The Early Mets Had Been Games in Every Way Imaginable, Despite The
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H o o s i e r H /•: no or B it o o k l y n quickly winding down. Still, New York City got one final the Mets to the most improbable of triumphs—both a chance to celebrate Hodges as a player. After the 1961 sea National League pennant and a World Series victory over son the expansion New York Mets acquired his services. the heavily favored Baltimore Orioles. In what is arguably Playing in the old Polo Grounds, once home to the New still the greatest turnaround in major-league history, York Giants, the 1962 Mets were something of a Big Apple Hodges more titan proved his managerial timber by orches nostalgia team, right down to having the legendary Casey trating the team now known as the “Miracle Mets.” Stengel as their manager. Stengel, who had formerly man Another of Fitzgerald’s sayings has become a popular aged both die Dodgers and die Yankees, envisioned Hodges axiom in American biography: “Show me a hero and I will as a future skipper. “Hodges has the write you a tragedy.” While that frequently stuff managers are made of,” said The early Mets had been happens (the personal pettiness recently Stengel. “Number one, he has an even BELOVED MISFITS, losing revealed about Yankee legend DiMaggio disposition. Number two, he’s a good games in every way serves as an example), it certainly does not teacher. He’s helped a lot of other imaginable, despite the apply to Hodges. The man led the most young men. Three, he never criticizes honorable of lives, both on and off the anybody else. And he has never had a presence of aging diamond. Maybe the greatest tribute to stain of any kind on his career.” veterans such as Hodges Hodges came from teammate Reese, who Stengel’s crystal ball proved correct. and the incomparable summed up the man by saying, “If you had While F. Scott Fitzgerald said there are Stengel. There was too a son, it would be a great thing to have no second acts in American lives, the him grow up to be just like Gil Hodges.” much INEXPERIENCE, TOO knowing baseball fan could refute this The only tragedy associated with simply by pointing to Hodges. After LITTLE SENSE OF TEAM. Hodges is his premature death by a heart retiring as a player in early 1963, he attack, less than three seasons after the broke in as a manager with the Washington Senators that miraculous 1969 triumph. Like the seemingly indestruc same year. And, in a happy development for both Hodges tible Gehrig, with whom he was so often compared, he and New York, he returned to the Mets as manager in 1968. died much too early, only two days before his forty-eighth The early Mets had been beloved misfits, losing games birthday. But Hodges’s legacy was an ongoing influence in every way imaginable, despite the presence of aging vet upon anyone who had ever followed his career. As Mets erans such as Hodges and the incomparable Stengel. There pitcher Tug McGraw said upon Hodges’s death, “As long was too much inexperience, too little sense of team. But it as I’m a ballplayer, no matter who my manager is, there’ll did not really matter. New York, stung by the late-1950s be one man I’ll be playing for—Gil Hodges.” defections of both the Dodgers and Giants to California, Wes I). Gehring is professor of telecommunications at Ball embraced the Mets with record crowds. State University. A frequent contributor to Traces, Gehring is Although the team possessed some talented young play the author of twenty books, including a forthcoming baseball ers when Hodges took over as manager, the Mets still fin volume, “Mr. Deeds Goes to Yankee Stadium”: Baseball ished in ninth place. The following year, however, he led Films in the Capra Tradition. Fo r Fu r t h e r R ead ing Amoruso, Marino. Gil Hodges: The Quiet Man, Middlebury, Vt.: Paul S. Eriksson, 1991. I Danzig, Allison, and Joe Reichler. The History of Baseball: Its Great Players, Teams and Managers. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1959. I Erskine, Carl. Tales from the Dodger Dugout. Champaign, 111.: Sports Publishing, Inc., 2000.1 Gildea, Robert L. “A Major League Friendship: Carl Erskine Remembers Jackie Robinson.” Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History 9 (winter 1997): 40-48.1 Shapiro, Milton J. The Gil Hodges Story. New York: Julian Messner, 1960. TRACES Fall 2003 25.