The 1973 baseball season was unusual in that all four division winners — Oakland, Baltimore, Cincinnati, and the New York Mets — started the season slowly. At the end of June, Oakland, the defending MLB champions, had finally squeezed into first place, half a game ahead of Minnesota and less than two games ahead of California, Chicago, and Kansas City. Baltimore was in second place two games behind the Yankees.
Things were much more dire for Cincinnati and the Mets. The Big Red Machine was stalled in fourth place 11 games behind the Dodgers. The Mets were dead last, 10.5 games behind the Chicago Cubs. Their record was 32-39.
It’s a long season, though, and during July and August the three powerhouse contenders — Oakland, Baltimore, and Cincinnati — sorted things out. By the end of August, the As and the Os had taken command of their divisions — leading by 5.5 and 6 games, respectively.
The Reds still trailed the Dodgers, but only by three games. They would open the month of September with five straight wins and by September 5, led the Dodgers by two games. They then won seven of their next nine, and never looked back.
The Mets were a different story. At the end of August, they were still well below .500 and trailed the first place Cardinals by 5.5 games. Even more significantly, they were in fifth place. With the teams in their divisions set to play each other constantly in September, there were only so many total losses the teams ahead of them would absorb. Catching all four seemed highly improbable.
On the plus side, New York’s ace reliever, Tug McGraw, who had battled arm trouble for much of the year, finally found his form. He entered September with a 5.05 ERA. Allowing only one earned run in September while saving ten games, he would lower that mark to 3.87.
At last, Mets Yogi Berra, who was being vilified in the press for leaving his starters in too long, could give aces Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman, and Jon Matlack, some relief. And, finally, he had a healthy lineup, as Jerry Gtote, Cleon Jones, Bud Harrelson, and John Milner had all overcome the injuries that plagued them earlier in the season.
Under these circumstances, Yogi famously pronounced, “it ain’t over til it’s over.” But the Mets rallying cry came from McGraw: “You gotta believe.”
The Mets won 11 of their first 16 September games. This lifted them into fourth place, 2.5 games behind division-leading Pittsburgh. With a five game series against the Pirates in Pittsburgh next on the menu, the Mets could overhaul the Bucs by winning four of the five.
But the possibility of a sweep seemed remote after the Pirates routed the Mets in Pittsburgh in the series opener, 10-3. Tom Seaver was the loser, giving up five runs in three innings against the formidable Bucs lineup.
The Mets prospects seemed even more grim when, in the second game of the series, the Mets trailed the Pirates 4-1 with one out in the top of the ninth. But the Mets rallied.
Pinch hitter Jim Beauchamp singled. Wayne Garrett doubled. Felix Millan tripled. Rusty Staub walked. Suddenly, the Mets trailed by only one run.
Finally, Danny Murtaugh called on his ace reliever, Dave Giusti. But Ron Hodges, pinch hitting, singled to drive in Millan with the tying run; Cleon Jones walked; and Don Hahn, also pinch hitting, singled home Staub and Ted Martinez (pinch-running for Hodges). The Mets now led 6-4.
But the drama wasn’t over. Berra had removed McGraw for a pinch hitter (Hodges) so he needed a new pitcher to close out the game. He selected Bob Apodaca, who had never appeared in a major league game.
Apodaca promptly walked Gene Clines and Milt May. Realizing his mistake, Yogi pulled Apodaca for Buzz Capra. (To be fair to Berra, Capra had worked two innings the previous day, so the reluctance to use him was understandable.)
Dave Cash, the first hitter Capra faced, was up there to bunt. He moved the runners to second and third with one out.
Capra then got a ground ball from the dangerous Al Oliver. It drove in Clines to cut the lead to 6-5, but the Mets recorded the second out.
Berra ordered Capra to walk the next batter, Willie Stargell. This meant putting the winning run on base, generally a no-no in baseball But considering the alternative — pitching to the future Hall of Famer with the tying run on third — Yogi made the right call.
Capra still had to retire one more batter, though. He failed to retire Richie Zisk, walking him (unintentionally) to move the winning run into scoring position.
