#Famous Mets rallying cry started with a ‘pissed off’ boss
“#Famous Mets rallying cry started with a ‘pissed off’ boss”
Then, upon my return from that journey, you tender me another trip, this one to a baseball team meeting of my choosing. I don’t hesitate: Set that sucker for July 9, 1973 at Shea Stadium.
Happy anniversary to what sounds like one of the oddest, most entertaining events to ever occur in a major-league clubhouse, one that set the course — spiritually, if not technically — for one of the most unlikely pennant-winning tales in the game’s history. One of the stories for the ages that makes the Mets the Mets.
You gotta believe in that meeting’s correlation to the ‘73 Mets’ National League crown.
“It was a rallying cry. It was something that everybody got behind a little bit,” lefty pitcher Jon Matlack said this past week in a telephone interview — referring, naturally, to the “You gotta believe!” mantra that Tug McGraw introduced to his Mets teammates 47 years ago Thursday.
“Tug obviously was a big part of that ballclub. He was not bashful about letting out those yells. Any time he happened to be in the dugout, earlier in the game, he would fire everybody up with that. I think it had a positive impact, no question.”
The backstory makes it even better and more Mets-ian. The ‘73 Mets reported for work on July 9 as the owners of a 34-46 record, occupying the NL East basement, 12 ½ games behind the leading Cubs. Prior to the game, their chairman M. Donald Grant took the unusual step of addressing the players to let them know they still had the front office’s support.
As Grant wound down his speech, the effervescent McGraw, a lefty reliever, began proclaiming, at a rather high volume, “You gotta believe!”
“I think he was trying to show M. Donald that he was at least taking this attitude adjustment seriously,” Matlack said. “Maybe he took it up a notch.”
“When (Grant) was looking across the locker room at Tug, he was a little pissed,” utility man Ed Kranepool said. “He thought he was mimicking him, ridiculing him, making fun of him.”
What no one besides McGraw apparently knew, as reported by the late Marty Noble for MLB.com in 2015, was that earlier that day, McGraw had met with a pal named Joe Badamo who happened to be a motivational speaker. Badamo came up with “You gotta believe,” Noble wrote, so McGraw already had this on his mind before Grant entered the clubhouse.
Kranepool, McGraw’s roommate at the time, urged McGraw to clear the air with the stuffy Grant, whose defining moment arrived four years later with the trade of Tom Seaver to the Reds. Once McGraw assured Grant that he wasn’t mocking him in any way but rather attempting to rally his guys, peace was achieved. Success eventually followed. You need only look at the Mets’ game log that year to see that they didn’t magically turn it around right then and there; they went under .500 for another five and a half weeks, bottoming out at 53-66 on Aug. 17. Nevertheless, McGraw kept at it — a number of key players like Jerry Grote, Bud Harrelson and Cleon Jones also had returned from injury absences, Kranepool noted — and the team closed with a 29-13 run that, at an underwhelming 82-79, granted them the division title.
“It was a very interesting year, one fraught with all difficulties initially,” Matlack said. “Fortunately, no one in that division ran off. (Nearly) everybody was in first place at some point. We just happened to be there when it counted.”
McGraw, who died in 2004, finished with 25 saves. From the moment of the legendary meeting through the end of the regular season, he posted a 2.21 ERA in 28 games totaling 69 ⅓ innings (yes, closers were deployed differently then). Then he threw another 18 ⅔ innings in the playoffs, compiling a 1.93 ERA, to help the Mets defeat the highly superior (on paper) Reds in the NL Championship Series and take the highly superior (on paper) A’s to a seventh game in the World Series.
Submit your Mets questions here to be answered in an upcoming Post mailbag
“Anything could happen with him, and he would say anything,” Kranepool said of McGraw. “I think all that encouraged us.”
And it gave us a fun, unusual story for the annals. Rev up the time machine.
— This week’s Pop Quiz question came from Steve Kantor of Marietta, Ga.: The Oscar-winning actor William Holden once shared an apartment, while serving in the military, with a future Hall of Fame baseball player. Name the player.
— “The Top of His Game,” edited by Bill Littlefield, features a collection of work by legendary sportswriter W.C. Heinz. Among the baseball people featured are Joe DiMaggio, Charlie Keller, Pete Reiser and none other than Babe Ruth. There’s plenty of great stuff on other sports, particularly boxing, as well.
— Your Pop Quiz answer is Hank Greenberg.
If you have a tidbit that connects baseball with popular culture, please send it to me at [email protected].
If you want to read more Sports News articles, you can visit our General category.
if you want to watch Movies or Tv Shows go to Dizi.BuradaBiliyorum.Com for forums sites go to Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com