It’s not everyday that witnesses the resignation of the Vice-President of the United States.
But then again it’s not everyday that a team which only won 82 games during the regular season is playing in a winner-take-all game 5 of the National League Championship Series.
Surreal or not, unlikely or not, these events (and more) took place on a Wednesday afternoon, October 10, 1973.
The scene was Shea Stadium in Flushing, NY where 50, 323 fans gathered to witness the series finale between the Cincinnati Reds and New York Mets.
This NLCS featured the Reds winning games one and four by identical 2-1 scores while the Mets showing some more power in their 5-0 and 9-2 wins paced by terrific pitching and three home runs by Rusty Staub.
The series also featured bad-blood between Bud Harrelson and Pete Rose ignited by a fight in game 3 when Rose slid hard into Harrelson at second in an attempt to break up a double play.
As the teams emptied onto the field, the combatants were separated and order was restored.
Neither player was ejected.
But as Rose took his place in left field in the bottom of the inning (the fifth), debris rained down from the stands, so much so that Reds manager, Sparky Anderson, took his team off the field.
Several Mets stars came onto the field to try to calm the fans down, and the game proceeded to completion without further incident.
The fans would play a role in game five, two days later.
The Mets just suffered another one of those losses. You know the one.
The one where a Mets ace (in this case, Tom Seaver) pitched brilliantly, got no run support, and lost 1-0.
That game was against the St. Louis Cardinals and it took place on August 30, 1973.
The Mets were 61-71 and in last place in the NL East as they awoke on August 31.
However, the Mets, oft-injured during the 1973 campaign, were slowly getting their players back.
Tom Seaver, Jon Matlack, George Stone and Jerry Koosman ratcheted up their games and the Mets finished the season strongly, with the urging of the now famous McGraw rallying cry, ‘Ya Gotta Believe’ echoing through all nooks and crannies of Shea.
They went 21-8 to finish the season at 82-79, still the record for the lowest win percentage by a division champ.
The Mets were underdogs to the mighty Reds, a team that won 99 games and featured a line-up with a bevy of future Hall-of-Famers.
The Reds bats were largely held at bay throughout the series as the Mets pitching was superb.
In five games, Cincinnati was held to just eight runs.
The fifth game’s final score was 7-2 with the Mets, in their 12th year of existence, taking their second pennant.
The game was a lot closer then the final score indicated as the Reds had chance after chance to win.
In the first inning, the Reds loaded the bases with two-outs, but starting pitcher Tom Seaver induced a fly-out by Ken Griffey.
The Mets scored a pair in the bottom of the frame as Ed Kranepool, who was making his first appearance in the series, singled to drive in two and give the Mets the early lead.
During the early goings-on, the game, which was televised by NBC, took an unusual turn when a simple crawl crept across the screen.
Spiro Agnew, the 39th vice-president of the US, announced his resignation.
He was the second veep in history to resign, making for rather interesting in-game news.
The Reds tied things up with single runs in third and the fifth to tie the game at two.
The Mets took the lead for good in the fifth putting up a four-spot to give the Mets a 6-2 lead.
And none other than Willie Mays was right in the middle of things.
Doubles by Wayne Garrett and Cleon Jones and a fielder’s choice by Felix Millan scored the first run.
After John Milner walked, Mays pinch-hit for Kranepool. Like Kranepool, Mays was also making his first appearance of the NLCS and, ironically, he also delivered his first hit.
His single drove in Felix Millan.
Mays was interviewed by Lindsey Nelson, and told the Mets broadcaster, “When I walked to the plate I didn’t hear anything.”
“I understand that the people love me around New York, but my main thought there is, ‘Hey, you’ve got to get this run in.’”
The ninth started with the Mets ahead 7-2 but the Reds did not go away quietly.
They loaded the bases of off Seaver with one out and Mets manager went to McGraw despite his pitching 4 1/3 innings the game before.
Tug didn’t seen tired.
In perhaps the biggest at-bat in the game for the Reds, Joe Morgan popped out for the second out.
Dan Driessen was retired on a ground-out as McGraw earned the save, and the Mets earned the NL Pennant.
Unfortunately, some of the Mets fans wanted to have their say as a full-scale riot broke out.
Sportswriter Joseph Durso witnessed the scene and wrote later:
“But then, in a swirling scene, thousands of persons in the crowd of 50,323 stormed the field — and clawed huge chunks of fence, sod and fixtures from the arena. Professional sports may have had more clamorous moments. But New York baseball has had none since the Mets won the World Series four years ago, after eight seasons as the comic relief of the leagues.”
The 340 policemen and private officers who were on duty were completely outmanned.
As WFAN’s Bob Heussler, a college student at the game that day, recalled years later, “It was like a carpet bombing except it was done by the fans — this was really ugly. It was an unfortunate P.S. to the pivotal moment of 1973.”
It was sort of like a microcosm of the nation around them, with Watergate in full bloom, riots throughout much of the land and the Yom Kippur War raging. Surreal, indeed.
An axiom in baseball is, good pitching beats good hitting.
The 1973 NLCS was a splendid example of this mantra.
The Mets hit just .220 for the series but the great NY Mets pitching held the hard-hitting Reds to a meager .186 team batting average.
Considering that two of the Reds, Pete Rose and Tony Perez, finished in the top ten in the league in batting and Johnny Bench had his usual 100+ RBI season, that .186 average is startling.
The Mets went on to lose a tough seven game World Series to the Oakland A’s.
The Reds, for their part, had to wait another year before winning it all in an epic 1975 Fall Classic.
The 1973 National League Championship Series took place under tense, raw and disturbing times.
It was a needed respite.
It delivered tense, well-played games replete with stars on both sides.
We remember this highlight in Mets history and pay homage to the wonderful, 12-year old team who gave all of us pennant number two. “Ya Gotta Believe.”
