Eyeblack alert! So rare for a posed pregame photo.
It was a wild game at Shea Stadium. Johnson hit a solo HR in the fourth inning to give the Braves a 3-2 lead. In the top of the 7th, the Braves went up 6-3, thanks in part to a 2-run inside-the-park HR by Ralph Garr. However, the Mets came back in the eighth, with 2-run hits by Willie Mays and Wayne Garrett to take a 7-6 lead. In came closer Tug McGraw to close out the Braves in the ninth. However, McGraw gave up three hits and a walk, and was pulled from the game with the bases loaded and one out, the game tied at 7.
(One of the hits was by pinch-hitter Hank Aaron, who was then lifted for pinch runner Sonny Jackson. How cool is it that Hank Aaron and Willie Mays were both in this game! Must have been one of the very last times they played against each other.)
The Mets brought in Harry Parker to relieve McGraw. The good news for the Mets was he didn't give up a hit. The bad news was that a Dusty Baker groundout gave the Braves the lead, and two more walks (one to Johnson) gave Atlanta an insurance run. They would need that run as the Mets got one back in the ninth, but fell just short, 9-8.
In other news, President Nixon declared that he would not testify nor allow the Senate Investigation Committee access to his papers; 112 American Peace Corps members were held hostage at Entebbe Airport in Uganda, and in Ethopian elections Aklilu Habte-Wold was re-elected as Prime Minister.
Looks like Johnson's 1974 Topps Stamp was from the same photo shoot.
I'm pretty sure that 7-year-old me was at that game!
ReplyDeleteHe looks so much younger on that stamp than I remember him as manager of the Mets. Kinda cool that 12 years later he'd be a World Series winning manager.
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