May 26, 1963 - Sooner or later, the New York Mets bring the opposition down to their level. That’s how they managed to salvage a 3-2 victory in 11 innings in the second half of today’s doubleheader with the Cardinals in St. Louis. New York had lost the first game, 7-4. The Mets clung precariously to a 4-3 lead until the eighth innings of the first one before submitting to their seventh straight defeat. Then they took a 2-1 lead into the ninth innings of the second game with Carl Willey apparently headed for his fifth victory. Carl Sawatski, however, opened the ninth with a homer. Before the inning was over, Casey Stengel had to call on Galen Cisco, the man who had started the first game. Cisco finished and won this one, thanks to two Cardinal errors in a hitless final inning. Duke Carmel, who had entered the game as a runner for Stan Musial in the 10th, dropped Charlie Neal’s fly near the left-field fence. Bob Gibson thereupon replaced Diomedes Olivo on the mound for St. Louis, and promptly threw the ball past first on Chico Fernandez’s bunt. Neal scored on the error. An error by Julian Javier had led to the Mets’ 2-1 lead in the seventh. Frank Thomas and Ron Hunt followed it with two-out singles off Bobby Shantz to bring the score across. The victory concluded the Mets’ long Western trip with a 3-11 record. If it had ended 2-12, it would have been the worst the Mets ever had. This way, it’s about average. After the game, Met manager Casey Stengel (right) complained that Jimmy Piersall (left) had gone without a chance in his first two games as a Met. “I finally got a centerfielder,” said Casey, “and nobody will hit the damned ball to him.”
