Research Catalog

Title

They said it couldn't be done : the '69 Mets, New York City, and the most astounding season in baseball history / Wayne Coffey.

Author

Coffey, Wayne R.

Publication

New York : Crown Archetype, [2019]

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

x, 289 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations; 25 cm

Summary

"The story of the 1969 Miracle Mets, unlikely world champions against the backdrop of the space race and Vietnam, on the 50th anniversary of their Cinderella season In 1962, the New York Mets spent their first year in existence racking up the worst record in baseball history. Things scarcely got any better for the ensuing six years--they were baseball's laughingstock, but somehow lovable in their ineptitude, building a fiercely loyal fan base. And then came 1969, a year that brought the lunar landing, Woodstock, nonstop antiwar protests, and the most tumultuous and fractious New York City mayoral race in memory--along with the most improbable season in the annals of Major League Baseball. It concluded on an invigorating autumn afternoon in Queens, when a Minnesota farm boy named Jerry Koosman beat the Baltimore Orioles for the second time in five games, making the Mets champions of the baseball world. It wasn't merely an upset but an unprecedented, uplifting achievement for the ages. From the ashes of those early scorched-earth seasons, Gil Hodges, a beloved former Brooklyn Dodger, put together a 25-man whole that was vastly more formidable than the sum of its parts. Beyond the top-notch pitching staff headlined by Tom Seaver, Koosman, and Gary Gentry, and the hitting prowess of Cleon Jones, the Mets were mostly comprised of untested kids and lightly regarded veterans. Everywhere you looked on this team, there was a man with a compelling backstory, from Koosman, who never played high school baseball and grew up throwing in a hayloft in subzero temperatures with his brother Orville, to third baseman Ed Charles, an African-American poet with a deep racial conscience whose arrival in the big leagues was delayed almost a decade because of the color of his skin. In the tradition of The Boys of Winter, his classic bestseller about the 1980 U.S. men's Olympic hockey team, Wayne Coffey tells the story of the '69 Mets as it has never been told before--against the backdrop of the space race, Stonewall, and Vietnam, set in an ever-changing New York City. With dogged reporting and a storyteller's eye for detail, Coffey finds the beating heart of a baseball family. Published to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Mets' remarkable transformation from worst to best, They Said It Couldn't Be Done is a spellbinding, feel-good narrative about an improbable triumph by the ultimate underdog"--

Subjects

• Baseball
• World Series (Baseball) (1969)
• SPORTS & RECREATION > Baseball > History
• World Series (Baseball)
• New York Mets (Baseball team)
• New York Mets (Baseball team) History
• BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY > Sports
• History
• New York (State) > New York
• HISTORY > United States > State & Local > Middle Atlantic (DC, DE, MD, NJ, NY, PA)
• Baseball > New York (State) > New York > History

Genre/Form

History.

Call Number

JFE 19-1136

ISBN

• 9781524760885
• 1524760889
• 9781524760892
• 1524760897

LCCN

2018043635

OCLC

1043339695

Author

Coffey, Wayne R., author.

Title

They said it couldn't be done : the '69 Mets, New York City, and the most astounding season in baseball history / Wayne Coffey.

Publisher

New York : Crown Archetype, [2019]

Edition

First edition.

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Other Form:

Online version: Coffey, Wayne R. They said it couldn't be done. New York : Crown Publishers, 2019 9781524760908 (DLC) 2019002589

Research Call Number

JFE 19-1136