John Mac
May 16, 2002
I'm pretty sure this was the first Mets game I ever attended (8 yrs old.) I recall it was a close game until Rod Kanehl broke it open with a pinch-hit grand slam off Barney Schultz (the "fireman" for the Cards) sometime in the 7th or 8th inning.

Think about how improbable that was; Hot Rod Kanehl hit only 6 lifetime HR's, and hits a pinch-hit grand slam off a tough pitcher.

I switched from a Yankees fan to a Mets fan at that point and never looked back.

Bob P
January 2, 2005
The grand slam by Rod Kanehl that John Mac referred to in his May 2002 post was the first grand slam in Mets history.

Tom Anderson
June 13, 2005
I attended this game with my dad and I remember that Gil Hodges hit a home run; I also remember that Ray Sadecki threw a wild pitch on an intentional walk, allowing a run to score.

Ed K
September 22, 2007
Hodges hit his last major league homer in this game. It was #370 which moved him into 10th place on the All-Time Homer list as it then stood - ahead of Ralph Kiner who was announcing when Hodges hit the homer!

An interesting question: I was a young kid at the time and recall that one of the nine homers by Hodges as a Met was an inside-the parker at the Polo Grounds. Was this it? Inside-the- parkers were quite frequent in the Polo Grounds on balls hit in the gaps because CF was 480 feet while the Mets played there in 1962-63!

Tom Miller
June 30, 2009
This was the first Met game I ever went to. I was 11 years old and my father got great seats directly behind home plate, slightly to the third base side, a few rows up. I remember expecting the Mets to lose. I had started watching the Yankees a few years earlier and still considered myself a Yankee fan, although the Mets interested me because I could now see players like Willie Mays and Sandy Koufax. I did not realize at the time but my metamorphosis into a Met fan began that night. I remembered that the Mets won big and I remember vividly the grand slam hit by Rod Kaneal as a pinch hitter in the 8th. I remember Ray Sadecki was a young, hard throwing lefty for the Cardinals. I distinctly remember the catcher chasing a ball to the backstop, shouting out curses as he neared the stands. Roger Craig kept the Cards off balance all night. I also remember how much I enjoyed the ambiance before the game, watching batting practice and listening to the music piped in from speakers in center-field. I remember thinking I liked the Polo Grounds better than Yankee Stadium. I remember how much my dad enjoyed being at the game with me.

NYB Buff
June 23, 2023
The Mets hit three home runs on this night, each of which had its own significance. The first was by Gil Hodges in the second inning for (as Ed K points out) the 370th and last of his career to give him one more than Ralph Kiner, who was a Mets broadcaster at the time. In response to Ed K's question, Gil's inside-the-park homer was back on May 16th against the Cubs. It wasn't this one.

Charlie Neal slugged the Mets' second homer in the fifth inning to give the team a 4-0 lead. This proved to be the winning run in their eventual 10-3 victory.

Rod Kanehl provided the third Mets home run in the bottom of the eighth. It came with the bases loaded for the first grand slam in team history. Kanehl had replaced Frank Thomas in left field in the top half of the inning. Two previous posters about this game claimed that Kanehl hit the slam as a pinch-hitter, but he didn't. Rod was in the game already.