Ultimate Mets Database: Game of July 9, 1972

Kenny
November 4, 2002
I have a video of about 4 innings of this game. Players in the line-up that day included Mays, Fregosi, Beachamp (replaced at 1B by Kranepool), Dyer, Martinez, Garrett, Harrelson, Milner. Starting OF of Staub, Agee, and Jones were all injured. In Dodgers line-up was Buckner, Lacy, Parker, Wills, Lefebre, Sims, Davis, and Frank Robinson! Pretty uneventful game..but there was a great play at the plate, where Seaver attempted a suicide squeeze off Osteen with Dyer on third after Dyer had doubled off the wall in the gap in right. He was called out after the replay clearly showed safe, and Berra and Dyer argued the call. Fregosi looked terrible at plate.

Shickhaus Franks
October 30, 2015
There is footage of this game on good old You Tube courtesy of KTTV 11 Los Angeles. Here's some irony for you: Part of the footage has Seaver pitching to a young Dodgers phenom by the name of.....Bill Buckner. Who would of thought that 14 years later that Buckner and Seaver would be teammates on the Red Sox. You can seriously do comparisons between the 1969 and 1986 World Series just like Abe Lincoln-John Kennedy and even John Belushi-Chris Farley.

Dave VW
January 8, 2025
I wound up watching the same clip on YouTube as Kenny and Shickhaus Franks. I thought it was so interesting to see the crowd waving at the camera whenever they had a chance, as televised games were such a novelty at the time. 50 years later and that novelty shine has completely worn off. And maybe it's just me, but the game seemed to move so much slower back then than it does now, and I don't mean because of the lack of a pitch clock. It just seemed like everyone ran slower and didn't throw as hard. Dyer lobbing the ball back to Seaver with runners on base. Mays awkwardly making basket catches in center field. And so many weak swings resulting in easy ground balls. Perhaps I'm more biased toward my own generation, but it definitely seems to me like the talent is at a much higher level these days than it was back then.

Anyway, the Mets offense continues to look dead without their big stars in the lineup. They're currently in a stretch of 21 games in which they wouldn't score more than 4 runs in any game. This was the 3rd time during the stretch they'd be shutout.

The squeeze play Kenny mentioned was their only solid shot of scoring all game. I agree with Kenny that it looked like Dyer was safe, but umpire John McSherry (the same umpire that died on the field from a heart attack in 1996) blew the call. Also, Mays had two at-bats in which he batted with 2 on and 2 out, but he couldn't get the big hit either time.

And the Mets lost yet another to injury, as Jim Beauchamp looked like he hurt himself running to first base in the 4th inning, and he'd miss the next 19 games. The Mets eventually got so shorthanded in the game they moved Fregosi to 1B and Grote to 3B, which was Grote's first time playing the hot corner since 1966.

After being 6.5 games ahead in first place on May 20, the Mets are now a season-high 4 games out of first. And it's only going to get worse from here.

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