Saturday Seasons : The Forgotten Miracle: The 1973 Mets

Welcome to Saturday Seasons, the weekly series where we hop in the orange and blue DeLorean and cruise through one Mets season at a time, no matter how magical, miserable, or Mo Vaughn related it may be. This is installment number eleven, and today we’re heading back to 1973, a year I know a thing or two about. Why? Because I literally wrote the book on it: The Forgotten Miracle: The Story of the 1973 Mets.

That’s right this week, I’m cheating. I brought notes. And not just any notes: published, copyrighted, ISBN-assigned, 507 pages of notes.

Now, full disclosure: there are so many amazing, ridiculous, and downright goosebump inducing stories from that season that I couldn’t possibly fit them all here and also, hey, I need to sell a few books. So think of this piece as the free Kirkland something or other sample on a toothpick at the Costco of Mets history. If you like the taste, there’s plenty more where it came from.

Being a Mets fan is like being in a long term relationship with someone who forgets your birthday, cancels dinner, but then surprises you with diamond earrings and an emotional game-winning squeeze bunt. There have been peaks like '69 and '86 and valleys so deep they should come with a Sherpa. (Looking at you, 1993. Again.)

But 1973? That season was something else entirely. It was chaotic, improbable, oddly poetic and somehow ended just one win short of a World Series title. So grab a coffee (or a Seaver vineyard bottle of wine ), settle in, and let’s revisit the season where “Ya Gotta Believe” wasn’t just a slogan. It was survival.

Most fans know the story of the 1969 Miracle Mets. But four years later, the Mets pulled off something just as jaw-dropping—only this time with fewer stars, more injuries, and a lot more aspirin. While the '69 team won 100 games and looked like they might be starting a dynasty, the '73 squad limped to 82 wins. They spent most of the summer in the basement and only made the playoffs because five other teams collapsed harder than Jim Fregosi’s batting average. And yet... they came this close to winning it all.

To understand ’73, you need context and a few flashbacks. The early ’70s belonged to the Pirates, who were dominating the NL East with Roberto Clemente, Willie Stargell, and a lineup that could launch satellites. Meanwhile, the Mets were still reeling from the sudden death of Gil Hodges in ’72, had swapped out heroes like Tommie Agee, and brought in some fresh faces, including Félix Millán and George Stone. And just to tug at the heartstrings, they brought Willie Mays back to New York a beautiful, if bittersweet, homecoming.

Millán turned out to be the quiet MVP a contact hitter who rarely struck out and made the second base hole disappear. Stone went 12–3 and somehow managed to be both underrated and indispensable. The Mets didn’t make flashy moves. They made smart ones. Of course, they also made some clunkers, like trading away Nolan Ryan a year earlier for Fregosi, but hey, no one’s perfect.

Spring training ’73 featured more soap opera than sunshine. Rusty Staub got fined $500 for showing up two pounds overweight (that’s $250 per pound, in 1973 dollars!), and Mays just kinda disappeared from camp for a few days—without telling anyone. Yogi fined him too. But the real headlines came from the Bronx, where two Yankees pitchers made baseball history by swapping wives. Yes, really. Compared to that, Rusty’s weight was a non-story.

The season started like a root canal. The Mets couldn’t hit, they couldn’t stay healthy, and they couldn’t get out of last place. Seaver was still Seaver, he won the Cy Young but even he looked mortal at times. Koosman and Matlack pitched well, but the offense was in witness protection. By the All-Star break, the Mets were buried.

July was a mess. The Mets were in dead last on July 30. Last. Not just in the division in runs scored, batting average, you name it. Shea Stadium sounded more like a morgue than a ballpark. The team needed a spark. And then...

Tug McGraw said it first, probably half-joking. But the phrase stuck. “Ya Gotta Believe” became the rallying cry. It was part charm, part desperation. McGraw went from unreliable to unstoppable. Millán started hitting everything in sight. The Mets clawed their way back not with firepower, but with fight.

The final month of the 1973 season was pure mayhem, with five teams jammed in the NL East like rush-hour traffic on the Grand Central. But no stretch was more pivotal than the five-game showdown between the Mets and the first-place Pirates from September 16–21. Two games in Pittsburgh. Three in Queens. The stakes? Everything.

Game 1 (Sept. 16): The Gut Punch

The series started in Pittsburgh with what looked like a mismatch on paper: Tom Seaver on the mound. But the Bucs brought bats, not respect. Seaver, working on short rest, didn’t have it. Willie Stargell and Richie Hebner each homered, and Seaver was gone by the third inning in a 10–3 drubbing that pushed the Mets 3½ games back. Yogi Berra’s gamble to start his ace early was questioned by fans and players alike. The dream, once again, felt distant.

