Mets' swoon won't be soon forgotten

PITTSBURGH -- The Mets will be reminded for the rest of their lives how they staged baseball's worst September collapse, squandering a seven-game lead and a division title in a 2 1/2-week swoon even worse than that by the 1938 Pirates.

The 1978 Red Sox, 1969 Cubs and 1964 Phillies, among others, may have endured historically greater free falls - the Phillies gave away a 6 1/2-game lead in barely a week's time in late September -- but no first-place team lost more ground in less time than these Mets.

Mets manager Willie Randolph, a one-time Pirates infielder, now knows how manager Pie Traynor felt in 1938 as a hurricane, a throw-caution-to-the-wind owner and a home run virtually no one saw cost his Pirates the seven-game lead they held on Sept. 1.

"I still think about not winning that pennant," former Pirates catcher Ray Berres said before his death at age 99 earlier this year. "It was a great disappointment."

So great that the Pirates unintentionally erected a monument to it that stood until Forbes Field, their home from 1909-70, was razed in 1971.

Despite a rare off year by future Hall of Fame outfielder Paul Waner, who staged a contract holdout before the season began, and an average pitching staff, the Pirates opened their big lead by going on a 13-game winning streak during a tear in which they won 40 of 54.

Their best player wasn't Waner, whose .280 average was 29 points below his previous career low, or Hall of Fame brother Lloyd Waner (.313), but rookie Johnny Rizzo, who had been acquired in an offseason trade with St. Louis.

Rizzo hit a then-Pirates record 23 homers, drove in 111 runs and had a .301 average, carrying the offense in what would prove to be a career year. And while it was the era of the starter, All-Star reliever Mace Brown -- he would start only twice in 51 games -- was the staff ace with a 15-9 record.

The most-used starters, Russ Bauers (13-14) and Jim Tobin (14-12) didn’t have standout numbers, yet the Pirates looked like champions. So much so that Giants player-manager Bill Terry proclaimed, "If the Pirates don't win the pennant, they should quit playing ball."

That was the problem: They quit playing from Sept. 19-21, and the three-day layoff might have cost the Pirates their only pennant from 1927 through 1960. (Terry should have known better, as his '34 Giants lost a seven-game lead with 21 games to play in September.)

With the East Coast battered by rain and an approaching hurricane nicknamed the Long Island Express that would eventually kill 600 to 700, the Pirates idled away three long days in hotels.

They were rained out of two games against last-place Philadelphia (which lost 105 of 150) and two more against seventh-place Brooklyn, costing them much of the momentum they gathered while winning eight of 10.

The second-place Cubs, on the East Coast as they chased the Pirates, also sat for three days, but it was the Pirates who felt like they were losing more.

"We were winning game after game, close ones and easy ones ... but as we sat around hotel lobbies during the storm, a hot team cooled off and never regained its winning momentum," owner Bill Benswanger said.

The four missed games were never made up. Imagine if these Mets had two games against the Pirates and two against the Reds called off by rain last week and commissioner Bud Selig said, "Sorry, guys, we've got to stick to the postseason schedule. The games impact the race, but they won't be made up."

That was the disappointment those Pirates felt during their layoff, yet they were confident as the season wound down.

Benswanger, in anticipation of a World Series against the Yankees, ordered a new 600-seat press box built atop Forbes Field and 2,000 temporary seats installed in center field.

The Pittsburgh Press contributed to the optimism, running the Sept. 23 headline "Bucs Home to Put 'Clincher' on Flag."

Not quite. The Pirates beat the Reds two of three in that series but held only a 1 1/2 game lead as they went into Wrigley Field to meet the Cubs, who were on a seven-game winning streak.

Chicago made it eight by winning 2-1 on Sept. 27 behind a dead-armed Dizzy Dean, who hadn't started since Aug. 20. Dean was bailed out in the ninth by Bill Lee, who had beaten the Cardinals 6-3 with a complete game the day before.

The Cubs took the league lead the following day with a dramatic 6-5 victory in one of the most famous games in NL history. With twilight rapidly fading and the score tied at 5 in the ninth inning, the umpires decided to call the game and play a doubleheader the following day if the Cubs didn't score.

While players on both teams unable to see any ball hit in the air, Gabby Hartnett somehow hit an 0-2 curve ball by Brown into the bleachers to win -- a drive few in the sold-out ballpark saw in the late-afternoon gloom.

If Hartnett's so-called Homer in the Gloamin' didn't do the Pirates in, Lee did a day later by beating them 10-1 in his second start and fourth appearance in four days. The Cubs lost two of their final four to the Cardinals and tied another, but held on as the Pirates dropped three of four to Cincinnati.

Later, Benswanger blamed the hurricane and the four games lost -- not Hartnett's homer - for the Pirates' demise.

And the new press box? It was turned into spectator seating that, for the rest of Forbes Field's existence, was known as Mace Brown's Folly.