OMG, Bryan Adams reference. Definitely subtracting hipster points in SF, but nice recovery with the Willie McCovey blurb.

Note also escalation in anti-war demonstration size occured in Fall of ‘69, forgotten now because they were dwarfed after Kent State in 1970.

But ‘69 will be forever seared into my brain, sitting in the TV room of my UVA dorm with about 10 other die hard baseball fans in October, watching in horror as my then beloved Orioles missed by inches of winning the WS against the Mets, who seeemed to make every shoe-string catch. To this day I cannot hear or read about Tommy Agee without a sick feeling, and the sight of Mets agony today brings me great joy, almost giddiness.

Still, it is not enough. No amount of current, past or future Mets humiiation can erase the hollow disappointment that even 40 years of time’s passing has not dimmed. The sight of my hero, Brooks Robinson, walking dejectedly off the field will never be forgotten. And even the triumph of 1970, glorious as it was, did not completely make up for the disaster in 1969.

I was only 6 during the 69 series, and don’t remember much of anything—not even sure if I was really a baseball fan yet.  (Remember the ‘73 series much better).  However, you know how fans bring signs to the park?  Ad the lucky ones hwo sit in the front row of an upper deck and get to hang them down off the railing?  I seem to remember 2 or 3 houses on my block having bedsheets hanging out windows during the 69 series—with things like “Let’s Go Mets” or whatever on them.  I can picture one of those signs so clearly in my head.

But the grown-up me thinks that is nonsense and I must be mis-remembering things.  I wonder if people really did stuff like that back then.  Wouldn’t it be cool if they did?