Up stepped yet another dangerous Pirate — Manny Sanguillen. Capra got him on a fly ball.
The next day — this day in baseball history — the series moved from Pittsburgh to New York. The Mets left it late, again, though the game was far less dramatic.
Leading only 4-3 in the bottom of the eighth, the Mets tacked on three runs via a three-run homer by Cleon Jones off of Giusti. George Stone picked up the win, but McGraw was the pitching hero, giving the Mets three innings of scoreless relief.
The next game of the series was full of drama. The Mets trailed 2-1 in the bottom of the eighth, but tied the game with another Beauchamp pinch hit, a Garrett sacrifice, and a Millan single.
Normally, it would have been McGraw’s job to pitch the ninth in relief of the excellent Koosman, for whom Beauchamp had pinch hit. But Tug was unavailable because of his three-inning stint the day before. So Berra called on Harry Parker, who was having a respectable season as a spot-starter and long reliever.
Parker walked the lead-off batter, Bob Robertson, and Dal Maxvil bunted pinch-runner Dave Augustine to second. Parker struck out his name sake, rookie (and future MVP) Dave Parker, but Cash singled home Augustine with the go-ahead run.
The Mets needed more magic in the bottom of the ninth, and they got it. Ken Boswell became the latest Met to pinch hit successfully. He singled and moved to second base on a bunt by Hahn. Pinch hitter George Theodore struck out, but yet another pinch hitter, Duffy Dyer, doubled home Boswell to tie the game again.
Neither team could score in the first three extra innings. Little-used Jim McKee and Luke Walker navigated the Pirates through the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth.
Veteran Ray Sadecki kept the Bucs at bay, but not without a huge amount of luck. With two out In the top of the twelfth and Zisk on first, Augustine hit a shot towards the Mets bullpen. But instead of landing in the bullpen, the ball bounced off the very top of the left-center field fence and back towards Cleon Jones. A few inches higher and the Bucs would have taken a two-run lead.
Jones caught the ball on a fortunate bounce off the fence and fired a strike to cut-off man Wayne Garrett. Garrett threw home in time to nail the slow-running Zisk.
The Mets failed to score in the bottom of the inning, and Sadecki set the Bucs down in the top of the thirteenth. When Milner and Boswell led off the bottom of the bottom of the inning with walks, Murtaugh called, once again, on Giusti who got Hahn on a pop-up.
That brought Hodges to the plate. He had come on after Theodore batted for Jerry Grote, in time to apply the tag to Zisk in the twelfth inning. As he had done two days earlier, Hodges delivered. His single landed just in front of Stargell in left field to drove in Milner with the game-winning run.
The series finale, played on September 21, was no contest. Seaver, starting his second game of this series, limited the Bucs to two runs on five hits. The Mets chased Pittsburgh starter Steve Blass with four runs in the first, on their way to a 10-2 victory.
So now, the Mets led the Pirates by half a game. And they were in first place, ahead of the Cardinals by 1.0 game, the Expos by 1.5,and the Cubs by 2.5. Yet even with their great September, they were only a .500 team at 77-77.
The Mets would hold onto their lead, winning five out of the last seven. They finished 82-79, a game and a half ahead of St. Louis and two and a half games ahead of Pittsburgh.
The Mets scored the fewest runs of any team in their division (and nearly 100 fewer than the Pirates). To read the names of their hitting heroes in the Pirates series is to understand why.
Furthermore, the Cardinals had a slightly lower team ERA than the Mets. But the Mets had magic and belief. As McGraw said, ‘you gotta believe.”
Nor were the Mets done. Their magic would carry them into the World Series, as we will see.
Life long Mets fan checking in. I remember that season well; the pennant race was called the flag nobody wanted
I don’t remember this season nearly as well, except for Tug McGraw and the “You gotta believe” stuff. But PM’s recap of some of the crucial games reminds me well of my detestation of the designated hitter rule and its destruction of the drama attached to late inning managerial decisions.