For A while there, the year 1965 was as popular as it had been since … well, probably since 1965. Sixty-five was a good year if you were a Beatles fan (“Help” was one of the most popular flicks, and “Yesterday” was released on Sept. 13) or Joe Namath (enjoying the first year of his $425,000 contract) or Don Draper (at the top of his game all through that year).
It was a good year to be Little Joe (“Bonanza” was the No. 1 TV show in ’65) or Samantha Stevens (“Bewitched” was No. 2), a good year to be Maria Von Trapp (“Sound of Music” was the No. 1 film of ’65), Dr. Zhivago (No. 2) or James Bond (“Thunderball,” No. 3). Cousin Brucie and every other DJ was blaring the likes of “Satisfaction” and “King of the Road” and “I Got You, Babe.”
It was a bad year to be a baseball fan in New York City.
Mostly, when we consider how bad, we consider the Yankees, because 1965 was the beginning of a decade-long period of darkness for them under the stewardship of CBS, because ’65 started a streak of four straight losing seasons for them, something that hadn’t happened since Babe Ruth was in Boston, because ’65 was when Whitey Ford’s arm started to go numb and Roger Maris went from moody to surly and Mickey Mantle began his long, slow decline.
The Yankees finished 77-85 that year. That was 25 games worse than the pennant-winning Minnesota Twins.
But was also 27 games better than the Mets.
It seems a good time to point this out, because while there were a lot of things written and said about 1965 (yes, this column included) in regards to the Yankees this year, when it seemed they were primed for a precipitous drop-off, the irony is that if any team resembles its ’65 self, it’s the Mets.
And as depressing as ’65 is to any Yankees fan of a certain age, ’65 was, in many ways, just as disillusioning to Mets fans of a similar age. Just not as well remembered. Just not as well chronicled.
The 2013 Yankees started to shut the door on talk of ’65 in the fifth game of the year, when they went and stomped Justin Verlander in Detroit, started winning, and haven’t stopped. They have been that rarest of baseball development, an overachieving Yankees team, playing well above its pay grade. They’ve left ’65 behind them, covered in dust.
The ’65 Mets?
Let’s see if this sounds familiar: After three years of terrible baseball, they’d pledged to fill their reasonably new ballpark with fans, excitement and winning baseball. After 47 games, they were 18-29. They had a host of exciting young players on the roster; including slugging left-fielder (Ron Swoboda) and a hard-hitting kid at first base (Eddie Kranepool).
“We are tired of being a joke,” the general manager insisted on Opening Day 1965. “We are a baseball team, and before long we will be a contending baseball team.”
The ’65 Mets lost on Opening Day to the Dodgers, 6-1. After reaching 18-29 (same record as the ’13 Mets) they actually got to 20-29 … and then lost 10 in a row, 15 out of 16, 20 out of 23 … and then Casey Stengel, the 75-year-old manager, broke his hip falling out of a cab.
So, yes: It will really take some doing, and some historically bad baseball, for the ’13 Mets to keep up (or down) with their 1965 grandfathers, who finished 50-112. But there are plenty of similarities, and not just the Swoboda-Kranepool/Lucas Duda-Ike Davis one. The ’65 Mets believed they were headed in the right direction; they actually lost three more games than the ’64 team. Before long the GM (George Weiss) was gone, and the manager (Stengel) was gone, and it would take the arrival of Tom Seaver two years later before any semblance of hope arrived.
Matt Harvey’s already here. That’s a good sign. But the ’65 Mets’ attendance actually improved over ’64, and in ’66 it would go up again. New York was still charmed by the Mets’ ability to lose baseball games. It’s not like that anymore, if you haven’t noticed.