Remembering Mets History: (1969) Amazing World Champion Mets On the Ed Sullivan Show

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Sunday October 19th, 1969: After the Amazing Mets won the World Series, they were now national celebrities as the swinging sixties came to a close. 

After their Miracle, run the Amazing Mets were getting offers to do commercials, magazine ads, personal appearances & television shows.

 One of the more popular appearances came on the biggest variety show in television, the Ed Sullivan show.

Ed Sullivan had done interviews with Mets Manager Gil Hodges, Cleon Jones, Tommy Agee, Jerry Koosman and Tom Seaver on October 5th, 1969, just prior to the World Series, after the Amazing's won the pennant.


Now after they had won the Worlds Championship, the Mets entire team was invited to the Sunday October 19th Sunday night show.

On that night other guests included a young female comedian named Joan Rivers, who did a standup routine.

Also was Actress & dancer Cyd Charisse, they did a dance to an instrumental version of the song "MacArthur Park". 

Other acts that evening included the puppet; Topo Gigio,  Tanya the Elephant, the Don Ellis Band & Australian singer; Lana Cantrell. 

Also, on the bill that night, opening the show was a rock band called Smith. Smith was fronted by the beautiful blonde singer Gayle McCormick.

 That night they did a spectacular version of "Baby It's You" which they had a hit with that year.

Comedian, Bill Dana also did a sketch (in his José Jiménez role) as being Casey Stengel's speech teacher, much to the laughter of the New York Mets team.

 As for the Amazing Mets, Ed introduced them by saying "look who's assembling on our stage, the World Champion New York Mets". After this introduction, the Mets all dressed up in their best suits, sang the song "You Gotta have heart".

Some of the more popular players received cheers from the crowd as the TV monitor displayed their names as the cameras panned over them.

After singing the song, pitcher Jack DiLauro did an impersonation of Ed Sullivan to the delight of the team. DiLauro only pitched in 23 games that year & did not pitch in the post season. He was drafted away by the Houston Astros (Rule V) that December.

Quotes- Jack DiLauro-: "Nobody in New York cared if we could sing or not. They just wanted to see the Mets. I almost fell down getting onto the stage, but I got it done."

The Amazing Mets also released a record album
 with songs & highlights of the season, the song "You Gotta Have Heat" was of course featured on it with the players doing the singing as well.



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