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remember the 1969 World Series very well - I either watched or listened to all five games (even to the point of sneaking my transistor radio to school and running the earphone up my shirt and into my ear to listen to the game). But even better than Nolan Ryan's relief of Gary Gentry in the World Series was his splendid seven-inning relief job in the second game of the League Championship Series against the Atlanta Braves, as the Mets were en route to a three-sweep of Henry Aaron and company

Yep..You're right.. Ryan's performance was even better in that game. In fact I have a black and white 20 minute 8 millimeter film of the 1969 Mets season. It doesnt contain any highlights of the first two playoff games against the Braves but it does contain It highlights of that third game of the playoffs. That was a high scoring series. Tom Seaver and Jerry Koosman both both gave up at least five runs in each of the first two games of the series but the Mets won both games anyway. I think the scores were 9-6 and 11-5 or so. I remember Koosman saying he had nightmares about 'Bad Henry' before pitching in the series..Well i think Jerry had reasons to have nightmares because Bad Henry and Orlando Cepeda and other Braves all had some sucess hitting Tom and Jerry. The Braves also had sucess in game three against Gentry. In the film I own, the first highlight they show is Tommie Agee homering over the centerfield wall giving the Mets the early 1-0 lead. The next highlight shows Henry Aaron homering off Gentry over the center field wall giving the Braves the lead 2-1. The next highlight they show is Ken Boswell homering giving the Mets back the lead 3-2. The next highlight they show is Orlando Cepeda homering off Gentry giving the Braves back the lead 4-3. The next highlight they show is Wayne Garrett hitting a shot down the right field line. The camera is focused on the foul pole and the fans looking up. All of a sudden ..the ball clings off the pole and all the fans simultaneously raise their hands to cheer the three run homer. The camera then quickly switches to third base showing each runner as they round third base getting congradulated by Mets third base coach Eddie Yost. At the same time you can see 'Dave the Sign Man' holding up a sign that says.."Wheeeeeeeee"...The Mets took the lead 6-4 and never looked back thanks to Nolan Ryan closing the door and not allowing any further Braves to score. The last highlight shows the Shea Stadium scoreboard with all those zeros on the board since the fourth inning. That was an obvious reference to the praise of the job Ryan had done. The camera then zooms to the pitchers mound showing a confident Nolan Ryan getting ready to deliver another unhittable pitch. The Mets held a 7-4 lead in the ninth when Ryan got the last Brave to hit a weak groundball to short which resulted in a game ending series ending double play. Right after the out is recorded.. Confetti begins to reign down from Shea and you see fans raising fist (clutching the programs) in the air...It was amazing..

I also remember listening to Mets games via radio at school. My clearest memory was the last out of game five of the World Series. My friends and I were hiding with a radio listening to the last inning. Davey Johnson, future Mets manager, represented the tying run at the plate with two outs and one on base in the ninth inning. Koosman was still in the game having settled down after giving up early homers to starting pitcher Dave McNally and Frank Robinson. The Mets came back to tie the score with a 2 run Homer by Donn Clendenon in the sixth inning and a solo homer by Al Weis in the seventh. The Mets then took the lead with two runs in the 8th inning. (I know you know all this but I like to write about it because it helps regain the images in my mind) ,,We were all on pins and needles in the ninth inning as Dave Johnson stepped to the plate. I remember when Johnson hit the ball my first reaction was to freeze as the radio announcer said that the ball was hit well to left field..but then everything changed when the announcer said..Clean Jones is camped under it...That was it..I remember jumping up and down and was just completely beside myself in disbelief of what just happened..

It was the culmination of an incredible, once in a lifetime miracle year. All the memories of 1969 come back to me. Going to Fire Island Beach with my family during the summer weekends and always bringing the radio to listen to Mets games.. I remember bringing a radio with me to listen to Mets games while riding my bike to school to play handball or 'baseball' against the school building..all those wonderful memories...

Howie Rose used to broadcast a show on the radio called Mets Extra. He once put together a radio broadcast collage of Mets highlights of 1969. I think I remember hearing it when he played it during the Mets 20th anniversary of their miracle 69 championship.. It was amazing to hear some of the incredible plays that occured that year.. Somebody once said G-d must be a Mets fan.. It's hard to argue with that after hearing how the Mets won a game against the Pirates, I think, on just a fluke, on a one in a million chance happening. The ball hit the top of the left field fence and, instead of bouncing over the fense, incredibly it bounced back into the field and into the waiting arms of Cleon Jones who through a strike to the cutoff man who through a strike to homeplate catcher Jerry Grote who put a tag on a sliding runner just beating him to the plate. The Mets won that game. They also beat the Pirates in a double header that year by the identical 1-0 score. Incredibly, in both games the Mets starting pitchers, Don Cardwell and Jerry Koosman knocked in the only runs. Amazing.. How about the game that Ron Swoboda hit two, two-run homers off of St. Louis Cardinal pitcher Steve Carlton .. The Cubs must have been shaking their heads reading the headline the next day.. Carlton strikes out 19 Mets but Mets win 4-3....

