Mets launched Amazin’ title run

ful Orioles in five games in the World Series.

“A lot of people think it was a miracle, but if you asked every one of us the last month of the season, nah,” says Wayne Garrett, one of the Mets’ third basemen. “We knew then what we could do and what we had.”

At one point, third baseman Ed Charles is purported to have said something like, “If they can get a man on the moon, we can win the World Series.”

“Ed was a poet, a philosopher and a terrific ballplayer who was a tranquil force in the clubhouse,” Shamsky says. “I’m not sure if he really said it, but it wouldn’t surprise me one bit.”

“I think it was him,” Swoboda adds. “I know somebody said it.”

Whether legend or fact, the quote got to NASA. “I remember hearing that,” Griffin says. “Yeah, I think all of us knew that and were aware of it because it related to the moon. He was prophetic.” And the outside world began linking the Mets and the moon mission, too. Famed Daily News sports cartoonist Bill Gallo did multiple pieces about “Apollo 69.” In one, Yogi Berra, a coach, compared the possibility of the Mets winning the pennant to man landing on Mars.

That September, the Associated Press handled the Mets’ ascension like this: “When Apollo 11 landed on the moon seven weeks ago, it set the pattern. Anything can happen in 1969 and now it has. The New York Mets are in first place.” Admirers at NASA were paying attention, at least when the Sestarted. ries Apollo 12 did not launch until November, so Griffin, a big baseball fan, recalls being able to follow MetsOrioles. “Gil Hodges got me pulling for the Mets really hard. They had struggled so much in their early days and that was a nice payoff,” says Griffin, who considered him“Dodger self blue” because he grew up in Fort Worth, home to a Brookfarm lyn club. As a kid in New Mexico, Schmitt was a Dodger fan, too — “They were the dominant team I could get on radio broadcasts,” Schmitt says — so he also admires Hodges.

“Gil had a long, illustrious career,” Schmitt says. “I can’t believe he’s not in the Hall of Fame. We can only hope.”

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In the golden anniversary year for the moon landing and the Mets title, there’s a modern link between the events — Armstrong, who died in 2012, was the father-in-law of new Mets’ GM Brodie Van Wagenen. Van Wagenen is married to Armstrong’s stepdaughter.

“That is something,” Shamsky says. “Fate works in magical ways. I would look at that as a good omen, just on the outside looking in.”

In the past, Van Wagenen has alluded to the parallels between the jobs — putting a smart plan in place is necessary for both an astronaut and a man trying to build a winning ballclub.

Whatever happens to this year’s Mets, the club will honor its first title team from June 28-30 at Citi Field. And, across the nation, celebrations are planned for the moon landing, including one in Armstrong’s hometown of Wapakoneta, Ohio, at the museum that bears his name.

Later in the summer, the Mets link the two one more time — they have a “Mr. Met on the Moon” bobblehead giveaway July 27.

Why not? As Shamsky puts it: “It was an amazing — to use a Met word — experience for all of us.”