BALTIMORE (AP) -Ron Swoboda had a .242 career batting average, never hit 20 home runs in a single season and was considered to be nothing more than ordinary in the outfield.
“To say I was an average player would be overstating it,” Swoboda acknowledged recently.
His sense of timing, however, was impeccable. Playing on baseball’s grandest stage, Swoboda made the best play of his life.
After an memorable summer of ’69 in which the long-suffering New York Mets rallied to win the National League pennant, Swoboda made one of the greatest catches in World Series history, a diving grab of a line drive in Game 4 that propelled the Amazin’ Mets to their first world championship.
“It was an amazing play,” conceded the victim, Brooks Robinson of the Baltimore Orioles, a 16-time Gold Glove third baseman who knows a thing or two about outstanding defensive play.
ll be honored at three different locations in the Big Apple next week, most notably at the 29th Annual Thurman Munson Awards Dinner on Tuesday. Swoboda and David Tyree of the New York Giants are among those to receive awards at an affair designed to recognize “great catches and great plays.”
When the 1969 World Series began, Swoboda was hardly considered to be a candidate to make an impression with his glove. He alternated between left field and right field during the regular season, making two errors and recording five assists in 97 games.
Swoboda recalled a that Baltimore sports announcer once said, “The only way Swoboda could make a living with his glove is to cook it and eat it.”
But after the Mets made it to their first World Series, Swoboda excelled. The Mets had a 2-1 series lead and were ahead 1-0 in the ninth inning when Swoboda’s magical moment arrived.
After singles by Frank Robinson and Boog Powell put runners on the corner with one out against New York ace Tom Seaver, Brooks Robinson hit a sinking liner to right. Swoboda raced to his right, dived and made a backhand grab. He lost his cap and ended up flat on his back, but quickly bounced to his feet to throw the ball home.
Frank Robinson tagged up and scored, but the Mets got out of the inning without further damage and went on to win the game 2-1 in 10 innings. They won the next game, too, to capture the World Series.
It might have been an entirely different outcome if not for the catch.
“If it gets by me, it’s a triple for Brooksie,” Swoboda said.
“Yeah, it would have been a triple,” Robinson lamented recently. “Greatest catch ever? I don’t know how to rank it, but it was a great play by Swoboda. And the funny thing is, he wasn’t known for his glove.”
Ah, but this glove was different.
“I knew when it hit the webbing, it wasn’t going anywhere,” Swoboda said. “It was a special glove. I had it broken in right, and I only used it in games. It was unlike anything I ever had on my hand before; it was ideally suited for a backhand play.”
Now 64, Swoboda lives in New Orleans and is an ambassador and part-time announcer for the Triple-A New Orleans Zephyrs. But he still has connections to New York and Baltimore.
Swoboda was born in Baltimore and played high school ball at Sparrows Point before going to the University of Maryland. He played one season with the Terrapins before being drafted by the Mets. His father still lives in Baltimore, and not long ago Swoboda returned to be inducted in the Sparrows Point High School hall of fame.
r the other team.
“They wanted to see me do well, but they were rooting for the Orioles,” he said. “I was OK with that. If I wasn’t on the Mets, I’d have been rooting for the Orioles, too.”
Friends and family probably didn’t know whether to cheer or cry after Swoboda made the catch.
“I was lucky, fortunate, whatever you want to call it,” Swoboda said. “I worked hard that offseason to become a better outfielder. Then I made that play, and it happened to come in the World Series.”
Said Robinson: “I watched him growing up and playing in Baltimore. For him to make that play against the Orioles, that was probably very satisfying for him.”
To say the least. Swoboda said rarely a day goes by when he doesn’t think about that catch, and the memory will return in earnest when he and Tyree are honored Tuesday at the prestigious Munson affair. Tyree, of course, made a spectacular catch in the last Super Bowl to help the New York Giants defeat the previously unbeaten New England Patriots.
“Two magical catches,” Swoboda said, “just a few years apart.”
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