Game 2 (Sept. 17): The Ninth-Inning Miracle

A loss might have finished them. Instead, the Mets staged one of the most thrilling comebacks in franchise history. Down 4–1 in the ninth, they erupted for five runs capped by Don Hahn’s go-ahead single. Ron Hodges and Felix Millán had huge hits; Cleon Jones drew a walk to help load the bases. And with Shea holding its breath, rookie Bob Apodaca nearly gave it away in his debut before Buzz Capra got the final out with the bases loaded. Final: 6–5 Mets. Hope, somehow, was still alive.

Game 3 (Sept. 18): Cleon’s Revenge

Back at Shea, the crowd was buzzing and Cleon Jones was bruising. Jones drove in five runs, including two homers, the second, a three-run bomb in the 8th off Dave Giusti, turned a 4–3 nailbiter into a 7–3 win. A perfect Staub-to-Milner-to-Grote relay cut down a Richie Zisk at the plate, and Tug McGraw slammed the door with three electric innings of relief. The Mets were now just 1½ games back and believing.

Game 4 (Sept. 20): Ball on the Wall

One of the most iconic games in Mets lore. Tied in the 13th inning, Dave Augustine crushed what looked like a go-ahead homer. Instead, the ball hit the top of the left-field fence and bounced back into play. Cleon Jones grabbed it, threw to Wayne Garrett, who fired home to Hodges. Richie Zisk was out at the plate for the second time in two nights. In the bottom of the inning, Ron Hodges delivered the walk-off single. Final: 4–3 Mets. Shea exploded. The Mets were now just a half-game out.

Game 5 (Sept. 21): First Place, Finally

In front of over 51,000 roaring fans at Shea, the Mets completed the comeback with a 10–2 demolition of the Bucs. Tom Seaver rebounded with a vintage performance, and the offense pounded out 13 hits. Everyone contributed: Garrett, Staub, Jones, Grote, Milner. By night’s end, the Mets stood alone in first place—for the first time since April. The team that had been dead and buried in August was now the hunted.

That five-game stretch wasn’t just the turning point of the season. It was the season. A gut punch, a miracle, a slugfest, a wall-assisted defensive gem, and a coronation. The 1973 Mets didn’t just believe. They made the whole city believe, too.

After clawing their way from last place to the top of the NL East, the Mets rolled into the National League Championship Series brimming with belief and about as many wins as a mid-tier beer league team. Their opponent? The 99-win Cincinnati Reds, a.k.a. the Big Red Machine, featuring future Hall of Famers Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan, Tony Pérez, and a guy named Pete Rose, who never met a double-play breakup he didn’t treat like a demolition derby.

Game 1 in Riverfront was a tight pitcher’s duel, with Tom Seaver battling Jack Billingham. The Reds squeaked out a 2–1 win, and it looked like reality might be setting in. But in Game 2, Jon Matlack flipped the script, delivering a three-hit, 5–0 shutout masterpiece that even the Reds had to admire grudgingly. The Mets were heading home with the series tied.

And then came Game 3. The Mets won it 9–2, but no one remembers the score. They remember the fight. In the fifth inning, after Pete Rose slid hard and some might say high into Bud Harrelson to break up a double play, words were exchanged, fists followed, and within seconds, benches cleared in a wild melee. Shea Stadium erupted, and not in a good way. Fans rained debris onto the field. Players had to plead for calm. Willie Mays himself walked out to left field to appeal to the crowd like a baseball Moses. Somehow, peace returned. The Mets kept their cool. The Reds didn’t.

Rusty Staub carried the offense early in the series with three home runs in the first three games before hurting his shoulder crashing into the outfield fence. Even with one arm, he’d keep swinging. Jerry Koosman and George Stone pitched well enough in Games 4 and 5 to keep the Reds in check, and Tug McGraw, who had practically taken up residency on the mound by this point, slammed the door shut whenever needed.

The Mets closed out the series in Game 5 with a 7–2 win, sending the mighty Reds packing and Shea Stadium into bedlam. Against all odds, the team that had been in dead last on August 30 was now headed to the World Series.

The World Series opened in Oakland with the Mets hoping for a split on the road, and Jerry Koosman on the mound trying to deliver it. Game 1 slipped away in extra innings—Reggie Jackson drove in the walk-off run in the 11th—and suddenly the Mets were behind in the series and fighting frustration. They needed a lift. Maybe even a miracle. Or maybe just Rusty Staub and a whole lot of sunshine.

