History of the World Series – 1969

The History of The World Series

History of the World Series – 1969

So, when Don Buford of the talented and deep Baltimore club slammed Seaver’s second pitch of Game 1 over the fence, and Baltimore tacked on three more runs in the fourth inning, you could hear mutterings of “I told you so” at Baltimore’s Memorial Stadium.

By afternoon’s end, lefthander Mike Cuellar had yielded only six hits and struck out eight. Baltimore was an easy 4-1 winner in a game in which its four big boppers — Boog Powell (37 home runs, 121 runs batted in during the regular season), Frank Robinson (32 homers, 100 RBIs), Brooks Robinson (23 homers, 84 RBIs) and Paul Blair (26 homers, 76 RBIs) — managed one single in 15 at-bats.

Koosman kept Baltimore’s big guns quiet again in Game 2. In fact, the 26-year-old lefthander kept the entire Orioles lineup still through six innings. While he was pitching no-hit baseball, Donn Clendenon had lifted the Mets into a 1-0 lead with a fourth-inning home run off Dave McNally.

The Orioles tied the score in the seventh when Blair led off with Baltimore’s first hit, stole second and scored on Brooks Robinson’s two-out single. New York put together just enough offense in the ninth, though, to beat McNally as Ed Charles, Jerry Grote and Al Weis came through with two-out singles. Koosman then got last-out relief help from Ron Taylor and was a 2-1 victor. Baltimore’s Powell, the Robinson duo and Blair went 2-for-14 against the Mets in this one.

Game 3 at the Mets’ Shea Stadium featured another bad day at the office (3-for-15) for Baltimore’s fearsome foursome. It also featured one of the greatest individual performances in the 66-year history of the World Series, courtesy of the Mets’ Tommie Agee. Center fielder Agee gave his club all the run production it would need with a first-inning homer off Jim Palmer. Then with two out and Oriole runners on first and third in the fourth, Agee raced to the 396-foot sign in left-center and made a backhanded, fingertip catch of Elrod Hendricks’ smash. In the seventh, with the bases loaded and two out, Agee made a headlong, diving grab of Blair’s liner that appeared headed up the alley in right-center. The Mets, also getting a home run from Ed Kranepool, came out on top, 5-0, as Gentry and reliever Nolan Ryan combined on a four-hitter.

Seaver, a 25-game winner for the Mets in ’69 (his third big-league season), took a 1-0 edge into the ninth inning of Game 4, thanks to Clendenon’s homer in the second. But with one out in the ninth, Frank Robinson and Powell singled and Brooks Robinson followed with a line drive to right-center. Mets right fielder Ron Swoboda, not known for his defensive prowess, made a diving, one-handed catch of the liner. While Frank Robinson tagged up and scored from third, Swoboda had short-circuited a potential big inning.

The game remained 1-1 until the last of the 10th when the Mets pushed across the winning run on Grote’s double and Oriole reliever Pete Richert’s errant throw on pinch-hitter J.C. Martin’s bunt. Richert’s peg struck Martin on the wrist and the ball rolled toward the outfield. Rod Gaspar, pinch-running for Grote, rolled home. Gaspar scored and the Mets won, 2-1.

Manager Earl Weaver’s stunned Orioles, down three games to one, seemed headed for a recovery of sorts in Game 5 as pitcher McNally, thanks to his own two-run homer and a solo shot by Frank Robinson, held a 3-0 lead after five innings. But the resilient Mets struck again. Cleon Jones led off the New York sixth and was struck on the foot by a McNally pitch. Clendenon — the Mets’ valuable June acquisition from the Montreal Expos — followed with a home run.

Weis, who would see duty in 10 seasons in the big leagues and hit only seven home runs, then tied the contest with a leadoff homer in the seventh against McNally.

With Eddie Watt working in relief for Baltimore in the eighth, Jones and Swoboda hit doubles that sent New York ahead, 4-3, and another Mets run scored on an error.

Besides yielding a single and Baltimore’s two homers in the third, Koosman permitted the Orioles only two other hits. And those big-four Orioles hitters, 3-for-15 in Game 4, were 2-for-15 against Koosman in what proved to be the Series finale.