Does it ever bother anyone else...

[Moose Milligan]

...that we were the team that the Mets beat in 1969?

It bugs the hell out of me. I have no idea why, seeing as I wasn't born for another 12 years. But I remember being a kid and learning about the Mets, how bad they were and then one year they went from worst to first and they beat...MY ORIOLES? What the crap was that? And we were apparently, like, WAY favored to win that series!

It was a devastating blow. I felt embarrassed to be an Orioles fan (little did I know a whole freakin decades worth of embarrassments were soon to follow), that it was such a black mark on the face of the team that I loved so much at such a young age.

And it still bugs the crap out of me. I'm watching Ken Burns' Baseball on the MLBN and they just covered the '69 Series...and I'm still totally annoyed by it.

IT DIDN'T EVEN GO 7 GAMES.

Ugh.

Am I the only one here?

[SteveA]

...that we were the team that the Mets beat in 1969?

It bugs the hell out of me. I have no idea why, seeing as I wasn't born for another 12 years. But I remember being a kid and learning about the Mets, how bad they were and then one year they went from worst to first and they beat...MY ORIOLES? What the crap was that? And we were apparently, like, WAY favored to win that series!

It was a devastating blow. I felt embarrassed to be an Orioles fan (little did I know a whole freakin decades worth of embarrassments were soon to follow), that it was such a black mark on the face of the team that I loved so much at such a young age.

And it still bugs the crap out of me. I'm watching Ken Burns' Baseball on the MLBN and they just covered the '69 Series...and I'm still totally annoyed by it.

IT DIDN'T EVEN GO 7 GAMES.

Ugh.

Am I the only one here?

I can't remember it either. But it is amazing what a bunch of nobodys the Mets had at position players. Has beens and never weres. Guys whose only claim to fame was that they did big things in that series, made big catches or got big hits.

Yes, they had some pitching, but that Oriole team was SO superior. Better offensively, better pitching, and better (best in history?) defensively.

Of course, two of the three winningest teams since division play started (1969 O's and that early 2000s Mariner team) did not win the World Series.

[SrMeowMeow]

I have one huge baseball history book back home that I loved, and I swear to god, every other story was some overachieving team knocking off the superpower Orioles. It really upset me.

[glorydays]

...that we were the team that the Mets beat in 1969?

It bugs the hell out of me. I have no idea why, seeing as I wasn't born for another 12 years. But I remember being a kid and learning about the Mets, how bad they were and then one year they went from worst to first and they beat...MY ORIOLES? What the crap was that? And we were apparently, like, WAY favored to win that series!

It was a devastating blow. I felt embarrassed to be an Orioles fan (little did I know a whole freakin decades worth of embarrassments were soon to follow), that it was such a black mark on the face of the team that I loved so much at such a young age.

And it still bugs the crap out of me. I'm watching Ken Burns' Baseball on the MLBN and they just covered the '69 Series...and I'm still totally annoyed by it.

IT DIDN'T EVEN GO 7 GAMES.

Ugh.

Am I the only one here?

Ha... I was thinking the same thing - how heart run over by a train it must have felt for the city of Baltimore (I wasn't born yet too) to have lost both that World Series and Super Bowl III - two of the biggest upsets in modern sports and both the NYC teams in the same darn year!

[Frobby]

Moose, that wasn't even the half of it. IT HAPPENED IN THE SAME YEAR THAT THE JETS BEAT THE COLTS!

And that 1969 team wasn't just any Orioles pennant-winning team. It was a team that went 109-53, and swept the playoffs 3 games to 0. It took 29 years before another team won 109 games in the regular season. And it sure wasn't a fluke, since they came back and won 108 the very next year. (The Mets, on the other hand, won 83 games the next year.)

I was 12 years old the year of the Jets/Mets debacle. Right at that age where you're old enough to have followed a team for several years, and not too old to cry when they lose a Series they should have won. One of the most painful experiences of my entire life.

[Boy Howdy]

I was born in '70, but pretty much any serious Orioles fan I know that was alive at the time still carries a serious grudge over the '69 WS. It certainly didn't help that Joe Namath led another NY team to a huge Super Bowl upset of the Baltimore Colts earlier that year. (The NY Knicks also beat the Baltimore Bulllets in the next NBA playoffs after the '69 WS)

Even Orioles players from that team still seem wounded by the experience. Beating the Reds in '70 was great, but the emptiness never went away.

