LAVALLETTE — Speaker Rick Feingold visited the Upper Shores branch of Ocean County Library on Wednesday, giving a packed room of guests the rundown on the early days of the New York Mets, from the worst record in all of 20th century baseball to the team’s 1969 World Series win.
Feingold, a lecturer on American business history and the U.S. Air Force during World War I at Bergen Community College in Paramus, talks on these topics and more at libraries and other venues throughout New York and New Jersey. For this lecture, Feingold focused on the remarkable performance of the New York Mets in the year 1969 when, following seven years of consistently low placement in the rankings, they went on to win the World Series.
“In order to talk about the ‘69 Mets, you have to talk about the ‘62 Mets,” said Feingold, “because that’s really what the story’s all about — going from the worst to the world champions, which is extremely rare for this sequence.”
Feingold spoke at length about Casey Stengel — the Mets’ manager from its inception as one of the worst-performing teams in 1962 to 1965. Stengel maligned the Mets’ standing, saying, “I’ve been in this game 100 years, but I see new ways to lose I never knew existed before.”
A large theme of Feingold’s presentation was that 1969 to 1970 was the “Year of the Underdog,” with the New York Jets and the New York Knicks winning championships in their own sports in 1969 and 1970, respectively, in addition to the Mets’ World Series win.
“What you’re doing is you’re contrasting the (Mets with the) ‘69 Jets’ Super Bowl champions — they came from nothing,” he said. “And then there’s the Knicks, which never won anything; all three won their championships in the same year.”
Gil Hodges represented a turning point in the Mets’ fortune, according to Feingold. An original 1962 Met himself, he only managed to play in 54 games with the team before a knee issue sidelined him. Instead, he became a manager of the Mets in 1968 through their 1969 World Series championship.
“In 1969 (Hodges) led the Miracle Mets to the World Series championship,” said Feingold, “defeating the heavily favored Baltimore Orioles — finishing higher than ninth place for the first time, the Mets became the first team ever to win the World Series after finishing at least 15 games under .500 (an even record for the season) the previous year.”
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