All right folks. We're back with sports. Talk new york here on wgn cd from beautiful downtown merrick. Long island i tell you. I was out at city field on thursday for the degrom. Rain out A real rough day so happy that he got a w yesterday a great game. Pitch by marcus. Stroman today Things are looking up as the mets. Go into wrigley field for a series with the cubs. But i you have to look at the. The mets fly out to denver after getting rained out and then they get snowed out. And that's only the mets folks and that's perfectly in for our next guest. Let's keep the sports memories rolling along. Our next guest is a writer for a number of publications including the atlantic. The new york times magazine and espn the magazine. He served as an executive director g. q. And he was a writer and editor at newsweek. His new book is titled so many ways to lose the amazing true story of the new york. Mets the best worst team in sports welcoming tonight. Devon gordon devon good evening evening. It's a good day for the matt. I ask yes. We had a good day. Of course they make you. You know they give you a stroke watching it. But it was worth the ends that that ending could a game. That was positively competent. Yeah that was. That was like that was some real baseball right there. You know but unfortunately it's not all know certainly not protein israel right now right now the idea for the book and the title which some people some fans may consider derogatory Tell us how you came up with that. Well the title is is a is sort of paraphrase of casey stangl wine. You know as he writing most most met books Than have sort of a self defeating yourself. A facing title probably owes its origins to bengal. And some kind of way Casey stangl said something to the effect of. I had no idea these. This team is showing you ways to lose. I didn't know a gift. It right and that just sort of stuck with me as sort of a a great way to think about the history of our franchise and it's sort of started with you know this notion of what is a we stuck with this. Is this in our dna. Why are we like this. Because you know we are so excited about sixty nine innings six. But those aren't really what we think of when we think of life is a mets fan. Are they all the other stuff. So i wanted to try to see if i could go back and trace the roots and the roots usually casey stengel. Right you're exactly correct. Ever now as cited in the book jacket folks. You can get a synopsis right there. The mets lost an all star after he was attacked by a wild boar. You they blew a six run ninth inning lead at the peak of pennant race and then they fired their manager before he skippered a game. This can only be the mets and talk a little bit about those incidents devon. Well those you know. One of the reasons why i wanted to put those incidents on the jackets laugh because they happen to all in one season that was all twenty. That was all nineteen un assessment. It's getting charged by a wild boar right ryan. Blois six run in the ninth inning of the washington nationals. The most important game of the season we had caught all the way back into the pen. Great playoff race. That game only to blow with a six run ninth inning. And then of course carlos beltran gets fired before he's able even able to manage the game and that is one season of new york mets baseball so it seemed like a fitting way to sort of summarize with active. That all could happen in two thousand nineteen rebadging. What can happen when we're going all the way back. Sixty years right exactly. It's a a riskier. Health was speaking author. David gordon tonight now a reversal of fortune. That's that's the deal. That's the encapsulated incidents. That's that's our thing got thing that's our thing and and you know the the thing about reversal of fortune. Is that every now and then reversing the way you want to write an in order to in order to truly gifted and special about these kinds of These horrific collapses or creative feeds. You have to have had a taste of women because that's sort of like that's what keeps you optimistic right. It's stupid. it's what takes a stupid right every now and then we get a little bit of winning and we think maybe we've gotten rid of this person. Maybe we're no longer than that but the thing about that's even after we pull off our city mazing dose of winning the other part of it is that What's coming next right if we win this year which we are going to by the way of course every not stand knows. We're winning the world series this year. Exactly but if we do and when we do what's coming for us in twenty twenty two is going to be scary. Yes and that's the way it is folks now when i remember Back in his In the midst of a pennant run in nineteen sixty nine. Nobody remembers this. But let's pause for a moment in the pennant. Run to get no headed by the buckles. And bob moist right. Yes yes very. Few teams in the course of iraqi run to a world series title. Get no hit ryan. Mets did the mets. Did i mean it was the mess in nine. Is you know that was the season they had just an offense right with all of those amazing arms. They had through that he wrote. That was the one year when they cobbled together. Just enough offense to win a world series. But i'm nice. They definitely didn't have just enough offense right. I mean it's it was a lot of one run games a lot of tom. Seaver shutout jerry. Kouzmin complete game shutout. You know those sorts of things not a lotta rumour that's right and then also in sixty nine one at steve carlton striking out. Nineteen mets only to be defeated by ron swoboda's to two run homers. That one i mean. I feel like there's something special about something about the era of like you know that late sixties pitcher dominant euro could have a world series title team that got no hits and got struck out nineteen times in one game and you know of course. Tom seaver almost threw a perfect game. That season right now particular and end and so it's kinda mazing to think that in in in basically one summer of nineteen sixty. The mets got no hit. Tom seaver through what he considers to be the best game he's ever pitched and qualcomm struck down nineteen at the helm a pitching. You're right there right. Some tremendous memories now They went in seventy three game seven in the world series from last place in two months. There's another incident of medicine right there. Yeah i mean you know going from lack the first in the span of two months is messy enough on its own right but ending you could be. You can end the story right there and pretty impressive that they went from last place in the playoffs. Then they beat the big red machine right and then they almost beat Oakland athletics like the just dynastic. Incredibly powerful oakland athletics. But the reason why they didn't of course is because yogi bear a box. Pitching rotation another insights. Yes oh so. You know if the mets were going to blow miraculous run to the world series. That's a pretty good way right. They can't just lose an ordinary boring fashion. They've gotta have you know yankee. Legend yogi berra managing the next mess up our rotation right. Why i lose it on the field directly. Why was it on the field when you in a far more messy way exactly and and then we move on to to the next year of success in eighty six. The the mets kill it all year destroying every everybody in their path and then almost blew up blew the playoffs to houston and almost blew.