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How Do You Explain A Miracle?

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By MARTIN FENNELLY

mfennelly@tampatrib.com

Published: October 21, 2008

Updated: 10/21/2008 05:12 pm

ST. PETERSBURG - I can't explain it to my 11-year-old son.

I try to tell him about men on the moon and a baseball team in New York and how sometimes you couldn't tell them apart.

I try to tell him about one time in school - right there in the middle of school - my teacher had the custodian wheel in a television so we could watch the 1969 World Series, the Miracle Mets beating the Baltimore Orioles.

It's no easier explaining it to young baseball players, even the ones who now walk where those Mets always shall.

"My father was 10 in 1969," Rays outfielder Rocco Baldelli said.

Funny, but if you talk to many 1969 Miracle Mets, they know about the Rays. They sit in their dens and watch their TVs and see the team from Tampa, the team from nowhere, and they smile.

J.C. Martin was a reserve catcher for the '69 Mets. He's 71 and he lives on a farm in North Carolina. Ed Charles, 75, played third base for the '69 Mets. He lives in Queens, a 10-minute drive from Shea Stadium, where it all happened.

"These Tampa boys, they might be the ones," J.C. Martin said.

"I root for them, because they're bringing back our memories," Ed Charles said.

The Moment Of Their Lives

It was a team, a time and a place, and you either grew up with it or you didn't.

The lunar dust still hasn't settled from the second greatest ascent of 1969. Neil Armstrong's one small step, one giant leap is first in all the polls, but the Amazin' Mets left footprints of their own, and the Rays walk in them tonight as they begin the World Series at Tropicana Field.

It's hard to overstate what the Rays have done under Manager Joe Maddon. It's even harder to explain the gold standard, the season the '69 Mets made under the steady hand of Gil Hodges.

Being a Met was about being a loser until 1969, seven seasons of laugh track.

How do you explain what followed?

Stop us if this sounds familiar, Rays fans, but the Mets had good (well, great) starting pitching, strong defense, more role players than stars and a manager who told them they could accomplish anything.

But how do you explain a Mets-Cubs game at Shea Stadium, when a black cat scooted past the sagging Cubs dugout, right by Leo Durocher?

How do explain the Mets' five-game romp past the heavily favored 109-win Orioles in the World Series, or Tommy Agee's catches in Game 3, or heroes from nowhere, like Ron Swoboda's horizontal catch in Game 4, or a throw bonking off J.C. Martin running down to first to bring home the winning run that same game, or a light-hitting shortstop named Al Weis (who?) batting .455 in the Series, including the tying home run in the deciding Game 5?

Who?

How?

The '69 Mets were mighty Tom Seaver and Jerry Koosman and an erratic young righty named Nolan Ryan, but they were also Ed Kranepool, Wayne Garrett, J.C. Martin and, yes, that lovable lug, Ron "Rocky" Swoboda, a fun lover then and a fun lover now.

"We were just guys," Swoboda said.

For them, it was the moment of their lives.

You don't explain the '69 Mets without explaining the time. There was the moon and there was Woodstock and Vietnam.

"I think maybe we put just a positive spin on a decade," Tug McGraw said in 1999 at a 30th anniversary event honoring the '69 Mets - at Tropicana Field, of all places. McGraw was a 24-year-old Mets reliever in 1969. "Maybe we gave just a little hope. We did it. You could do it."

Tug McGraw died five years ago.

The '69 Mets live.

Wayne Garrett, 61, was a rookie reserve infielder for the '69 Mets. He lives in Sarasota.

"I run into people who remember all the time," Garrett said. "I give them my credit card or whatever and they'll say, 'Hey, you're Wayne Garrett.' They never forget 1969."

Rod Gaspar, 62, was also a reserve for the '69 Mets. He scored the winning run in Game 4 of the Series, coming around when that ball bounced off Martin.

"That season is still like a dream," said Gaspar, an estate planner in California. "We're always pulling for dreamers. The Rays look like them to me."

How do you explain the '69 Mets riding in open convertibles through a blizzard of ticker tape in lower Manhattan, just like the Apollo 11 crew?

"They weigh that stuff," Swoboda said. "We had more garbage than the astronauts."

He started talking about the whole team appearing on "The Ed Sullivan Show" to sing "You Gotta Have Heart" to the entire country.

Ed who?

"The fans tore the molding and the mirrors off the cars," J.C. Martin said of the parade. "I'm talking New Yorkers with tears running down their faces. We might as well have walked on the moon ourselves."

How do you explain it?

Inspiration Lives On

Ed Charles, along with Swoboda and a few other Mets, went on a USO Tour after the '69 Series.

"They all looked like babies to me," Charles said. "Just young kids shot up in the war. I think we were in Manila. One fellow, I go over and he's laying there, shrapnel all over his body, both legs gone. He was from Queens, N.Y. Looked like he was 16. And the only thing he was concerned about was how was he going to get to Shea Stadium to see the Mets. I told him to call me. I'd make sure he got there. All he could think about was seeing the Miracle Mets."

Maybe that explains it.

Wayne Garrett is rooting for the Rays. He has been to one game at the Trop this season but watches on his big screen from his recliner.

"Where are they going to throw ticker tape from in St. Pete?" he asked. "There are no tall buildings."

Ron Swoboda lives in New Orleans, where he still helps broadcast minor-league baseball. He hopes the Rays win the Series.

"Maybe they'll inspire some people."

There's still room on the moon.

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