[RShack]

Well, maybe you missed it, but I remember it. It wasn't that the O's sucked, it was the Mets making all kinds of crazy-good plays.
Even Baltimore's own Ron Swoboda, who was so deft with the glove that they called him "Clank", made a great play in RF.

Plus, it wasn't just that. It was the whole damn year, from beginning to end.
The Jets and Colts.
The Knicks and Bullets.
The Beatles.
Nixon.

I'm starting to have flashbacks.
Can we please talk about something else?
(Just not the friggin' Pirates.)

[Boy Howdy]

There are people in my family who think something's wrong with me for living in New York 40 years later.

I told them I always missed the toilet at Shea on purpose, but they just won't cut me any slack.

[Frobby]

I have to mention one other indignity. On June 27, 1967, Frank Robinson was well on his way to duplicating his Triple Crown feat, when he collided with a little known SS named Al Weis while breaking up a DP, and got a serious concussion that caused him to miss a month of play and then return with blurry vision that persisted for 18 months.

So now the 1969 Series rolls around and Weis is now on the Mets. And Weis, a .219/.278/.275 career hitter who had hit .215/.259/.291 that particular season, proceeds to hit .455/.563/.727 in the World Series.

I hate Al Weis. Hate him, hate him, hate him.

[BaltimoreTerp]

Well, maybe you missed it, but I remember it. It wasn't that the O's sucked, it was the Mets making all kinds of crazy-good plays.
Even Baltimore's own Ron Swoboda, who was so deft with the glove that they called him "Clank", made a great play in RF.

Plus, it wasn't just that. It was the whole damn year, from beginning to end.
The Jets and Colts.
The Knicks and Bullets.
The Beatles.
Nixon.

I'm starting to have flashbacks.
Can we please talk about something else?

Don't forget Woodstock...in upstate NEW YORK!

(Seems appropriate for the flashbacks...;))

[carolinaoriole]

I was 10 years old I remember crying my heart out.
I hate the mets and the jets and little yankee fans named Jeffrey!!!

[RShack]

Don't forget Woodstock...in upstate NEW YORK!

(Seems appropriate for the flashbacks...;))
I wasn't there. A friend's older brother lived nearby, and I was gonna go, but I didn't. (Who knew?)
But my bride was there... 3 weeks shy of giving birth to daughter Erin.
Once the road got blocked for miles (an impromptu parking lot), she figured she better leave, just in case Erin decided to be early, so she walked out.
Erin tells her friends she was at Woodstock, but that she doesn't remember much about it ;-)

[BaltimoreTerp]

I wasn't there. A friend's older brother lived nearby, and I was gonna go, but I didn't. (Who knew?)
But my bride was there... 3 weeks shy of giving birth to daughter Erin.
Once the road got blocked for miles (an impromptu parking lot), she figured she better leave, just in case Erin decided to be early, so she walked out.
Erin tells her friends she was at Woodstock, but that she doesn't remember much about it ;-)

You let your eight-months pregnant wife go to WOODSTOCK!?! :eek:

I guess it really was a "Who knew?" situation :laughlol:

[wildcard]

Moose, that wasn't even the half of it. IT HAPPENED IN THE SAME YEAR THAT THE JETS BEAT THE COLTS!

And that 1969 team wasn't just any Orioles pennant-winning team. It was a team that went 109-53, and swept the playoffs 3 games to 0. It took 29 years before another team won 109 games in the regular season. And it sure wasn't a fluke, since they came back and won 108 the very next year. (The Mets, on the other hand, won 83 games the next year.)

I was 12 years old the year of the Jets/Mets debacle. Right at that age where you're old enough to have followed a team for several years, and not too old to cry when they lose a Series they should have won. One of the most painful experiences of my entire life.

I don't know how I lived through that year. It was crunching.

The Colts defense led the NFL in fewest points allowed (144, tying the then all-time league record), The Colts offense ranked second in the NFL in points scored (402). After winning the 1968 NFL title, the Colts were touted by the sports media as "the greatest team in Pro Football history."

