1969 Miracle Mets by Steven L Travers
In the popular 1977 movie Oh, God! George Burns, playing the deity, is asked in a courtroom to prove His divinity by performing a miracle. Burns tells the attorney, The last miracle I did was the 1969 Mets. Before that, I think you have to go back to the Red Sea. Man has engaged in athletic competition at least since the ancient Greeks. Baseball has been played, according to legend, since Abner Doubleday invented it at Cooperstown, New York in 1839. Through the travail of ages, in the entire history of sports, the 1969 Amazin' Mets remains the single most impossible, unbelievable, improbable and wonderful sports story of all times. This book tells the tale of that incredible spring, summer and fall, but it does much more than simply recount how the worst sports franchise ever ascended to the very heights of greatness in a few short months. The Last Miracle is the story of tumultuous times: the 1960s. Amidst the backdrop of the Vietnam War, the Mets remained the last, best hope of a city on the verge of bankruptcy. Through the lens of time we now can view them as a metaphor for a changing America, and in light of the Big Apple's phoenix-like comeback over the years, the catapult for this battered-yet-unbowed Metropolis. Somehow, while the Mets became the mods of baseball, the new breed athlete, Tom Seaver and his teammates are viewed herein as the final symbols of an innocent age; an age when the greatest icons in American culture - New York sports heroes - mounted the stage in awesome splendor; before Watergate, before free agency, before the mercenaries took over. Here they are: Seaver and Harrelson; Hodges and Stengel; Grote and Swoboda; Jones and Agee; all the characters of the greatest comedy act ever performed, all the while upstaging a tempestuous Mayoral race, President Nixon's secret plan, a Moonshot, and Woodstock.
Praise for Steven Travers Steve Travers is a great writer, an educated athlete who knows how to get inside the player's heads, and when that happens, greatness occursHe's gonna be a superstar.- San Francisco Examiner Steve Travers is the next great USC historian, in the tradition of Jim Murray, John Hall, and Mal Florence! ... The Trojan Nation needs your work!- USC Head Football Coach Pete Carroll Steve Travers combines wit, humor, social pathos and historical knowledge with the kind of sports expertise that only an ex-jock is privy to; it is reminiscent of the work of Jim Bouton, Pat Jordan and Dan Jenkins, combined with Jim Murray's turn of phrase, Hunter Thompson's hard-scrabble Truths, and David Halberstam's unique take on our nation's place in history. His writing is great storytelling, and the result is pure genius every time. - Westwood One sports media personality Mike McDowd Steve Travers is a phenomenal writer, an artist who labors over every word to get it just right, and he has an encyclopedic knowledge of sports and history. - StreetZebra magazine Steve Travers is a Renaissance man. - Jim Rome, The Jim Rome Show
Steven Travers is a USC graduate, a former professional baseball player, and the author of many books, including the best-selling Barry Bonds: Baseball's Superman, nominated for a Casey Award as Best Baseball Book of 2002.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781599214108 |
| ISBN 10 | 1599214105 |
| Title | 1969 Miracle Mets |
| Author | Steven L Travers |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Publisher | Rowman & Littlefield |
| Year published | 2009-03-01 |
| Number of pages | 208 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |