Ultimate Mets Database: Game of June 1, 1969

Pete M
November 2, 2021
My first MLB game! I was 11 and my dad took me. Stepping into an opening in the stands and seeing that field and scoreboard in real life was amazing! We had seats in the left field upper deck that obscured the left field corner. It was hot and I was feeling queasy with the view. My dad took me down to a ticket window and I saw him fold two dollar bills under our tickets and slide them to the ticket guy and say, "do you have anything better?" We ended up in the mezzanine down the 3B line, much better seats.

I made a sign, "McAndy is a Dandy" for starter Jim McAndrew but as you can see from the boxscore, he didn't last long. It was thrilling to see Mays and McCovey on the visiting Giants and #44 didn't disappoint with a round-tripper. I also saw him pull a screamer foul down the 1B line and a gloved hand reached out from the stands to snag it.

I saw a rare triple from a catcher with Jerry Grote connecting (years later I saw one of Ron Hodges' two lifetime triples).

Even though I was a Mets fan I never wanted one of their caps because everyone had one. I was more interested in other teams' uniforms so I got my dad to buy me an orange Astros cap. In later games, I got an Expos and Padres hat. I can still recall the sight of that souvenir stand with all the NL caps stacked up.

It was quite an unusual ending to the game with Ron Swoboda walking in the winning run in the 9th. My dad wanted to leave early to beat traffic but I begged him to stay. For his sake, I'm glad it didn't go into extra innings! We went to other games that season and it wasn't until years later that I figured out why we never went to games with Seaver or Koosman on the mound - my dad didn't want to deal with the traffic from a sellout crowd! Good times...

NYB Buff
January 10, 2023
Pete, thanks for sharing your experience of attending this game with your dad. Great story. As you described, it ended when Ron Swoboda walked with the bases loaded to force home the winning run. When looked at historically, Swoboda's base-on-balls isn't so unusual since it was the third of four times in Ron's career that he drew a walk-off walk in the bottom of the ninth inning. The victory gave the Mets a series sweep over the Giants during an eleven-game win streak that propelled them into contention for the championship they would eventually conquer.

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