Ron Swoboda played nine seasons in the major leagues, his first six with the Mets (1965-70). His diving, game-saving catch in Game 4 of the 1969 World Series -- which robbed Baltimore’s Brooks Robinson of an extra-base hit with two runners on – still stands as one of the iconic plays in Mets history.
Here is an interview amNewYork did with Swoboda, now a radio announcer for the Mets' Triple-A affiliate in New Orleans, for our coverage of Shea Stadium’s final home opener. (Check back Tuesday afternoon for an interview with Ron Darling.)
Your rookie season was ’65, Shea’s second season, so it was still brand new. What were your impressions of it then?
I had been in a couple of big league ballparks. I had been in Yankee Stadium as an amateur. I had been in Baltimore Memorial Stadium. I was in the Polo Grounds as an amateur up in New York. Shea was just incredible because it was really higher than all of them. It just seemed so full of expression. They did so many things. The fans there seemed so into the game and happy to see you there, and it didn’t seem as much about winning and losing as it was people were just happy back in ’65 that National League baseball was back in New York and in this beautiful ballpark.
That was the second year of the World’s Fair. The World’s Fair had started in ’64 right across the street from the ballpark. So Shea was there with everything that was happening with a World’s Fair back when World’s Fairs still mattered. So it was pretty electric, the whole scene around Shea Stadium. And we did a lot of visiting of the World’s Fair ground, and because of the World’s Fair, the place was jammed. They drew over three million that year.
It was pretty amazing. And of course, I got to play a little bit in it. And it was difficult if you had been in big league ballparks with big, high backgrounds – their thing was triple level and very high. So if you were in the outfield there, fly balls didn’t often come out of the stands. You had to use the stands as a background. It was difficult to adjust to in the beginning. You could easily lose balls or take bad angles and embarrass the hell out of yourself.
It seems like Shea gets picked on a lot among New Yorkers, especially when comparing it to Yankee Stadium …
I knew Bill Shea pretty well, the guy they named it after. He always liked to tell this story about coming out to the ballpark on the No. 7 train from the city and listening to a couple of people speculating on how the stadium got its name, and one of them said, “I don’t know. It’s named after somebody who died in some war.” He would always tell that story and laugh like hell. That’s kind of an egoless guy. But Bill Shea was extremely important in helping bring National League baseball back to New York. But he was a helluva guy on top of a being a pretty high-octane lawyer.
Knowing the guy they named it for and respecting him and having most of the memories of my little New York Met career were all in Shea Stadium so it holds so much for me. When I go into the place now, you know it doesn’t hold up. Ballparks become economically obsolete before they are architecturally obsolete, and Shea’s probably been economically obsolete for a while now even though it still holds up all right. It was a no-frills kind of a ballpark when they built it.
It seems like Yankee fans are still coming to grips with the fact that their stadium is being torn down. But Mets fans seem to think it’s time for something new. Are you in that group?
I think so. I think it’s so constricted in there. In this day and age, in the economic realities of modern baseball, you really need some place that can help you generate more income. Shea made that a lot more difficult.
Do you still pinch yourself over what the ’69 Mets accomplished?
It surprised me. And everything we clinched that year in ’69, we clinched at Shea Stadium. We clinched the division, we clinched the league, we clinched the World Series at Shea. So that’s another big part of it. We had three pretty interesting champagne celebrations that season in Shea Stadium. You don’t forget that type of stuff. We figured it out, though. We all probably learned something about champagne, which is shoot the New York state, the cheaper stuff, on yourself and drink the good labels.
Your catch in ’69, does it surprise you that all these years later it still stands as one of the great moments in Mets history?
Somebody said, "You spend nine years in the big leagues and play in the World Series, you ought to leave with at least 10 seconds of highlight film." And I think I just made it. I think the total improbability of what was going on with the Mets in ’69 -- and that catch just being one of many things, but it seems to have developed some legs. And for an average player like himself, who wouldn’t have anything like that for a memory if I weren’t lucky enough to be on that ’69 team, it’s pretty cool.
Looking back at the stats, the ’69 Mets didn’t have a great batting average or hit a lot of home runs. Obviously, pitching was a strength. But how do you characterize how this team was able to win a world title?
I think something magical happened. I think it was almost the absolute synergy of a lot of things coming together. Good pitching becoming great pitching after the All-Star break. Donn Clendenon showing up right in the middle of that lineup ready to play and produce some offense. Defense behind great pitching looks a lot better than it is, so we looked like a real good defense and didn’t need to score many runs. And I think we had the advantage that year of kind of coming out of the weeds. I think we snuck up on people. The absolute easiest, most exciting baseball I played in my life was ’69.
There is a difference between letting things happen and trying to make them happen. And letting them happen is a helluva lot easier. And when you don’t have the responsibility or the weight of expectation, we seemed to exist in that sort of nexis of all of that.
How often do you make it back to Shea?
I get back a fair amount. I enjoy going up there and watching them play. I’m a fan. I’m a real fan. And it’s cool now that we (the New Orleans Zephyrs) are the Triple-A affiliates, which is great because I get to see some guys that go to the big leagues and get to give it a try in the show. It’s fun, and it’s neat. I’m a Met fan. I care what happens to them.
What else do you remember about Shea?
The other thing you can’t say too much about is the level of expression they allowed the fans back then. Banner Day was incredible. We were on the field for that. We were out there laughing and looking at the banners and judging them. And then they took all the banners and hung them on the facades. All those decks had that stuff up there. The fans back then had an incredible level of expression that was allowed. You can’t do any of that now, and I think that’s sad. You don’t get to know the fans as well. We felt like we knew the fans, and they knew us in Shea.
We were the biggest babysitters in the city because you could give a kid a few bucks and send him out to Shea. It was a very safe area, and they could get on the train, get off the train, get home and no problems. So we had this tremendous relationship with the fans at Shea Stadium. I can’t imagine it being like that anywhere else.
“You felt like you knew these people. Back then, you weren’t making a whole hell of a lot so you were not on some other socioeconomic plane that exists right now. You weren’t afraid of your fans. It was a good time. We were very, very lucky to have our time at that time.