MLB: 1973 Mets Can Inspire Today's Pittsburgh Pirates and Cleveland Indians

We are living in a baseball era that embraces mediocrity. Only the Philadelphia Phillies (.621) and the Boston Red Sox (.617) have won more than 60 percent of their games.

The Cleveland Indians (.537) and Pittsburgh Pirates (.532) lead their respective divisions. Each has an excellent chance of winning its division title.

While the “success” of the Indians and Pirates has been surprising, the fact that teams only a few games above .500 may become division champions is not unusual. That has not always been the case.

In 1973, the New York Mets were in last place at the end of August, but almost no one counted them out of the division race.

Yogi Berra’s Mets were in St. Louis, playing a crucial three game series against the first-place St. Louis Cardinals.  Despite being last, the Mets could see first place off in the distance. Yogi was well aware that it was possible to make up a six and one-half game deficit in a month.

Berra had not been accustomed to mediocrity. He joined the New York Yankees in 1946 and helped them win 14 pennants and 10 World Championships.

Speaking to baseball writer Joe Durso of the New York Times, Yogi explained why he thought the Mets might do it.

“I never said we’d win the pennant or even the division. I said we had a good chance, if we didn’t get a lot of injuries. Even when we hit bottom, I didn’t feel we were out of it. And I said before the season started that 85 games would be enough in the East.”

Yogi, as was usually the case, was right.

The Mets had to win 24 of their final 30 games to reach 85 wins. They didn’t do it, but they didn’t have to.

They won 21 more games to finish with 82 victories and were Eastern Division champions with a less than mediocre 82-79 record.

Since the All-Star break, the six Eastern Division teams were the epitome of third-raters.

The Montreal Expos were the only team to win more games than it lost at 19-18. The Pittsburgh Pirates were 17-17, the Mets were 19-20, the Cards were 17-20, the Philadelphia Phillies were 15-22 and the Chicago Cubs were 13-21.

Casey Stengel’s immortal quote about his 1962 Mets, “Can’t anybody here play this game” applied to the entire 1973 National League’s Eastern Division.

One baseball wag seriously suggested to National League President Chub Feeney that the playoffs should be between the top two teams in the Western Division.

Of course, the Mets defeated the highly favored Cincinnati Reds in the best of five playoff series to win the pennant.

Facing the defending World Champion Oakland A’s, the Mets led the World Series three games to two, but when the teams returned to Oakland, the A’s beat Tom Seaver and then Jon Matlack to win in seven games.

The division race in September, the best-of-five playoff series between the mediocre Mets and the solid Cincinnati Reds, and the World Series between the still mediocre Mets and the highly-rated Oakland A’s rank among the most exciting of all time.

Fans want competition, which is what the 1973 Eastern Division teams provided the entire season.

The Mets' great pitching neutralized the Reds' far superior offense, but because the A’s pitching matched that of the Mets, the A’s barely prevailed.

All that can be said today is, “Beat ‘em Bucs.”

Reference:

The revenge of yogi berra. (1973, Sep 01). New York Times (1923-Current File), pp. 15-15. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/119813736?accountid=46260