The 1969 Miracle Mets The Improbable Story of the World's Greatest Underdog Team

by Travers, Steven; Harrelson, Bud

• ISBN13: 9781599214108
• ISBN10: 1599214105
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-03-17
• Publisher: Lyons Press

Summary

In the 1977 movie Oh, God!, George Burns, playing the deity, is asked to prove his divinity by performing a miracle. Burns replies, "The last miracle I did was the 1969 Mets. Before that, I think you have to go back to the Red Sea."This book tells the tale of the single most impossible, unbelievable, and wonderful sports story of all time - of the 1969 Amazin' Mets and their incredible spring, summer, and fall. But it does much more than simply recount how the worst sports franchise ever ascended to greatness in a few short months. The 1969 Miracle Mets is the story of tumultuous times: the 1960s. Against the backdrop of the Vietnam War, the New York Mets proved to be a metaphor for a changing America and, in retrospect, the catapult for the eventual comeback of a battered-yet-unbowed Metropolis. Tom Seaver and his teammates come alive in these pages as the final symbols of an innocent age, an age when the greatest icons in American culture - New York sports heroes-mounted the stage in awesome splendour, before Watergate, before free agency, before the mercenaries took over.

Author Biography

Steven Travers is a USC graduate, a former professional baseball player, and the author of many books, including the best-selling Barry Bonds: Baseball’s Superman, nominated for a Casey Award as Best Baseball Book of 2002.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Foreword

Introduction: The glory of their times

The true New York Sports Icon

The reincarnation of Christy Mathewson

If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere "Can't anybody here play this game?"

The eve of destruction

High hopes In the "big inning" Meet the Mets

The leaping corpse

The first crucial day

The birth of a true New York Sports Icon

After the Pentecost: July 11 - July 16, 1969

The wrath of Gil Resurrection

The march to the sea David vs. Goliath

The perfect game

The Promised Land Fall from gracePlato's retreat and subsequent comeback

The empire strikes back Whatever happened to . . .?

Those Amazin' Mets A shining city on a hill

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.