1965 Mets - Warren Spahn's Brilliant Start
60 years ago "The Immortal Southpaw" pitched a gem for the Lovable Losers
60 years ago yesterday, on April 14, 1965, Warren Spahn, the all-time winningest left-handed pitcher, put on a New York Mets uniform and started the 2nd game of the 1965 season for the Mets against the Houston Astros. Spahn was just one week shy of his 44th birthday.
As recently as 1963, Spahn had played at the highest level. In that year, he won 23 games and had a 2.60 ERA. But in 1964, he slipped badly, winning just 6 games in 25 starts, posting the highest ERA of his career at 5.29. He had never been over 3.71 in any prior year.
Spahn had pitched in 714 games going back to 1942, all with the Braves. Now, for the first time, he was wearing the uniform of another team in a major league game.
He started the game at Shea Stadium as well as any ever pitched by any of the Mets most vaunted pitchers in franchise history: Seaver, Ryan, Koosman, Matlack, Gooden and DeGrom.
Spahn was perfect through 3 innings.
He had a no hitter going with 2 outs in the 5th inning.
Spahn even had run support. 20 year old Ed Kranepool blasted a 2 run homer in the 4th to give the Mets a 2 - 0 lead.
Spahn continued to pitch well even after he lost the no hitter. He still had a 2 hit shutout going into the 7th.
And then the immortal Spahn learned what it was like to be a New York Mets player in the lovable loser days. He gave up 5 hits and 3 runs in the top of the 7th. But he did come back to get the heart of the Astros order out 1-2-3 in the 8th. In the bottom of the 8th, he was taken out for a pinch hitter. The Mets went on to lose the game in 11 innings 7 - 6. The Astros scored what turned out to be the winning run on a steal of home.
But still, for the 7,000 fans watching in Shea on a cold day, it must have been very warming to see Warren Spahn pitching in a Mets uniform and delivering as good a first 6 innings as any Mets pitcher ever delivered, and a pretty solid 8 innings overall.
Leonard Koppett in The New York Times provided this synopis of Spahn’s performance “In his first start as a Met, the 43-year old Spahn turned in eight innings of first-rate pitching. Chances are that most of his 356 victories were achieved with no better work than he displayed this time.”
The 1965 Mets are now 0 - 2.