Mets '69 Celebration: Gil The Great

By Glenn Petraitis

I am currently reading "The Yankee Years" by Joe Torre and Sports Illustrated's Tom Verducci. It's an inside look at Joe Torre's run as the Yankees manager during the World Series years up until the end of his reign in New York. It's a pretty good book. It's very cool to read about all the stuff that goes on inside the clubhouse, when we as reporters are not there.

That being said, what I'm getting from the book, is how great Joe Torre was as a manger. How he got certain players to respond, how honest he was with each of his guys, how he handled the Boss, George Steinbrenner, and A-Rod, and guys like the always sour Kevin Brown, and the always edgy Gary Sheffield. It's all very interesting and then yesterday I went to the '69 Miracle Mets 40 year anniversary celebration at Citi Field.

Before the game, I sat in a large press room, looking at a large table, listening to some of the largest personalities on that '69 championship team. Buddy Harrelson, Jerry Grote, Ron Swoboda, Cleon Jones, Nolan Ryan, Jerry Koosman, and of course Tom Seaver.

Take a listen to some of the highlights from the press conference:

I listened to a group of guys who won, but preached on and on, how they would not have won without their leader, their skipper, the great Gil Hodges. They each had a story on how he did not miss a thing, how he called them on every little detail, ones that anyone would've passed off as inconsequential, but not Gil. He saw it all, and left nothing to chance.

It was awesome listening to how the skipper influenced each and every one of them at different times throughout that season. A little meeting with Tom Seaver in the manager's office where Gil never lifted his head from the notebook he was writing in. A talk he had with Cleon Jones in a slippery, wet outfield when he pulled him out of the lineup for not chasing down hard enough. A comment to Buddy Harrelson about how he was the toughest 180 some-odd pound shortstop he knew, which was a veiled hint to Buddy about losing weight to protect his bad knee.

It was all awesome to listen to, as these guys loved Gil, and would not have been champions without him. Just like Joe Torre was to the championship Yankees, different personalities yes, but great motivators that most guys would run through a wall for.

Yesterday was a very fun day for me as a reporter.

Glenn Petraitis for The Huddle