Game 2 delivered all of the above—plus 12 innings, 17 runs, and enough fielding misadventures to fill a blooper reel. In what was, at the time, the longest game in World Series history, the Mets outlasted the A’s 10–7 in a wild, sun-drenched mess that felt more like a sitcom than a ballgame. Balls were lost in the light. Throws sailed. Gloves betrayed. And the outfield? It played like an obstacle course on a reality show.

Early on, the A’s jumped out to a 3–1 lead as Cleon Jones and Don Hahn both lost fly balls in the sun, and Koosman struggled with command. But the Mets clawed back with homers from Jones and Wayne Garrett, then took the lead in the sixth with a flurry of hits—and a comically bad throw home from Darold Knowles on a comebacker that brought in two more runs.

Reggie Jackson wouldn’t let the A’s go quietly, though, and when Willie Mays misplayed a fly ball in the ninth that led to a pair of game-tying runs, it looked like the old man’s final postseason moment might be a cruel one. Jackson himself said of Mays, “That was Willie Mays in nomenclature only.”

But baseball, like Willie Mays, has a sense of drama.

In the 12th inning, with the game tied and redemption hanging in the air, Mays punched a single up the middle to score Bud Harrelson and give the Mets a 7–6 lead—his final hit and RBI in the majors. “There was no emotion for myself,” Mays said afterward. “You could see it in the dugout how they felt.” That dugout was electric. And when Mike Andrews committed back-to-back errors to help the Mets tack on three more runs, the A’s fell apart—literally and emotionally. Charlie Finley tried to have Andrews declared “injured” after the game. His own manager and players were furious.

Tug McGraw threw over six innings in relief, George Stone closed it out, and the Mets evened the series at 1–1 in the weirdest, wildest way possible.

Next stop: Shea.

With the series tied at one and momentum riding the redeye back east, the Mets returned to Shea Stadium for Game 3 hoping to ride Tom Seaver’s right arm—and maybe keep Charlie Finley’s chaos cloud on the other side of the dugout. Finley had just forced second baseman Mike Andrews to sign a phony injury affidavit after two errors in Game 2, and all of baseball was buzzing. While Finley played clubhouse dictator, his own players silently protested by taping Andrews’ No. 17 to their jerseys. Meanwhile, the Mets were just focused on baseball—and grateful for Seaver and the Shea crowd.

Things started well. Wayne Garrett homered in the first, Félix Millán and Rusty Staub followed with singles, and a wild pitch from Catfish Hunter gave the Mets an early 2–0 lead. Seaver was locked in, striking out nine through five, and the Mets looked poised to take control of the series.

But in the sixth, cracks began to show. Back-to-back doubles by Sal Bando and Gene Tenace cut the lead in half. In the eighth, Bert Campaneris singled, stole second, and scored when Joe Rudi ripped a ball just past John Milner at first. Tie game.

Tug McGraw came in to work his magic and wiggled out of jams in the ninth and tenth, but the Mets couldn’t cash in. In the bottom of the tenth, with two outs and the go-ahead run on base, Willie Mays came off the bench for what would be his final major league at-bat. He grounded out. Baseball’s poetry can be cruel like that.

Then came the eleventh. Harry Parker walked Ted Kubiak, then struck out a pinch hitter—but the third strike squirted past Jerry Grote for a costly passed ball. Kubiak advanced, and Campaneris singled him home. Just like that, the A’s stole a 3–2 win and a 2–1 series lead. Seaver had struck out 12 and given the Mets everything he had, but it wasn’t enough. And the ghosts of missed chances—plus one untimely passed ball—haunted Shea as fans filed out.

But Game 4 would bring redemption.

In front of a packed and fired-up Shea crowd, the Mets roared back behind two heroes: Jon Matlack on the mound and one-armed Rusty Staub at the plate. Staub, still dealing with that gnarly shoulder from the NLCS, arrived in New York early to get extra swings in—and it showed. He smashed a three-run homer in the first inning and added a two-run single in the fourth. Five RBIs. All heart.

Matlack was electric. Eight innings, three hits, and total command until he tired in the eighth. Ray Sadecki cleaned up, and the Mets cruised to a 6–1 win. But the loudest moment of the night didn’t come on a hit or a strikeout. It came when Mike Andrews, reinstated by Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, stepped to the plate for a pinch-hit appearance. The Shea faithful gave him a long, thunderous standing ovation—one last, loud Bronx cheer for Charlie Finley. Andrews grounded out. It was his final major league at-bat. But that ovation? That was New York baseball at its finest.

With the Series tied 2–2, the Mets were back in the fight—and in many ways, back in control. Shea was rocking. Staub was raking. And the team that never stopped believing was now just two wins from a title.