Ah, the savoury pleasure of a fellow Metsaholic from back when! You might care to know that I am working on my first book and it will be about the 1962 Mets. (I was working on a book about the Cubs and the Red Sox until I started thinking about a magazine type piece commemorating the 40th anniversary, and people I showed a draft to said I just had to make a book about the original Amazin' Mets.)

By the way, the famous signmaker - he customarily sat in the box seats behind the third base dugout - was named Karl Ehrhardt, not Dave, and by trade he was a commercial artist. And he was even more magnificent in the World Series. I've never forgotten when Frank Robinson beefed over a close play in the infield (he was thrown out very tightly) and Ehrhardt whipped up one of his famously stylised signs: BACK TO YOUR NEST, BIRD! And throughout the entire Oriole ninth in the final game, he held a sign: BYE BYE BIRDIES! When Cleon Jones made the famous praying catch of Davey Johnson's fly to left, and the Mets had the Series nailed, up went a sign that said it all: THERE ARE NO WORDS. He was invited, in fact, to ride in one of the cars for the Mets' victory parade in Manhattan, and there he was, holding up a sign that said even more: THEY SAID IT COULDN'T BE DONE!

He was also prepared in the 1973 World Series, the day after the Mike Andrews contretemps, when Charley Finley tried throwing Andrews off the team for a couple of errors. The first Oakland error of the next game was greeted with YOU'RE FIRED!

Ehrhardt took a long time, however, to warm up to Ed Kranepool, who never really did live up to his earliest promise. For a long time, whenever Kranepool got a hit in a game, his typical greeting was BIG DEAL! In fact, it was Ehrhardt, in the early Polo Grounds days, who whipped up the famous sign that greeted the still-teenaged Kranepool in 1963, IS ED KRANEPOOL OVER THE HILL? But in Kranepool's later years, Ehrhardt began to like the man - possibly as Kranepool was transforming into one of the better pinch hitters in the National League (which he was for a few years), whipping up signs like KILLER KRANE and LOOPENARK THE GREAT.

Dave Kingman actually had Ehrhardt to thank for getting the nickname King Kong. When Kingman first joined the Mets in 1975, Ehrhardt was well prepared for Kingman's first downtown shot at Shea in a Met uniform (Kingman as a Giant had once smashed the Giants' team bus windshield with a homer - behind the bullpen) - sure enough, the first time Kingman went yard in Shea as a Met, there was the sign: KONG! and the nickname stuck. Kingman himself was a little squeamish about the nickname, at least until the annual Banner Day parade, when he discovered just how popular he actually was his first term with the Mets: two thirds of the banners referred to the big man, and at least half of them addressed him as "King Kong Kingman" or just "King Kong". Ehrhardt liked to greet Kingman as he approached the plate for a time at bat with THE KING OF SWING, a sign Kingman was said to have loved especially. (Kingman's troubles with the sporting press and his reputation as a mistanthrope didn't begin until after he was purged as part of the infamous Mets "Saturday Night Massacre" in 1977...)

Thought you might appreciate this, from the Mets' founding (foundling?) days...

Somebody once said G-d must be a Mets fan..

Actually, during the 1969 World Series, Sandy Koufax (then working as a baseball analyst for NBC's Game of the Week and part of the broadcast team for the World Series, with Curt Gowdy and Pee Wee Reese) asked Tom Seaver if it was true that G-d was a Met fan. "Well, Sandy, I don't know," Seaver replied, "but I think God has rented an apartment in New York someplace."

Somebody once said G-d must be a Mets fan..

Actually, during the 1969 World Series, Sandy Koufax (then working as a baseball analyst for NBC's Game of the Week and part of the broadcast team for the World Series, with Curt Gowdy and Pee Wee Reese) asked Tom Seaver if it was true that G-d was a Met fan. "Well, Sandy, I don't know," Seaver replied, "but I think G-d has rented an apartment in New York someplace."

Somebody once said G-d must be a Mets fan.

Nah, 1969 was the year the Mets picked up St Christopher on waivers.