Casey Stengel’s 1963 Mets were still deep in the growing pains of expansion baseball, a club coming off a 120-loss season and built from a mix of fading veterans and players who weren’t quite ready yet. The wins didn’t come often - New York finished with just 51 of them - but when they did, they could be dramatic. That year’s Mets produced 11 walk-off victories, and in mid-July they pulled off something even rarer: back-to-back walk-off wins.
The first came on Tuesday, July 16, in the finale of a four-game series against Harry Craft’s Houston Colt .45s. Al Jackson, who entered at 6-10, matched up with Turk Farrell, and both pitchers would finish as their clubs’ win leaders, Jackson with 13 and Farrell with 14.
For six innings, Jackson kept Houston off the board while the Mets built a 3-0 lead. Joe Hicks started the scoring with a two-out solo homer to right in the fourth.
In the fifth, Jim Hickman added his ninth homer of the season, also a solo shot off Farrell. Then in the sixth, Frank Thomas doubled and Joe Hicks followed with another double, driving Thomas home for a 3-0 cushion.
Houston chipped away from there. Rusty Staub homered in the seventh to make it 3-1, and Jim Campbell’s solo shot in the eighth cut it to 3-2.
In the ninth, Johnny Temple doubled and Pete Runnels singled to put the tying run on third. Casey Stengel lifted Jackson for Galen Cisco, who got Carl Warwick to ground into a double play, but pinch runner Ernie Fazio scored from third to tie it.
The Mets answered in the bottom of the ninth against Al Woodeshick. Hot Rod Kanehl reached on an infield single, then advanced all the way to third when Woodeshick threw wildly on a pickoff attempt. Stengel sent up Norm Sherry to pinch hit, and Sherry delivered the winning single to left, bringing Kanehl home for a 4-3 Mets victory.
The next night, Wednesday, July 17, the Mets were back at the Polo Grounds to open a series with Alvin Dark’s reigning NL champion San Francisco Giants. A crowd of 26,574 showed up, many of them still loyal to the Giants just six years after the club had left New York. Tracy Stallard started for the Mets against Gaylord Perry, who was making only his second start of the season.
San Francisco struck first. Harvey Kuenn tripled to open the game and Willie McCovey singled him in. In the second, Orlando Cepeda walked, and after two outs Perry and Kuenn both singled to make it 2-0 Giants.
The Mets kept hanging around, helped by Giants mistakes. In the bottom of the second, Frank Thomas singled, Larry Burright reached on a fielder’s choice and moved up on a wild pitch, and Al Moran reached when Chuck Hiller booted a grounder, allowing Burright to score. Then in the third, Willie Mays tripled and scored on a wild pitch by Stallard to push the Giants ahead 3-1.
New York flipped the game in the fourth. Joe Christopher walked, Duke Snider reached when Hiller committed his second error of the night, and Jesse Gonder launched a three-run homer to right.
It was Gonder’s sixth and final homer of the season. Christopher then added his first and only homer of the year, making it 5-3 Mets.
McCovey answered with his league-leading 29th homer in the fifth. He would finish the year with 44 and claim the first of three NL home run titles in the 1960s.
The Mets stretched the lead to 6-4 in the sixth after singles by Al Moran and Stallard set up Christopher’s groundout, which brought Moran home. But San Francisco surged back in the eighth. After back-to-back singles to start the inning, Jay Hook entered and allowed three straight RBI singles to Orlando Cepeda, Chuck Hiller and Jose Pagan, giving the Giants a 7-6 lead.
New York tied it in the ninth. Jack Fisher, who would join the Mets the following year, came in for San Francisco and gave up a leadoff single to Duke Snider. Hot Rod Kanehl ran for Snider, and Frank Thomas tied the game with an RBI double to left-center.
The game stayed level through the next two innings, with Galen Cisco and Jack Fisher each throwing scoreless frames. Then in the bottom of the 11th, veteran Don Larsen came in for the Colts.
Joe Christopher singled to start the inning, and Joe Hicks ended it with a walk-off homer over the right-field wall. It was Hicks’ second straight game with a homer and multiple RBIs, and it gave the Mets a 9-7 win and their second straight walk-off victory.
Joe Hicks’ brief hot streak was worth noting on its own. He homered in three straight games, drove in seven runs, and collected eight hits over that stretch. After that, though, he cooled off fast, hitting just three more homers the rest of the season.
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For Mets fans, the more unsettling part is that one of the names floating into that discussion is a current New York starter who is still working back from injury. He is on the 60-day injured list and expected to return in August, which makes him an especially intriguing possibility for a contender looking to add help without waiting too long, and it adds another layer to a deadline market that could get complicated quickly. [Read more 🡒]