Magic Summer: The '69 Mets

by Stanley Cohen

In 1969, ending seven years of lovable futility, the New York Mets won the World Series. How they did it became the stuff of legend. Photographs.

Genres: Baseball, Sports, Nonfiction

336 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

There are more than one Stanley Cohen author.

*Stanley Cohen (1922-): USA biochemist
*Stanley Cohen (1928–2010): USA crime novelist
*Stanley Cohen (1934-): USA sport writer
*Stanley Cohen (1937-): USA biologist
*Stanley Cohen (1942–2013): South Africa-British sociologist

Reviews

[Alex Abboud · Rating 4 out of 5]

A look back at the “Miracle Mets”, the surprising 1969 World Series champion. The book, written in the late ‘80s, chronicles that season, and also follows up on many of their players, detailing the rest of their careers and their post-career lives as of the time of writing. Baseball fans will enjoy this retrospective.

[Jacob Westrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a good book to read because for one, I enjoy reading about sports. My favorite sport to play and watch is baseball. Also, I'm a New York Mets fan and to read a book about their season in 1969 was a good experience.

[Trevor Seigler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why in the world do I love the New York Mets? It's a question I've pondered ever since I first began reading books about the team at various moments in its history; I think it all goes back to Jeff Pearlman. His masterpiece "The Bad Guys Won" is in my personal top ten of sports books, and since I first read that one almost twenty years ago, I've found the call of Shea Stadium, Tom Terrific, and "I'm Keith Hernandez" a siren song impossible to resist. And so here I am yet again, with a subjective-ass review of yet another Mets book, one which I can't be objective about.

"A Magic Summer," by Stanley Cohen, is wonderful; there, that's the review.

Oh, you want more? Fine...it's about the Miracle Mets of 1969, a team that came from the cellar to the mountaintop. Created in 1962, the New York Metropolitans were an embarrassment of badness; their inaugural season is the gold standard for sucking. And it didn't get better until a few seasons in, with a new batch of players coming up to replace the "lovable losers" of the Casey Stengal era. It really came together one year prior to the "Miracle," with the ascension of Gil Hodges to the role of manager. Add in the rise of talents like Cleon Jones, Tommy Agee, Nolan Ryan, and (most importantly) Tom Seaver, and the Mets went into 1969 as a strong contender, though no one was thinking of a championship.

Cohen, who originally wrote the book to coincide with the twentieth anniversary of that historic year, interviewed as many Mets as he could, and he emerges here with the best kind of sports book: a chronicle of the greatest season many of these players ever experienced with some looks back at what came before and some suggestion of the passage of time with updates on the players in the moment (in this case, the mid-Eighties, when most were retired but not all). The story of the 1969 Mets has been told, and often, but this rendition is enjoyable as hell. Like I said, I can't be objective about the Mets (at least between the covers of a book; on the field, the modern-day team inspires no such love on my part). "A Magic Summer" doesn't break any ground with regards to 1969, but it's a pleasure to read. And isn't that something to be said?

[Tom Gase · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book. Just what I was looking for in a story in the 1969 Mets, which won the World Series just seven years after fielding the worst team in the history of the game. Author Stanley Cohen does a great job of writing and research in this one, which takes the reader through the entire season, starting in spring training and ending in the World Series against the Baltimore Orioles. Along the way, Cohen spends time to catch up with just about every single player on the team and tell their story of what they did before 1969 and after up to about 1986, when this book was written. Loved all the game-by-game action as well as stories on Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman, Jerry Grote, Tommy Agee, Cleon Jones, Nolan Ryan, Al Weiss, etc. An absolute must for Met's fans and I'd basically say the same for fans of baseball in general. The author also weaves in important events that were going on in the world at the time (or out of this world with the moon landing). Great stuff. Worth the read and it's not too long at 300 pages.

[Josh Sutton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book for any Mets fan

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn't expect to like this book as much as I did, since the Mets aren't necessarily my team of preference. But the 1969 Mets were such a cinderella sports story, winning the World Series in their 8th year of existence and in their first season that they finished above .500, that delving into this Amazin' season makes for great reading. I really like the format, where Cohen intersperses a chronological account of the season with two or three pages that will focus on a specific player from the team, what he brought to the table in 1969, what brought him to the '69 Mets, and what he has been doing since (the book was written in 1986 and Cohen interviewed almost all of the surviving Mets players) Usually the weakness of a book that focuses on a season is a reliance on game by game descriptions, almost as if the book was derived solely from boxscores. But this one strikes a great balance between the events of 1969 and the personalities that made up the team. Definitely one of the better "season-focused" baseball books I've ever read.

[Ron Kaplan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mets

[The Master · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yay Metsies!