By Steve Seepersaud
In the summer of 1969, as America marveled at the first steps of man on the moon and was polarized over the Vietnam War, a cultural sensation was in the making. A group of unknowns was transforming a baseball team's image from that of lovable losers to world beaters.
For the first seven years of the New York Mets' existence, the team lost an average of 105 games per season. In 1969, the team won 100 games in the regular season before it swept the Atlanta Braves to win the National League pennant and knocked out the much-heralded Baltimore Orioles in the World Series.
"All of a sudden, the Mets were really good and nobody saw it coming," said Wayne Coffey '77, who recounts the Mets' turnaround season in his new book They Said It Couldn't Be Done (Crown Publishing, 2019). "It was a magical time that summer. There has really been nothing that could compare to the wonder of that season, because it was so unexpected. It was the summer of Woodstock and [current Mets radio announcer] Howie Rose said every game felt like Woodstock. It was a big party."
Coffey, a teenager when the Mets' magical season took place, talked to former players and journalists to assemble this golden anniversary retrospective. He provided the back stories on players nobody had heard of before 1969, and who retreated into obscurity once their baseball days were over. Many of them experienced tremendous hardship before reaching the major leagues.
Coffey said the spirit of the underdog Met is best embodied by the African-American members of the team who struggled to reach the big leagues even after Jackie Robinson had broken the color barrier. In particular, Coffey was moved by the story of Ed Charles, third baseman and oldest member of the 1969 Mets. Charles grew up in extreme poverty in Daytona, Fla., dropped out of school in the ninth grade and was homeless for a while. He had the talent to be called up to the bigs at 22, but was held back in the system until he was 29 (old for a rookie) because of unspoken quotas limiting black players.
"Despite all of that, he never allowed himself to be consumed by bitterness," Coffey said. "The Dodgers had their spring training in Daytona, and Ed got to see Jackie Robinson in person. Ed said, 'You could see what you dreamed of right before your eyes.' Jackie was like a god. Ed couldn't bring himself to speak to Jackie or ask for his autograph. He was so in awe that someone with his same skin color was on the field with white players."
Coffey, an acclaimed sports journalist who wrote for the New York Daily News and whose books include The New York Times bestseller, The Boys of Winter, says many of his fondest memories at °®¶¹´«Ã½ were formed at the campus paper.
"Pipe Dream was a wonderful experience for me," Coffey said. "It launched me on my way. I wouldn't have had my start in journalism without it."