 |
| Before he became a superstar with the Philadelphia Phillies, Steve Carlton toiled for the St. Louis Cardinals and lost 4-3 to the New York Mets on Sept. 15, 1969, despite striking out a record 19 batters. |
 |
| Ron Swoboda spoiled Steve Carlton's 19-strikeout performance Sept. 15, 1969, with a pair of two-run homers, giving the New York Mets a 4-3 victory over St. Louis. |
By Phil Ellenbecker
There were countless examples of the New York Mets living right in the summer and fall of 1969. Luck? Maybe some, but also seizing the opportunity. The Mets -- who'd finished ninth in the 10-team National League the year before and last in five of their previous six years of existence -- were definitely a carpe diem team, a team of destiny, in their Amazin' world championship year of 1969.
A vivid example of this took place the night of Monday, Sept. 15, before 13,086 fans at St. Louis' Busch Stadium. Cardinals left-hander Steve Carlton, in the third full season of a 24-year Hall of Fame career, struck out 19 batters, at the time a post-1900 record for strikeouts in a nine-inning game. The Mets committed four errors.
Yet the Mets won, 4-3. How did that happen?
Well, when the Mets weren't whiffing, they were going 9-for-17 (a .529 average) on balls put in play, using an all right-hand hitting lineup. The Cardinals didn't score any runs in the four innings the Mets committed errors.
And Ron Swoboda, later one of the Mets' World Series heroes with a sensational backhanded catch in Game 4, swatted a pair of two-run homers to make the difference.
Swoboda's first blast came with Don Clendenon aboard on a walk with none out in the fourth inning. That came after the Cardinals had taken a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the third when Vada Pinson singled to drive in Curt Flood with one out. Mets center fielder Tommy Agee prevented another run when he gunned down speedster Lou Brock at the plate after Brock had walked and reached second on Flood's single.
Swoboda's final blow came with one out in the eighth, his ninth and final homer of the season, and put the Mets up by the final margin of 4-3. It came with Agee aboard after a leadoff single.
Swobody's two-homer game was his first since his rookie year of 1965, when he totaled a career high of 19 homers. He credited seven-time NL homer champion Ralph Kiner with honing his batting eye to face Carlton, he of the biting slider.
“I had been hot and cold as a batter before this game. In a time before specialized hitting coaches, Mets broadcaster Ralph Kiner took me into the batting cage the day before," Swoboda told Richard Cuicchi in an article he wrote for the Society for American Baseball Research's Games Project. "He worked with me by setting up the pitching machine with the wheels going in opposite directions, allowing simulated sliders. Kiner kept asking me about my swings against those sliders in the cage, ‘How does that feel?’ Fortunately, I was able to get to a better place before having to face Carlton.”
Swoboda in the eighth answered the Cardinals' two-run fifth that had nudged them ahead. Again, St. Louis' top of the order had come to the fore. With two out, leadoff hitter Brock singled and stole second, Flood drove him in with a single, and after a single by Pinson put runners at first and second, Joe Torre put the Cards up 3-2 with another single.
(Brock's steal was the first of two on the night, No. 51 and 52 in a season of 53 that led the NL for a fourth straight season. This was his eighth theft crowns in nine seasons en route to a final total of 938, best of all time at the time and second now to Ricky Henderson's 1,406.)
Tug McGraw, who'd relieved starter Gary Gentry after the sixth, got the win with three innings of shutout relief, allowing one hit and one walk while striking out three in improving his record to 8-3. (McGraw finished 9-3 with 12 saves and a 2.24 ERA, signaling his emergence as a top reliever with 27 and 25 saves in 1972 and '73, each NL runner-up marks.)
The Cardinals threatened with one out in the ninth when Phil Gagliano, pinch hitting for Carlton, reached on an error by third baseman Ed Charles, and Brock walked. But the Tugger ended the game by retiring Flood on a fly out to center and Pinson on a grounder to short. Coming into their final at-bats, Flood was 2-for-4 and Pinson 3-for-3 with a walk.
