When the Miracle Mets say goodbye

This installment of Trivia Tuesday rekindles the memory of one of the unlikeliest of stories in baseball history.

That would be the story of the 1969 New York Mets who, in just eight seasons go from a bad – OK, really historically bad – expansion team in 1962 to stunning the overwhelming favorites that are the Baltimore Orioles in five games of the ’69 World Series.

The Miracle Mets of ’69 are loaded with budding stars in future Hall of Fame pitcher Tom Seaver, fellow All-Star starter Jerry Koosman and left fielder Cleon Jones; defense-first players in catcher Jerry Grote, shortstop Bud Harrelson and center fielder Tommie Agee; a rejuvenated, power-hitting first baseman in Donn Clendenon; 20 or so role players; and a no-nonsense manager in Gil Hodges who seems to know exactly how and when to use those interchangeable role players.

Hodges, the old Dodger from Brooklyn’s glory years in the 1950s, also instills a winning attitude into a team that has none before his arrival in 1968.

He needs only two seasons to turn the Mets into World Series winners.

Not everyone, though, stays for the encore.

The celebratory champagne is not even entirely rinsed from their uniforms when the Mets release one of their clubhouse leaders only 12 days after dispatching the Orioles in the fifth and final game of the World Series.

Of course, that player is, well, we can wait on the answer.

And wait a little longer until you remember the name of the late, sometimes great but mostly really good Ed Charles, the part-time third baseman the Mets release just 12 days after the 1969 World Series.

Charles is 36 at the time and leaning toward retiring anyway after a final season in which he hits .207 in 61 games for the Mets during the regular season.

The batting average is his lowest in eight seasons in the majors and lowest overall since turning pro as a 19-year-old shortstop in 1952 with the Boston Braves’ Class C affiliate in Quebec.