"The Guarantee"
Despite the Jets' accomplishments, AFL teams were generally not regarded as having the same caliber of talent as NFL teams. However, three days before the game, Namath appeared at the Miami Touchdown Club and boldly predicted to the audience, "We're [Jets] gonna win the game. I guarantee it."

And after that we had to live with the cockness Namath and is Nylon stocking. Uuuggghh.

[BaltimoreFan]

It bugs me that Pittsburgh beat the O's twice in the World Series, and have a five to three advantage on us whereas it easily could have been reversed.

[RShack]

You let your eight-months pregnant wife go to WOODSTOCK!?! :eek:

I guess it really was a "Who knew?" situation :laughlol:
I didn't know her then. She fixed my life (by being who she is) years later.
At the time, I was a Sr at Towson High. She was a kid with a kid, living on nothing in CONN while her then-husband was out on a sub for months at a time.

[NCRaven]

I was only 9 in '69 and most of my memories of those three championship losses in Baltimore vs. New York series come from stories my parents told me or listening to the players tell their stories. It amazes me how similar both the Orioles and Colts players stories were. Neither group can believe, to this day, that they lost to far inferior teams. I've heard Brooks talk about it in person and he still can't understand how they let it happen.

[Old Beta]

The Colts defense led the NFL in fewest points allowed (144, tying the then all-time league record), The Colts offense ranked second in the NFL in points scored (402). After winning the 1968 NFL title, the Colts were touted by the sports media as "the greatest team in Pro Football history."

"The Guarantee"
Despite the Jets' accomplishments, AFL teams were generally not regarded as having the same caliber of talent as NFL teams. However, three days before the game, Namath appeared at the Miami Touchdown Club and boldly predicted to the audience, "We're [Jets] gonna win the game. I guarantee it."

And after that we had to live with the cockness Namath and is Nylon stocking. Uuuggghh.

Hate to bring this up, but there are still some people who think the fix was in. As Wildcard notes, the caliber of play in the two leagues was not yet nearly the same, but the first AFL Super Bowl victory (after crushing defeats in all other years) changed perceptions and accelerated the merging process.

One of those who thought something was not on the up and up was Bubba Smith. And Rosenbloom was rumored to have had some shady friends. He drowned while swimming in SoCal, and some have suggested he had some help by some frogmen holding him down.

But that's all speculation, of course.

[boog26]

Moose, that wasn't even the half of it. IT HAPPENED IN THE SAME YEAR THAT THE JETS BEAT THE COLTS!

And that 1969 team wasn't just any Orioles pennant-winning team. It was a team that went 109-53, and swept the playoffs 3 games to 0. It took 29 years before another team won 109 games in the regular season. And it sure wasn't a fluke, since they came back and won 108 the very next year. (The Mets, on the other hand, won 83 games the next year.)

I was 12 years old the year of the Jets/Mets debacle. Right at that age where you're old enough to have followed a team for several years, and not too old to cry when they lose a Series they should have won. One of the most painful experiences of my entire life.

Yep! I was 10 years old during that painful series. There is NO DOUBT that the O's were the better team that year. There is NO DOUBT that the Colts were the better team that year. Heck! even the Bullets vs NY lost and they were solid! That was the year I learned that stats and analysts don't know &$^#@

[RShack]

I was 12 years old the year of the Jets/Mets debacle. Right at that age where you're old enough to have followed a team for several years, and not too old to cry when they lose a Series they should have won. One of the most painful experiences of my entire life.
Right. I lucked out by being 13 when the '66 WS happened.
Same age-dynamic, different result: one of my happier experiences ever.
Each of the first 2 games were what you might call a Peak Experience. By Game 3, even a kid could see that the Dodgers looked beat.

[GMU Orioles Fan]

I hate the Mets because of it and I was born nearly twenty years after that World Series happened. Does that answer your question?
To expand, yeah it bugs me because I know from reading about that team that they were great and then the Pirates one in 71 with four 20 game winners which will probably never ever happen again. Could have been three in a row but was just one.

[Osfan13]

...that we were the team that the Mets beat in 1969?

It bugs the hell out of me. I have no idea why, seeing as I wasn't born for another 12 years. But I remember being a kid and learning about the Mets, how bad they were and then one year they went from worst to first and they beat...MY ORIOLES? What the crap was that? And we were apparently, like, WAY favored to win that series!

