Game 3 '69 Series on SNY now

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All these guys look so skinny, especially Harrelson, but Gentry looks like he wouldn't stand up to a strong breeze.

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Gentry just doubled in the games' second and third runs, off Palmer. (This being the third game of a Series, Agee led off with a solo homer.)

Grote, as I always remember him, blessed his cussed Texas heart, runs down to first base almost as fast as Beleanger, on a routine groudout to ss. He spoiled me for Mets catchers--no one ever put out as much hustle behind the plate as number 15 (which, I notice, was also Davey's uni # with the O's.)

Earl Warren was in the stands, wearing a suit, as were most of the men. I'm looking carefully at the crowd shots--my Uncle Sam and cousin Jerry were there that day.

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Cleanup hitter Art Shamsky also looks undernourished.

Cleon just tried to make a shoestring catch, but nabbed it on a very short hop, so F Robby got on, and then went 1st-to-3rd on Powell's hit. Robby could run the bases beautifully.

Gentry looks like he's in junior high school, except when he's throwing the ball.

Agee just ended the O's 4th with his famous snowcone cone catch at the 396 sign.

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Can't get over the suits and ties and mostly the white shirts on the fans. People don't get dressed up like this to go to a wedding anymore.

The weirdest play I've seen--Boog Powell called for interference on a play I've seen I've seen on a football field routinely, but never on a baseball field. Harrelson on 1b, Palmer tries to pick him off but the ball gets past Powell--Powell chases the ball on the same exact path that Harrelson tries to take off for 2b on, and it's bump-and-run several times, exactly like a wide receiver and a cornerback, until Powell trips Buddy, up-ends him, and the ump sends him to second. Weaver squawks, naturally.

I know I'm repeating myself, but you've got to watch any game Grote catches to see him trailing the batter down to first on a grounder to the infield --there were three outs this inning that went 6-3, and every time, Kranepool just flips the ball to Grote, standing five feet away, when the runner is called out.

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Again, Powell singles to rf, and F Robby on first goes first to third, like it's in his contract. Afterwards, Grote goes out to the mound for a few choice words with Gentry, and as they talk, Grote pokes Gentry (hard, it looked to me) in his chest. I don't think it was an affectionate gesture--he looked mad to me.

[HahnSolo]

What struck me earlier was Shamsky playing basically on the warning track when I think it was Powell at the plate.

Also, when the teams were announced, the managers did not meet at home, they both went to the bases on their side of the field

[Benjamin Grimm]

I wish I was able to watch.

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Also notable is the quality of the broadcast--these are crisp pictures, in bold colors, unlike the washed-out, grainy camerawork usually seen in visuals from this era. This game looks like it took place yesterday, at least photographically.

It seems Hodges trained these guys to play the game right--not only fielders backing up other fielders routinely, but even the level of the pants, stirrups and white socks. When I say these uniforms were UNIFORM, I mean precisely. (I noticed yesterday that the 2007 Mets either wear their pants down to the shoetop or else hiked up the just below the knee.)

Hodges yanks Gentry for Ryan with the bases loaded.

Oh, boy. I sense some brilliant defense coming right up.

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Interview with Casey, as Ryan warms up. Classic. Also amazingly lucid and insightful. I thought he'd become doddering and rambling by this point, four years after they let him go, but no. He's sharp as a tack.

Right on cue, Agee pulls off more snowcone defense at the 396 sign. Ryan was the luckiest guy on the planet--if he'da given up a bases-loaded extra-base hit, he would have been a huge goat.

Well, him or Hodges. Agee sure yanked their nuts out of the fire.

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Interesting--Lindsay Nelson just announced that either Mike Cuellar or Tom Phoebus would face Seaver in game 4 the next day. Since Cuellar pitched, you gotta think Weaver was looking to pitch Phoebus if the O's won, allowing the rest of the series to feature his starters on normal rest, but with the O's down 2-1, he went to short rest, which didn't quite work out. But it's pretty rare, I think, nowadays that a manager in a World Series still have his rotation up in the air less than 24 hours before game time, no? I guess that stil happens sometimes but Nelson's tone suggests that there's nothing at all unusual about it in 1969.

Ryan K's Boog Powell. Man, could he blow it past them. And he was not scared to throw high and tight. At least two pitches would have resulted in a warning today.

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Down 5-0 in the 9th, the O's (Hendricks) swing at the first pitch, a fly out to RF (Gaspar). Not good baseball. Don[t you have to take a few pitches there, try to work out a walk or something? Eventually, they get the bases loaded when Ryan gets a little wild, but you gotta wonder...

Games ends when Ryan freezes Paul Blair on a breaking ball that Blair totally gives up on, thinking it's a fastball and about two feet over his head but it breaks down for a strike. Beautiful.