It has been a slow, sad journey into darkness, and for Buddy Harrelson the lights have now finally gone out. The Mets’ beloved shortstop of their ’69 “miracle” team and former manager died Wednesday night after his long battle with Alzheimer’s disease. He was 79.
The Mets announced Thursday morning Harrelson died at a hospice house in East Northport, Long Island.
It is incidental that the bantamweight Harrelson hit only .237 with a scant seven homers in 5,516 plate appearances across 16 seasons in the major leagues. What made him a Met mainstay and one of the most popular players in their history was his superb glove work and feisty on-field leadership qualities, particularly with their 1969 and 1973 World Series teams.
The trademark of those Met championship teams were pitching, led by Tom Seaver and Jerry Koosman, and up-the-middle defense with Tommie Agee in center field, Jerry Grote behind the plate and Harrelson at shortstop. Though he won only one Gold Glove award, in 1971 when he fielded .978, Harrelson was unquestionably the glue of the Mets infield. “There was no way we’d have won those two pennants without Buddy,” his best friend, Seaver once said. In 1970, Harrelson set a major league record (since broken) with 54 consecutive errorless games at shortstop.
Born Derrel McKinley Harrelson in Niles, Calif., on June 6, 1944, he was accidentally given his permanent nickname “Buddy” from his older brother Dwayne who had trouble pronouncing “brother.” After hitting .430 in his first year of college ball at San Francisco St., Harrelson decided to turn pro and signed a contract for about $10,000 with the Mets at age 19 in 1963. A right-handed hitter all through high school and college, Harrelson taught himself to switch-hit when he reached Triple-A with the Mets’ Jacksonville farm club in 1966. The next year, he and Seaver made the jump to the big leagues as Harrelson won the Met shortstop job, hitting .254 over 151 games, and Seaver won National League Rookie of the Year honors with a 16-13 record.
Two years later, Seaver and Harrelson were the principles on the Mets’ “impossible dream” 1969 world championship team. In an effort to add some bulk to his slight 160-pound frame, Harrelson spent the ’68-’69 winter lifting a lot of weights and it helped him improve his batting average from .218 in ’68 to .248. He made just 19 errors at shortstop in a season in which military service limited him to 119 games. The play he was most remembered for in ’69 was scooping up the Joe Torre’s grounder and starting a game-ending double play on Sept. 24 against the Cardinals that clinched the first NL East division title for the Mets.
Harrelson made only one error in 44 chances in the ’69 postseason and although he hit under 200, had a double, triple and three RBI in the ’69 NLCS against the Braves.
In 1970, Harrelson enjoyed his best season, hitting .243 with a career high 42 RBI and was selected to his first All-Star Game in which he went 2-for-3 with two runs scored. He made the All-Star Game again in 1971 while his high water full season batting mark was in 1973 when he hit. 258. But as far as Mets fans were concerned, his finest moment of ’73 occurred in the fifth inning of Game 3 of the National League Championship Series against the Reds.
There were already brewing hostilities between the two clubs after Jon Matlack had shut out the Reds on two hits in Game 2 to even the series at a game apiece and Harrelson made an off-the-cuff disparaging remark to reporters that the Reds’ hitters “all looked like me.” Before Game 3, the Reds’ Joe Morgan approached Harrelson at the batting cage and warned: “If you ever say anything like that about us again, I’ll punch you out.”
And then it happened. The Mets were well on their way to a 9-2 rout of the frustrated Reds when with one out in the fifth and Pete Rose on first, Morgan hit a ground ball to the right side which Mets first baseman John Milner fielded and threw to Harrelson covering second for a force play on Rose. On the play, Rose slid hard into second, hitting Harrelson with his elbow.
“That was a cheap shot what you said about us,” Rose said.
“What did you say?” said Harrelson who, at that point, suddenly found himself pinned on the ground by the 40-pounds heavier Rose. The two came up swinging and both benches and bullpens emptied with a wild brawl ensuing. The game was nearly called when the angry Shea Stadium fans began pelting Rose with debris after he later returned to his position in left field, prompting Reds manager Sparky Anderson to call his team off the field. Only when Mets manager Yogi Berra, Seaver, Rusty Staub and Willie Mays went out to left field and made a personal plea to the fans to cease and desist was the game able to be finished.
In the Mets clubhouse afterward, Harrelson was sporting a big bruise over his eye which he said was the result of his sunglasses being broken, but it was viewed as a badge of honor by Met fans who from that day lionized the little guy as a hero. Harrelson was injured much of the ensuing four years and by 1977, the year they traded Seaver, the Mets had handed the shortstop job to Tim Foli. The following March they traded Harrelson to the Phillies for infielder Fred Andrews. He played two more years as a backup infielder, finishing his career with the Texas Rangers in 1980.
But he never lost his Mets roots. His 1,322 games played are second in franchise history behind Ed Kranepool and in 1986 he and Staub were the first two players to be inducted into the Mets Hall of Fame.
Harrelson returned to the Mets in 1982 as first base coach for manager George Bamberger, then moved to the broadcast booth with Tim McCarver and Ralph Kiner in 1983 and managed in their minor league system for two years before being promoted to their third base coaching job in 1985. As such, he was the only Met in uniform for both the 1969 and 1986 world championship clubs.
He remained Mets third base coach until May 29, 1990 when he was named manager to replace Davey Johnson. Unfortunately, his managerial tenure was brief, largely unsuccessful and marked by periodic player insurrections as he was perceived as a weak and indecisive leader who relied too heavily on his bench coach Doc Edwards. In June of ’91, Harrelson and David Cone got into a heated, finger-pointing dugout confrontation over a pitchout call by Edwards with the opposing pitcher at-bat.
The Mets had been 46-34 at the All-Star break in 1991 but thereafter went 28-46 before Mets GM Frank Cashen fired Harrelson with a couple of days left in the season. “Buddy has been on the defensive and it was cruel and inhuman to have him being grilled every day,” Cashen said. Pitcher Frank Viola put it even stronger: “The situation here was as bad 10-12 weeks ago and that’s when it should have happened.”
His disappointing managerial stint notwithstanding, Harrelson remained a popular and integral part of the Mets and New York baseball community — especially after spearheading the formation of the independent Long Island Ducks in 2000. The Ducks became one of the Atlantic League’s most successful franchises and Harrelson, their co-owner and first manager, was credited for that with his tireless promotion of independent league baseball.
At a seminar at Hofstra University in 2012, Harrelson was asked what he thought was his greatest accomplishment in baseball and he answered unhesitatingly: “The Long Island Ducks were the best thing I’ve ever done because the fans know me and I know them,”
It was in the summer of 2016 when Harrelson was first diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease but despite the grim diagnosis he continued to make public appearances, including all the 1969 Mets 50th anniversary festivities where he was accompanied by his ex-wife Kim who’d become his primary caretaker. He is survived by three daughters, Kimberly, Alexandra and Kasandra, and two sons, Tim and Troy.