It was a devastating blow. I felt embarrassed to be an Orioles fan (little did I know a whole freakin decades worth of embarrassments were soon to follow), that it was such a black mark on the face of the team that I loved so much at such a young age.

And it still bugs the crap out of me. I'm watching Ken Burns' Baseball on the MLBN and they just covered the '69 Series...and I'm still totally annoyed by it.

IT DIDN'T EVEN GO 7 GAMES.

Ugh.

Am I the only one here?

My girlfriend is from Long Island and has quite a few Mets fans/friends up there. I like to point out (when it's brought up) that the O's won the Series the next year, and went again after that. Not great, but it shuts them up. My closing typically involves the word "dynasty". :mwahaha:

[George Zuverink]

I was in college at the time with a bunch of New Yorkers who made my life hell at the end of the baseball, footbal, and basketball season. I was just glad we didn't have an ice hockey team. Although the Mets were the beneficiaries of an unbelievable series of lucky breaks and once in a lifetime performances, I have never hated them the way I hate the MFY. One of the plays that beat us was a spectacular diving catch by an iron-glived right fielder from Sparrows Point named Ron Swoboda.

[cindyluvsbrady]

I was 10 years old I remember crying my heart out.
I hate the mets and the jets and little yankee fans named Jeffrey!!!

Do not get me started on Jeffery!:angryfire::cussing:

[osfan83]

I was only 4 at the time..don't really remember it, but yeah, it bothers me. One of my best friends is a Mets fan, and he reminds me of it on a regular basis.

[Omega]

No offense Moose, but what a depressing thread. Talk about a heart breaking year. You know, I think I'll hop over to Roy's thread and get some much needed O's love.:D

[mikezpen]

...that we were the team that the Mets beat in 1969?

It bugs the hell out of me. I have no idea why, seeing as I wasn't born for another 12 years. But I remember being a kid and learning about the Mets, how bad they were and then one year they went from worst to first and they beat...MY ORIOLES? What the crap was that? And we were apparently, like, WAY favored to win that series!

It was a devastating blow. I felt embarrassed to be an Orioles fan (little did I know a whole freakin decades worth of embarrassments were soon to follow), that it was such a black mark on the face of the team that I loved so much at such a young age.

And it still bugs the crap out of me. I'm watching Ken Burns' Baseball on the MLBN and they just covered the '69 Series...and I'm still totally annoyed by it.

IT DIDN'T EVEN GO 7 GAMES.

Ugh.

Am I the only one here?

Beats you? I lived through it. We won 109 games, and the Mets might have had one position player who could have started for the Orioles. But they did have Koosman, Seaver and Gentry/Ryan and that was more than enough. That's where I learned the value of pitching in a short series-the hard way.:mad:

[Fan4Life]

If you add this to the being up 3-1 on the Pirates and losing TWICE in the same decade, you might start to wonder...

[NewMarketSean]

When I watched the movie, Frequency, I almost wanted to walk out when the 1969 WS started to become a plot point. And I wasn't born for another 10 years.

This is an awesome thread to read though. And a great testament to the kind of fans we are.

[sangar]

Right. I lucked out by being 13 when the '66 WS happened.
Same age-dynamic, different result: one of my happier experiences ever.
Each of the first 2 games were what you might call a Peak Experience. By Game 3, even a kid could see that the Dodgers looked beat.As a 7 year old my Grandfather brought me to Chavez Ravine and I got to watch the O's beat the Dodgers in '66.

In '69 I was 10 and I remember beating up a kid wearing a Mets cap in the schoolyard. HasaHahahah

[cindyluvsbrady]

As a 7 year old my Grandfather brought me to Chavez Ravine and I got to watch the O's beat the Dodgers in '66.

In '69 I was 10 and I remember beating up a kid wearing a Mets cap in the schoolyard. HasaHahahah

You were a sweet child!:):clap3:

[TGO]

The 1968 Colts were probably the greatest Colts team ever, and arguably one of the best NFL teams ever.

The 1969 Orioles were definitely the greatest Orioles team ever, and arguably one of the best MLB teams ever.

:ohlord:

[jeffstonefan]

http://forum.orioleshangout.com/forums/showthread.php?t=50325

[grady41]

Yep! I was 10 years old during that painful series. There is NO DOUBT that the O's were the better team that year. There is NO DOUBT that the Colts were the better team that year. Heck! even the Bullets vs NY lost and they were solid! That was the year I learned that stats and analysts don't know &$^#@

Oh SG wont like that, stats mean all.