The Cardinals got seven hits out of their top three hitters, with Hall of Famer Brock at 2-for-4 joining Flood and Pinson with multi-hit games. Jerry Grote joined Swoboda in going 2-for-4 for the Mets.
Gentry, a 22-year-old rookie who was the Mets' No. 3 man this year behind Tom Seaver and Jerry Koosman and 11-11 coming in, allowed three runs, all earned, and seven hits in his six-inning stint, walking one and striking out three.
Carlton's line was four runs, all earned, nine hits and two walks allowed, and of course the 19 Ks as he fell to 16-10.
Carlton struck out the side in the first, second, fourth (after Swoboda's first homer) and the ninth. His first five outs and five of his first six were strikeouts. He struck out a batter at each of the Mets' lineup slots, led by Amos Otis with four at No. 2. When he wasn't giving up homers to Swoboda, he was striking him out his other two times up. Otis was Carlton's final victim in the ninth.
When Otis was dispatched for No. 19, Carlton passed the 18 mark of Bob Feller (1938), Sandy Koufax (1959 and 1962) and Don Wilson (1968) for most post-1900 whiffs in a nine-inning game.
“I decided to go all-out for the record. I wanted it badly then,” Carlton told the St. Louis Dispatch's Bob Broeg, back when he was talking to reporters.
Carlton did this despite feeling feverish all day and suffering from a sore back that required painkillers for him to suit up. And he had to wait out a 26-minute rain delay before the game and a 54-minute delay in the first inning.
"Lefty" finished the season 17-11 with a 2.17 ERA and was ninth in the NL in strikeouts with 210. He had his first 20-win season two years later, a historic 27 in 1972 on the last-place Phillies, en route to a final mark of 329-244 with a 3.22 ERA and four Cy Young Awards.
The 19-strikeout game was the second of 16 he had of 13 or more, including three of 16 -- in 1967 (a loss), 1970 (a no-decision) and 1982 (finally a win). He had five strikeout titles in his career and finished fourth all time with 4,413. For a while late in his career, he and Nolan Ryan were trading the all-time mark before Carlton faded and Ryan kept going on and on and finished with 5,714.
After Carlton's 19 K game, seven more pitchers would match or exceed that including two games apiece by Roger Clemens and Randy Johnson. Clemens twice struck out 20, tying him with Max Scherzer and Kerry Wood for best in nine innings. Johnson had games of 20 and 19, both in 1997. His 19-K game was a 4-1 loss, the only 19-K plus game on the wrong end of the score besides Carlton's. Tom Cheney has the overall record of 21 strikeouts in 16 innings in a 2-1 win for Washington in 1962. Two other pitchers had 19 K games in 1884.
As for the 1969 Cardinals, they were third in the NL after the games of Sept. 15, 10 games back of the Mets after back-to-back pennants. They finished fourth, 13 games back. This was the beginning of a period of transition for St. Louis, which won three pennants and two World Series titles in the 1960s but wouldn't win a pennant again until 1982. After losing to Detroit in the '68 Series, the Cardinals traded '67 MVP Orlando Cepeda for Torre, and acquired Pinson from Cincinnati. Tim McCarver and Flood were gone after '69 when they were traded to the Phillies, although Flood refused to report and sued baseball. He lost his antitrust case but paved the way for free agency in the mid-1970s.
Meanwhile the Mets, who five days before had taken the National League Eastern Division lead from the Chicago Cubs in the middle of 10-game winning streak that was stopped Sept. 14, led Chicago by 4 1/2 games after Sept. 15 and finished 8 ahead of the Cubs. Chicago had led from the first day of the season before being overtaken by the Mets. And then a New York sweep of Atlanta in the first-ever NL divisional playoffs. And then a 4-1 triumph over the mighty Baltimore Orioles (109 regular-season wins, most since the 1961 New York Yankees) in the World Series.
Truly Amazin.' And the events of Monday, Sept. 15, fit right into this Cinderella tale.
Sources: The basic play-by-play came from the Retrosheet account of the game at https://www.retrosheet.org/
No comments:
Post a Comment