Game 5 of the 1973 World Series was a tense rematch between Mets’ Jerry Koosman and the Athletics’ Vida Blue, turning into a classic pitching duel that showcased the heart of postseason baseball. The Mets took an early lead thanks to John Milner’s RBI single in the second inning, and Don Hahn added insurance with a surprising triple in the sixth—his first of the season—igniting the Shea Stadium crowd despite the chilly 40-degree weather. Koosman was masterful on the mound, keeping the powerful A’s lineup off balance and earning the win despite a late-inning scare that brought Tug McGraw into a bases-loaded jam. True to form, McGraw thrived under pressure, striking out the side in the seventh inning and preserving the 2–0 victory, giving the Mets a 3–2 lead in the series.

The Mets’ defense also played a crucial role, with Bud Harrelson’s savvy fielding and timely plays frustrating the Athletics’ best hitters, including Reggie Jackson. The A’s, rattled by the Mets’ resilience and buoyed by the electric Shea Stadium atmosphere, struggled to mount any real offensive threat. Oakland manager Dick Williams praised the Mets’ pitching while privately grappling with ongoing off-field turmoil stirred by owner Charlie Finley’s antics. The Mets, meanwhile, felt the momentum shifting decidedly in their favor as they prepared to close out the series.

Game 6, back in Oakland, presented a daunting challenge for the Mets as Tom Seaver took the mound against Catfish Hunter in a high-stakes battle to force a Game 7. Unfortunately for New York, Seaver was not at his best, missing his usual fastball command and allowing the Athletics to jump on him early. Reggie Jackson broke through with a clutch double in the first inning, and the A’s capitalized further as Hunter stifled the Mets’ offense with a dominant performance. Despite a late-inning rally sparked by hits from Ken Boswell, Wayne Garrett, and Félix Millán, the Mets could not complete the comeback. Rusty Staub, battling a painful shoulder injury, struck out at a critical moment, and Oakland’s Darold Knowles closed the door with a key strikeout and catch in center field. The A’s won 3–1, forcing the series to a dramatic seventh game.

While the loss was a setback, the respect between the teams remained palpable. Jackson praised Hunter’s pitching brilliance, and even Mets players acknowledged that Seaver had fought valiantly despite not having his best stuff. For the Mets, the challenge was clear: regroup and prepare for a winner-takes-all Game 7, where destiny awaited in the shadows of the Oakland Coliseum.

On October 21, 1973, the New York Mets and Oakland Athletics met in a Game 7 for the ages a final battle that would crown the year’s champions. The Mets, a team that had clawed their way from last place in August to the brink of glory, faced a powerhouse Oakland squad defending their title with swagger and star power.

The game’s early turning point came on a hanging curveball that cost Mets pitcher Jon Matlack dearly, as Bert Campaneris’s home run set the tone for Oakland’s eventual 5–2 victory. Reggie Jackson, despite receiving ominous threats off the field, rose above the pressure to deliver a clutch, MVP-worthy performance that sealed the championship for the A’s.

For the Mets, the loss stung deeply, especially for Yogi Berra and his squad who knew missed opportunities like failing to bring home the tying run in Game 6 had cost them dearly. Still, the team’s resilience, embodied by Tug McGraw’s famous rally cry, “Ya Gotta Believe,” defined their remarkable season.

While the 1973 Mets didn’t capture the ultimate prize, they rewrote the story of what was possible. With an 82–79 regular-season record, the lowest winning percentage ever for a pennant winner they shocked the baseball world by overcoming long odds, defeating the Cincinnati Reds’ Big Red Machine, and pushing the Swingin’ A’s to their limits.

This World Series was historic not just for its drama but for records set on both sides from Darold Knowles’s pitching feats to the record-setting performances of Mets players Don Hahn and Jerry Grote, and Oakland’s Gene Tenace and Reggie Jackson.

Though overshadowed by the legendary Miracle Mets of 1969, the 1973 Mets earned their own place in history: the Forgotten Miracle of Flushing. Their story is one of perseverance, grit, and the unyielding belief that no matter the odds, anything is possible.

The final pitch of Game 7 marked the end of the last daytime World Series game ever played an apt conclusion to a chapter of baseball that remains unforgettable. For Mets fans, it’s a reminder that miracles come in many forms, and sometimes, the greatest victories are those of the heart and spirit.

Hey, did you really think I was going to write all this and not include a plug for the book? Come on, I’m a Mets fan, not a miracle worker. Truth is, there’s so much more to the 1973 season than I just laid out here the injuries, the infighting, the oddball quotes, and yes, every last glorious, agonizing, unforgettable moment. It’s all in The Forgotten Miracle: The Story of the 1973 New York Mets. So if this article stirred any memories or sparked your curiosity, do yourself a favor and pick up a copy. Because ya gotta believe... and ya gotta read.