| Here is the night the Mets win the pennant, the Mets win the pennant.
October 7: The Unbelievables Make Us Believe Close your eyes, let your imagination run free to wake up the echoes a little bit and maybe you''ll hear a radio announcer going half out of his skull, screaming, "The Mets win the Pennant, the Mets with the Pennant. . . I don't believe it, I don't believe it. . .They are going crazy here. . . Woweeee. . ." All good and true baseball fans remember 1951. The Bobby Thomson home run for the New York Giants climaxed one of the game's great pennant races, and house announcer Russ Hodges greeted the occasion with those famous "I don't believe it" histrionics that were- - for that turbulent moment--quite appropriate.
But for the Mets of 1969? Forget it. These Mets came, as they say, a long way, baby. And once they started coming, they picked up believers like a politician stampeding a convention. Anybody exposed to them in the last month or so--particularly in these final day of the pennant race--saw bright young men flexing their muscles with belief. And we believed it, Russ Hodges, we believed it. Clete Boyer, Atlanta's veteran third baseman, recognized it. He said, "They're so hot. They feel they can do anything. What we might need most is a few days of rain." Joe McDonald, the Mets' farm director, said, "In the beginning I enjoyed all the players' talk that we could win the pennant, but I can't say I ever really believed it. But by the end, I could believe anything. They made you think they would win the Division. After the first game, they made you think they would sweep the Braves. Now I believe they'll beat Baltimore. Not right away, but they'll beat them. I don't care how good Baltimore is and who they have, these kids are crazy." Ken Boswell, the cheerful second baseman, says, "We'll beat Baltimore; it might take eight or nine games, but we'll beat them." Boswell is no less sane than the rest of them. When Henry (the Bravest of the Brave) Aaron followed a first-inning home run with a double that put men on second and third with none out in the third inning, Boswell edged over to Aaron and said, "Henry, we're trying to win this thing; let up on us, will you?" Aaron laughed. He said, "I just swing." Aaron knows about Boswell. When Bosell just came up last season and Aaron hit a double, Boswell intoned in radio-announcer fashion as Aaron pulled into second base, "Ladies and Gentlemen, here comes Henry Aaron into second base with the 8,765th double of his major-league career." Only the purists would argue that Boswell was overstating the case a little. "At least he looked as if he'd get that many." Boswell said. Aaron hit homers in all three games of the playoff. "Without him" said Tommie Agee, "they wouldn't have been any competition." Boswell did all right for himself in his modest way, hitting home runs in the final two games. And Wayne Garrett, the sweet-faced 21-year-old who looks as if he ought to be dating Rebecaa of Sunnybrook Farm, banged the two-run homer in the fifth inning that enabled the Mets to take a 5-4 lead and go on to the 7-4 victory and the Pennant.
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Mets Finally Hook The Prodigal Fan 