[Boy Howdy]

Well, maybe you missed it, but I remember it. It wasn't that the O's sucked, it was the Mets making all kinds of crazy-good plays.
Even Baltimore's own Ron Swoboda, who was so deft with the glove that they called him "Clank", made a great play in RF.



The NY Post ran a piece of Swoboda with a picture of the catch yesterday:

http://www.nypost.com/seven/02212009/sports/mets/swoboda__hard_work_helped_create_amazin__156281.ht m

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Miracle Mets and Ron Swoboda's full-layout, backhanded catch of a laser line drive off the bat of Brooks Robinson that saved Game 4 of the 1969 World Series, one of the greatest catches in baseball history...

..."That catch kind of made my mediocre career."

When I wrote to fellow Maryland Terrapin Swoboda a few years ago, he sent me an autograph on -what else?- a card with an artist's rendition of that catch.

[MCL1021]

I wasn't born anywhere near 1969 (born 15 years later) but really looking back at all the World Series we have been in...we were never dominated in ANY of them.

Instead of 3 WS titles, we really should have 6 :(

Good thread though.

[Owen21]

...that we were the team that the Mets beat in 1969?

It bugs the hell out of me. I have no idea why, seeing as I wasn't born for another 12 years. But I remember being a kid and learning about the Mets, how bad they were and then one year they went from worst to first and they beat...MY ORIOLES? What the crap was that? And we were apparently, like, WAY favored to win that series!

It was a devastating blow. I felt embarrassed to be an Orioles fan (little did I know a whole freakin decades worth of embarrassments were soon to follow), that it was such a black mark on the face of the team that I loved so much at such a young age.

And it still bugs the crap out of me. I'm watching Ken Burns' Baseball on the MLBN and they just covered the '69 Series...and I'm still totally annoyed by it.

IT DIDN'T EVEN GO 7 GAMES.

Ugh.

Am I the only one here?

I have the commercially released 8mm film footage of the highlights of the '69 series (no sound) I was 10 years old & really depressed. We were the superior team, but the Mets pulled one out of their hat. I still remember that damn fan with the black & white signs in the Shea crowd. When an "Ed Charles" (who ?) wins the MVP....you're gonna lose.

[Owen21]

As a 7 year old my Grandfather brought me to Chavez Ravine and I got to watch the O's beat the Dodgers in '66.

In '69 I was 10 and I remember beating up a kid wearing a Mets cap in the schoolyard. HasaHahahah

Thanks ! I think this is the breakthrough my therapist was looking for. If the kid looked like Buddy Harrelson, I'm cured !

[JamesI]

My Dad is a huge Mets fan. He still picks on me over this. I wasn't born until 1974!

[Old#5fan]

...that we were the team that the Mets beat in 1969?

It bugs the hell out of me. I have no idea why, seeing as I wasn't born for another 12 years. But I remember being a kid and learning about the Mets, how bad they were and then one year they went from worst to first and they beat...MY ORIOLES? What the crap was that? And we were apparently, like, WAY favored to win that series!

It was a devastating blow. I felt embarrassed to be an Orioles fan (little did I know a whole freakin decades worth of embarrassments were soon to follow), that it was such a black mark on the face of the team that I loved so much at such a young age.

And it still bugs the crap out of me. I'm watching Ken Burns' Baseball on the MLBN and they just covered the '69 Series...and I'm still totally annoyed by it.

IT DIDN'T EVEN GO 7 GAMES.

Ugh.

Am I the only one here?

Oh yeah. You had to dredge that one up eh? It bothers me second only to Superbowl III where the Colts got beat by an even far more inferior team than the Orioles, albeit I think there was something fishy about Earl Morral's performance in that game, not so with the 69 Series. The Mets just played out their yazoo. That catch Swaboda made on Brooks almost defies belief.

It bothered me so bad as a 14 year baseball card collector I trade every Met card I had to my cousin including Nolan Ryan's rookie, which as with mostly all my cards I had gotten out of a pack which I paid a nickel for!

He still has it to this day, and needless to say it would have turned out to be the most valuable card I had ever owned!:(