National League Standings, July 8, 1969
METS FANS SHARE THEIR MEMORIES OF THE JULY 8, 1969 GAME:
Buck
July 12, 2000
Amazing Three runs in the last inning when we were down two runs.Just think 17 years later it happened again.I wish I could get a tape of this game if anybody knows where to get it put the info on this site Thank you!!
Mr. T
February 18, 2002
Wow, what a game! Once again I'm in the cheap seats, but enjoyed every moment. What I recall most vividly was the almost surreal 9th inning. Nothing but clutch hit afer clutch hit. With each hit the crowd getting more and more electric. I could be wrong, but I recall the game winning hit to be a double, one hop off the wall, by that great Monroe alumni Ed Kranepool(#7). As the wining run scored that warm late afternoon in July,I became a believer. Lets Go Mets!
Walter Pullis
May 3, 2002
Dear Mr. T:
Kranepool won the game with a bloop single to left field.
Bob
May 31, 2002
It was my 15th birthday, and I was riveted to the TV. This was around the time you knew this was a special team. What a comeback in this game!
Chris
July 2, 2002
I was sitting in upper reserved - behind third. Kranepool homered, then blooped a game-winning single. Pandemonium. I have never seen the subway as crowded as it was after that game - afternoon rush hour.
Tom
August 13, 2002
I went to the game with my father and brother. I still have the scorecard. Jenkins vs. Koosman. Kranepool bloop hit over shortstop to win the game. I was 11 years old and I remember thinking when the crowd went wild, "Could the stadium handle the noise?" I thought the stadium would collapse underneath me. It was unbelievable. I will remember it all my life.
Dennis Black
August 15, 2002
I was at this great game that has been forgotten by many because the next day Seaver threw his almost perfect game. Don Stankus, Lumpy McDonald and I were in Section 1 in the last row and I had to convince them to stick around until the last at bat. They thanked me later (or at least they should have). Crabby Leo Durocher blamed his centerfielder Don Young for not catching a couple of Met hits in the ninth.
John Hachtel
February 28, 2003
This game is one of the great baseball memories of my life. I was fourteen and attended the game with a friend from school. As I recall, the Kranepool hit came on a 1- 2 count. It looked to me as though he was fooled by the Jenkins pitch, and Ed did a great job getting the bat on the ball. Tom (above) is dead on about the noise and the shaking stadium. I yelled myself hoarse. My friend and I walked back to Main Street, Flushing over the bridge after the game and we kept saying we had seen something very special. Years later, living far away from the city, I still remember that day with great happiness.
walter c
September 1, 2004
I still remember feeling the electricity in the air when I got off the 7 train. My friend Joel and I turned in coupons from Dellwood milk cartons and got in the upper deck free. I remember people dancing and yelling long after the game was over. Pity that the game was overshadowed the very next night, I consider that this game showed they belonged and were expansion jokes no more.
Shickhaus Franks
December 22, 2008
There is a tragic but legendary story surrounding this game where a Queens man killed his wife because he was watching the Mets and she wanted to watch "Dark Shadows" (a popular soap opera at the time).
Rich B
August 11, 2009
This was a great game. The fact that we could come back in the 9th inning against the first place team showed that we were real. My brother and I took two buses and walked from Main Street to get to Shea in those days. The feeling on the trip home that day was incredible.
Jeff
August 18, 2011
This was the first game I ever went to. I was 9 years old. I went with my grandfather and uncle the Mets were down 3-1 going to the 9th getting only one hit, a home run by Ed Kranepool.
It was first time I saw baseball in color!
Bob O'Connell
March 5, 2012
My father collected newspapers from notable events. I have the NY Daily News from when the Mets won the World Series, Jets won the Super Bowl, etc. For years I kept coming up on the Daily News from July 9, 1969. About 5 years ago it hit me. That was the game my father took me and my cousin to. I still have the program. Sadly, my father died in 1978 but his sense of history allows me to go back and relive it again. I was 6 in 1969 and I remember the Mets winning in a wild way. Crowd was crazy!
Ken Akerman
January 5, 2019
Looking at the box score and play by play of this game, at
https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYN/NYN196907080.shtml,
why didn't Cubs manager Leo Durocher replace starter Ferguson Jenkins with a relief pitcher during the bottom of the ninth? He was clearly getting very tired, as he had allowed three doubles before Kranepool's game-winning hit with two out.
If such a game was played in 2019, there would have been a far lesser chance that the Mets would have made such a comeback, because there would have been no way that a starting pitcher would have continued pitching through the end of the game after giving up so many hits in the ninth
inning. With a 3-1 lead going into the bottom of the ninth (a save situation), the manager would have taken out his starter (if he hadn't been relieved earlier, which is likely under current baseball conditions) and put in his closer to complete the save.
dj
July 8, 2019
I was 11 years old and at this game with camp. Due to the buses, we had to leave at the bottom of the 7th. We are all sitting in the buses, waiting for them to round-up all the kids when we could hear the screaming from the stadium. I was so angry we missed it but thrilled we won! Magical 1969!
Peter Parrella
December 3, 2020
I remember watching this game on channel 9 with my buddy Frankie. I vividly recall the ninth inning and going crazy when the Mets pulled it out. One of my favorite Met memories.
Roy M. Brooks
March 26, 2021
I was 14. We were in a pennant race with the much hated Cubs. Things were looking bleak heading into the bottom of the ninth. As I recall, my high school buddy and I snuck down from the $1.50 upper deck seats to the "expensive" $3.50 seats behind the Mets dugout. One by one, we started chipping away at the Cubs lead until Kranepool dropped one in into left field to win it!!! I remember total bedlam and hugging total strangers. The press the next day said that the noise from Shea was audible on the Grand Central Parkway. I'll never forget it. One of the happiest days of my life and, as Bob Murphy used to say: "and now for the happy recap"
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