| Unlike Swoboda, the manager, Gil Hodges, was not one to let his emotions run away with him. He was, as I said in this piece, a cool customer.
September 19: Hodges Gets His Hits Montreal -- When Gil Hodges was a member of the grand old gang of Brooklyn Dodgers, he often mashed enemy pitchers with one swing of his mighty bat. If a right-handed pitcher attempted to throw a curve ball on the outside corner and didn't quite slice a fine enough piece of that corner, Hodges would swing and send a baseball crashing into the left field stands at Ebbets Field. Muscle power. Hodges, in his wildest dreams (and it may be a bit presumptuous to suggest that this cool fellow has wild dreams) possibly never dazzled with his bat as he seems to do with his pen these days. With one mighty swipe of his ballpoint pen, manager Hodges made two changes in his Mets lineup and inserted fellows who then played major roles in the Mets' two-game sweep of the Montreal Expos. Brain power.
On Wednesday, an arm ailment to regular shortstop Bud Harrelson forced a last-minute change. Hodges inserted Al Weis for Harrelson and altered his batting order so that Kenny Bowell took over the clean-up spot. Weis poked two hits, knocking in a run, and scintillated in the field with nine assists, one of them a play deep in the hole that Expos manager Gene Mauch called the best play he had seen by a shortstop this season. Boswell went two-for-three, figuring in two run-scoring innings. "It was nothing," pooh-poohed Hodges, a man who long ago refined the art of knowing now to kid a kidder. Last night Hodges decided it was time to unleash Ed Kranepool upon the enemy. Kranepool is a lefty, and the Expos pitcher, Bill Stoneman, is a righty. It's baseball percentage to pit lefty against righty. The only catch is that righties have pitched against the Mets recently and Kranepool remained on the bench. Why did Hodges choose this night for Kranepool? "He wanted to play," said Hodges. Oh. Kranepool wanted to play so much that he came up with a man on second base his first time up and knocked in the run. He homered his third time up, and Tom (the whiz bang of a kid) Seaver then laid nine goose eggs upon the Expos. The Mets, everybody's darlings, had won another game. When the chappies come off the bench and contribute like this, the Mets talk about a 25-man team and everybody picking everybody else up. It is not unlike the line of philosophy handed out by Vince Lombardi when he said, "There's love on this team," explaining Green Bay's success. When the Packers went on the skids last year, guard Jerry Kramer wondered aloud if it wasn't winning that produced the love, rather than vice versa. Hodges doesn't indulge in such deepthink. But a question was asked: Didn't he find it uncanny that the two men he inserted in the lineup came up heroes like that? "Well," he said, "you might also remember that the pitching was pretty good. That helped, didn't it?" Yes. In other words, Gil, you are saying that no matter what these players had done with the bat, the pitchers, first Jerry Koosman and then Seaver, had guaranteed that the Mets would be no worse than tied at 0-0 after nine innings. Hodges nodded. End of lesson. Mauch is among those impressed by the Mets and Hodges. "They play the way Hodges played," Mauch said. "By that I mean there is a calmness to them. You get the sense they won't panic. I don't think they'll lose the lead the way we (the Phillies) did in 1964. Perhaps our club was too excited. I don't know. The Cubs reflect Leo Durocher that way. I'm not necessarily saying it's bad. Leo likes to keep things hopping all around him and that's the kind of team the Cubs have been. The Mets are calm; they have the pitching to prevent any panic and that's why it doesn't look as if they'll lose their lead." Donn Clendennon, the Met first baseman who has played for a manager or two in his time, said, "I think Mauch is right. When I was with the Pirates under Harry Walker, we were a lot like him. A lot of nervous movement and wasted effort. I think I've calmed down, not taken slumps so bad since I've been with the Mets. I think maybe Hodges' influence is responsible." And what does Hodges think of all this baseball analysis? "It's interesting," he said. A long pause. "I don't really know what else to say. It is interesting, though."
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Swoboda Revels in His Image 
