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The catcher of the 1969 New York Mets has passed away.
The catcher of the 1969 New York Mets has passed away. / Darryl Norenberg-USA TODAY Sports
Fifty-five years after stunning the baseball world with an improbable World Series championship, the 1969 New York Mets are still one of the most famous teams in baseball history.
Unfortunately, their numbers are dwindling. On Sunday, former catcher Jerry Grote passed away at age 81 in Austin, Texas.
Grote, who lived a full baseball life, spent the bulk of his career with the Mets from 1966 to 1977, playing 12 seasons with New York. He debuted with the Houston Colt .45s (now the Astros) in 1963 but was traded to the Mets — a fellow expansion franchise — two years later.
Grote found his footing in New York and soon took off, quickly emerging as one of the better backstops in the National League. He made his first All-Star team in 1968, posting a commendable .706 OPS in The Year of the Pitcher. He made another All-Star team in 1974 with the Mets but was traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1977, spending parts of three seasons with them (and one with the Kansas City Royals) before calling it a career in 1981.
That said, Grote is best known for playing a key role on the fabled 1969 club that upset the heavily favored Baltimore Orioles in the Fall Classic. After a decade of mediocrity, the Mets announced to the whole world that they were no longer a laughingstock.
Grote helped New York get back to the World Series in 1973, where it fell short against the Oakland A’s. He also made back-to-back World Series appearances with the Dodgers in 1977-78, but lost both times to the New York Yankees.
While Grote never got the call to Cooperstown, he was inducted into the Mets’ Hall of Fame in 1992, cementing his legacy for generations of fans.
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