We get it. She’s excited for her kid. That gives her something in common with ~ 6,000 other moms. We don’t need to see her mug every 3.4 seconds and listen to her screaming all the time. Really, we don’t. We also don’t need a new reporter sitting with her every night. Really. We don’t.
Trust NBC to make everything so freaking obnoxious that people start disliking Michael Phelps because of their “We will cram the Phelps family down your THROAT!” coverage.
If you see Bob Costas, Joe, tell him to knock it off.
I wasn’t around for the collapse of ‘69. However, I am in wonderment at how much that event affected Ron Santo. He still hates the Mets, and I have no doubt that the experience was one of the most painful for the man. I have never heard any of his teammates from Randy Hundly, to Banks get as emotional as Santo over the mets. If nothing else, i hope that a 2008 WS win will make that man smile for the rest of his life. How can you not love a man with his heart on his sleeve..?
Drink plenty of (safe) fluids Joe. (no ice) You sound a bit dehydrated. And stick to solid foods, easy on the spices.
As for the Rays – even though I’m seeing more and more TB hats on the kids out here, and what they’ve done so far is impressive – and David Price looks like the real deal.
Papi hit two out yesterday, Bay is solid. And I have to agree with Paul White above, the Sox will pull it out.
Hey we just signed the Bird! (er…Byrd!)
However, I would love to see the Rays get in (as a wild card), it’s hard not to like this story. Too bad Evan and Carl went down.
Oh, let me just add…
The Angels look unbeatable… I doubt they fold in three games like they did last year.
How do you rank Scoscia against Gardy?
Positively Gibbyish Joe. Coming off your sick bed to deliver in the clutch with a downtown homerun, chock full of pop culture references, and the “rhytmic gymanastics” symptom of illness was massive.
“Hey we just signed the Bird! (er…Byrd!)”
Awesome job by NESN last night. The headline of their Paul Byrd graphic was “Byrd Is Walking Through That Door”
Ha!
“Phelps’s mom is proud of him” may have passed “Jerome Bettis is from Detroit” on the over-hyped story meter for the last 5 years.
Another reader brought up “Downtown” Terry Brown, so I”ll just say I think “Downtown” is probably the best nickname for a basketball player more than other sports. It implies that they can hit shots from downtown, which, of course, he could.
How about Sent Down Emil Brown? Too harsh?
I guess it is, he’s only at .249/.292/.395.
Feel better Joe!
The Downtown Brown nickname works best for Browns with 2- or 3-syllable first names. It’s kind of clunky to use it with a single-syllable name like Jim. Downtown Jimmy Brown would flow much better than Downtown Jim Brown.
3-syllables can work: Downtown Theotis Brown. Downtown H. Rap Brown. Downtown A. Whitney Brown. 2 syllables is best though: Downtown Charlie Brown. Downtown Gordon Brown.
But Downtown John Brown? No. Downtown Helen Gurley Brown doesn’t work either, 4 syllables won’t flow. But how about 6 syllables? Downtown Encyclopedia Brown kind of works if you say it fast enough.
I’ve NEVER understood why shooting “from downtown” is an expression meaning an outside shot. There playing in a downtown arena in most cities!
Wouldn’t “from the suburbs” make a lot more sense?
love the Solid Gold reference…Did anyone see Lebron as “Alexander” on SNL as a Solid Gold dancing machine? Joe, you are the man!!!!!!
Re: Phelps’ mom overcoverage
Maybe if Phelps would be less dominating, NBC would have less dead time during races. You could watch last night’s TEX-BOS game in the space between Phelps finishing and 2nd place.*
*OK, maybe not the whole game, but certainly the “highlights.”
so are there any other sports in the olympics besides swimming and gymnastics, joe? could you ask bob costas for me?
Bad Bad Leroy Brown! Sorry, I got here late. Feel better Joe.
I used to have to travel all over the US back in the 90’s when I worked in publishing, and it would never fail that I would either feel sick as a dog as soon as I got off the plane, or my knee tendonitis I hadn’t had a problem with for months would rear it’s ugly head and my knee would blow up like a watermelon upon touchdown in the plane, or as soon as I walked into whatever convention or meeting center I would be working from the next 4 days, the recycled crappy air would make my eyes turn red like I just walked out of a Bob Marley Concert, and run like I just saw “Bambi”. I started to dread the travel portion of work, until I decided to get pro-active and load my brief case up with every iaginable preventative or cure-all I could think of.
Pepto-Bismol caplets, Benadryl, naprosen (for the knee inflammation), Visene, bottled water (own a big briefcase), NyQuil, etc etc. I used to have work contemporaries come up to me all the time if they had any problems, because they all knew my briefcase was loaded. And I, like you Joe, was a never sick, no headaches, never miss school kind of guy—travel just always used to kick my keister—but the parties at the end of the day somehow made the other crap worthwhile–that’s all I really miss about those days really. It’s way more rewarding to work from home and raise your son fulltime and watch him grow up than be a cog in a corporate kiss-ass contest where you give your employers ideas that make them millions of dollars and not even get a thank you, let alone a raise. But I digress….
Sickness and the Miracle Mets…
Bookmarked your post over at Blog Bookmarker.com!…
Thanks for the Simon and Simon flashback. You continue to amaze me Dr. Joe.
I watched Maddux 2 or 3 hit the Rockies in the final game before the 1994 strike at Mile High and believe he had 3 hits, including a 2 RBI triple.
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I remember growing up that if you went the entire year without an absent you would not only get a certificate, you would be given, by the school, two free tickets to a White Sox game. I spent the entire year slogging to school under a veil of less than ripe physical condition only to be presented with, at the end of the school year, a bright, shiny: “Cretificate of Perfect Attendance.”
They stopped the practice of handing out baseball duckets without notifying the general student population. Aparently they had forgotten the stunning appeal of Ron Karkovice.
Sep 15, 1969, Steve Carlton sets major league record, strikes out 19! and loses to the Mets….
Biggest sports heartbreak of my life. I, like Ron Santo, hate the Mets
“Downtown” Brown?
“Dusty” Rhodes?
Is this a map, or a proposition?
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