Looking at the Era from 1960-1980 …
If Babe Ruth is the player who first comes to mind when the average American adult turns his or her thoughts to major league baseball, the New York Yankees have the same distinction when it comes to teams.
The Yankees are by far the most storied team in the history of baseball.
Playing in New York, the media capital of the United States, is a factor, of course, but it’s not the only one. Neither are the larger-than-life personalities on the Yankees’ roster over the years, from Ruth and Lou Gehrig to DiMaggio, Mantle, and Berra, and on to such present-day personalities as Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez.
What sets the Yankees apart above all is the success they’ve had for nearly a century. No other team comes close to the New York Yankees’ total of 27 World Series championships.
Most of those championships were captured during two periods in Yankees’ history: the Babe Ruth era and the era spanning the late 1940s through early 1960s, when the Yankees won an amazing 10 World Series championships in 16 years.
The latter Yankees’ dynasty was coming to an end in the early 60s, but memories especially of the 1961 season are still frozen in many minds. That was the year, of course, that Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris were in pursuit of baseball’s single-season home run record held by Ruth.
The nation watched as Mantle and Maris set a record-breaking pace in pursuit of the record. As it turned out, an infection ended Mantle’s season early, and he had to give up the chase after reaching 54 home runs. Maris, despite threats from many people thinking the record should be the Babe’s to keep, persevered and, on the final day of the season, broke a tie with Ruth and smacked his 61st home run of the season. Even after enduring all the threats and criticism directed at him, Maris had to endure having an asterisk placed next to his record home run total. The asterisk, of course, pointed out that Maris set his record in a 162-game season, while the Babe set his in only 154 games.
The Yankees, led by manager Ralph Houk (who replaced the legendary Casey Stengel) defeated the Cincinnati Reds to win the 1961 World Series. The Yankees won the Series again in 1962 before starting to show an aging team’s inevitable signs of decline. They lost the Series in 1963 and 1964 and continued to fall until hitting bottom in 1966, when the New York Yankees finished last in the American League for the first time since 1912. The Yankees wouldn’t return to their full glory until the George Steinbrenner-Billy Martin-Reggie Jackson era of the late 1970s, but memories of the Yankees’ unparalleled successes through 1962 seem to supersede any memories of the lean years after 1964.
New Yorkers still had plenty to cheer about when the Yankees were experiencing hard times between their glory periods in the early-to-mid 60s and the late 70s.
How could this be? The Yankees weren’t giving their fans in New York (and across the country) much to cheer about. Even worse to many New Yorkers, the beloved New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers were no longer in town, having relocated to California.
What gave many New Yorkers a reason to cheer was the arrival of an expansion team, the New York Mets, who moved into the old Polo Grounds to start the 1962 season.
And what a season it was. The Mets had lured Yankees’ managerial legend Casey Stengel out of retirement. Stengel did what he could with an expansion team’s lineup, but as the season progressed he was quoted as saying, “Can’t anybody play this here game?”
Apparently not—or at least not particularly well. The Mets lost 120 games during their initial season, though they still managed to garner modest support in the city and in other quarters that liked to support underdogs.
The next three seasons, the Mets hovered around the 50-win mark, which assured a last-place finish. Fortunately, attendance improved more than play on the field, as New Yorkers were taking to their newer team. The Mets passed 60 wins in 1966 and 1967, then 70 wins in 1968. Things were improving slowly, though clearly they were improving.
Even so, nobody foresaw events of the 1969 season—the season in which the New York Mets made history.
The Amazin’ Mets. The Miracle Mets. Take your pick. Both apply.
Led by manager Gil Hodges, Hall of Fame pitcher Tom Seaver, and forces nobody can explain, the Mets blew out of the gate and amassed 100 wins in 1969. A hundred wins is often considered the measure of a great team. During the 2012 regular season, no team reached 100 wins. But in 1969 the Mets did—and it’s possible they were the unlikeliest team ever to do it.
While the Mets seemed to have lady luck on their side, perhaps the opposite can be said of the Chicago Cubs, who appeared headed for the playoffs before suffering a late-season collapse and finishing eight games behind the Mets. Cubs fans have had to endure a lot of disappointment since winning their last World Series in 1908, and some longtime Mets fans still revel in their team’s ability to add to this disappointment in 1969.
Once they got to the playoffs, the Mets stormed through to the championship. They shut out the Atlanta Braves 3 games to none to reach the World Series. In the Series the Mets pounded the powerful Baltimore Orioles 4 games to 1.
The Mets hovered around the .500 mark during most of the next several seasons before falling into decline by the time the Yankees were back on top in 1977. The Mets have had up and down periods since achieving their unexpected success in 1969—and even won another World Series in 1986—but to many people the Mets above all represent an underdog who gives all of us hope by defying the odds and proving the naysayers wrong.
Do You Remember …
Major leaguers used to be bound to one team “for life.” There were trades, of course, but players normally had little say about where they played.
Though free agency became part of the game the mid-1970s, you may recall that in 1969 St. Louis Cardinal outfielder Curt Flood challenged the “reserve clause” binding players to their teams “for life.” Many considered Flood a pariah, his attempts to challenge the reserve clause fell flat, and his career was all but over. But history has a way of correcting misperceptions, and many people now regard Flood as a heroic trailblazer who stood up for workers’ rights. A 2011 HBO film about Curt Flood’s contribution aims to set the record straight, and, if you’re interested in learning more about one of the key developments in baseball history, it may well be worth a watch.
Did You Know …
This year Detroit’s Miguel Cabrera became the first major leaguer since the 1960-1980 period to win baseball’s Triple Crown. The Triple Crown signifies that a batter led either the American League or the National League in batting average, home runs, and RBI.
During the era from 1960 to 1980, two American League players—now Hall of Famers—achieved the feat. In 1967, Carl Yastrzemski of the Boston Red Sox won the Triple Crown. The previous year, Frank Robinson of the Baltimore Orioles was the American League Triple Crown winner.
Yastrzemski and Robinson are considered among the very elite in major league history. Both exceeded 3,000 career hits, while Robinson also is a member of the 500 home run club. Yastrzemski won multiple batting titles and an American League MVP award, while Robinson won MVPs in both leagues and was the first African American manager in major league history.
Even without all their other accolades, Yastrzemski and Robinson would be remembered to this day simply by virtue of having won the Triple Crown. Will Miguel Cabrera’s Triple Crown victory still be remembered and discussed in the 2050s?
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What era of baseball do you most like to look back on? Why? Leave a comment letting us know!
Baseball As It Used to Be … © 2012 MedicareMall.com