In October of 1969, the Mets accomplished a feat that most baseball fans, including New York's own, considered impossible. Incredulous crowds, filling up Shea Stadium, watched a powerful young pitching staff, strategically-acquired veteran position players, and several homegrown favorites surge past the Cubs, romp the Braves and conquer the Orioles to attain one of the most improbable World Series victories in history.

Today, Shea is no longer the ultramodern, state-of-the-art facility once born out of the 1964 Worlds Fair, and the locks of the young men who once played there in Flushing Meadows 30 years ago, are now a road-jersey gray.

It is a fact of life for all athletes that talent and physique fade with age. But for these Mets, what has forever remained unwavering is the love showered upon them by long-time fans who witnessed an adorably awful 40-120 expansion team in 1962 evolve and shock the world with what was called a "miracle" championship title in 1969.

Hence, it was a grand old time when some grand old-timers fondly gathered inside a packed Shea Stadium on Sunday, May 2 to commemorate the unexpectedly magical team on its 30th anniversary season.

The old friends and teammates' names once more resonated through the stadium's public address system as they were introduced prior to an old-timers game that would pit the Mets against players from rival teams.

Still showing who's boss, the Mets shut out the opposition that afternoon. The hitting star, with two triples, was outfielder Ron Swoboda, a former Syosset resident whose 1969 championship year earned him a hometown celebration held in his honor. Also playing was all-time favorite Ed Kranepool, a lifelong, 18-year Met first baseman and outfielder who currently resides in Jericho's The Hamlet.

Most of the Miracle Mets actually met up one day earlier, on Saturday, at a baseball card show at Hofstra University in Hempstead. Inside the college's bustling physical fitness center, in the far corner of the room, sat the 1969 Mets, arranged alphabetically along a broken chain of tables. Immersed in the happy commotion and historic reflection were both Kranepool and Swoboda.

"It's always good to get together. We don't ever see enough of one another," said Swoboda, a Mets outfielder from 1965 to 1970 who finished his nine-year career with Montreal and the cross-town Yankees. "It's just amazing that 30 years later people still care enough to make an event like this happen and bring us all together," he continued, during an interview with the Tribune.

"There's a lot of people that, somehow what we did in '69 kinda carved a hunk out of their hearts. You know, it's obvious in the look on their faces, and the fact that they're here, that they made a place in their heart for you," he said.

Kranepool concurred. "This is what's nice about doing functions in New York. The New York fan really knows the game...I appreciate them coming out, so that's why I do a lot of [these] things in the neighborhood, because you want to see the people that supported you over the years," said the first baseman.

"Here we are celebrating the 30th anniversary of an event, and people come out to see you and want to be part of it and spend the day with you, and it's encouraging to see that so many people followed you," he continued.

Part of the reason people still do care three decades later is because the personable, underdog Mets enchanted so many baseball fans. They ingrained themselves in the New York scene and the public's consciousness, and in some cases still do.

Kranepool, for instance, is a lifelong New Yorker, having grown up in the Bronx, attending James Monroe High School. Shortly after graduation, at only 17 years of age, he began his career with the Mets. He remains the youngest major league player in Mets history. Kranepool has lived on Long Island for 30 years, mostly in Jericho since retiring in 1979.

Though Swoboda is originally from Baltimore, where his parents still live, he too is unmistakably a Big Apple product. He spent his young adult years living in Syosset from 1968-1978. In fact, having moved in his mid-20s, he might have been the youngest homeowner in the neighborhood.

The whole community embraced Swoboda like a son. When he was only 25, Syosset threw the World Champion a gleeful celebration after the 1969 season. A small, grassy downtown park was even named after him, as evidenced by large signs reading "Ron Swoboda Park."

"Well, it's pretty funny. I remember part of my acceptance speech," recalled Swoboda. After I thanked everybody, I said, 'Now I want you all to get off my grass."'

"Then I went around there the next day looking for the signs, and the signs were gone. I thought it was immortality, but it was somewhat less than that. But I still have one of the signs, and my mom and dad have the other sign in Maryland."

Of course, no post-season celebration could match the grandeur of the enormous ticker-tape parade which proceeded down New York's Canyon of Heroes. It was an amazing, yet thoroughly unexpected affair, because anyone who followed the Mets from their inception knew how inept they had been.

After another farcical, second-to-last season in 1968, there was little expectation that the Mets of 1969 would be much better. It was only in hindsight that baseball observers would discover that the Miracle Mets actually featured a maturing, powerful rotation of star pitchers that included Hall of Famers Tom Seaver and Nolan Ryan, as well as Jerry Koosman and Gary Gentry. Though the Met defense also gained fame for making clutch, game-saving plays, and the offense featured hitters like Tommy Agee and Cleon Jones, it was the pitching that keyed the team's stunning, late-season ascent.

And late it was. The second-place Mets only were able to overtake the Chicago Cubs in late September by winning three-quarters of their games in the final two months of the season.

In fact, it wasn't until the second half of the season that, one by one, Met players began believing that their team was a legitimate contender.

For Swoboda, this epiphany surfaced shortly after the All-Star break, around the time that the Mets traded for first baseman Don Clendenon (which, ironically, forced his friend Kranepool to play more in the outfield). Plus, said Swoboda, "our starting rotation got in kind of a groove."

"We started beating people, you know, and...all of a sudden, your confidence comes from winning," he continued. "We beat everybody we needed to beat, and...at a certain point in time you realize, we can play with all of these people, and we're probably better than they are."

Said Swoboda, "We happened kind of spontaneously in the midst of a season. The '86 Mets were good in '84 and '85, and you could see them building toward something. [But] we just kind of happened. And I think we surprised ourselves, if we're honest about it."

Kranepool remembered boarding the Mets bandwagon on a summer West Coast trip. "We beat all three of the teams out there, I believe 9-0 on the trip, and that was the first time the Mets had ever [swept] the Giants and Dodgers," he said. "Occasionally, we beat San Diego, but when we swept all those series, we came back to New York almost at the .500 point."

The Mets had no time to feel good about themselves, however, for the first-place Cubs were their very next opponents. As important as it was to spotlessly emerge from California, it was far more essential to make ground on Chicago.

"They caught us when we were hot, and we beat them in New York and that was the start of their downfall," Kranepool remarked. "And the Mets really started to believe in themselves. In the second half of the year we played fantastic baseball and there was no stopping us."

According to baseball lore, the rivalry between the Mets and Cubs was an ugly one, particularly for Mets Manager Gil Hodges, who couldn't stomach Cubs skipper Leo Durocher. The feud even took an eerie turn when a black cat mysteriously crossed the path of the Cubs' dugout at Shea, seemingly as a feline harbinger of doom. Ballplayers who to this day are noted for their superstitions need only point back to this incident to justify their good luck rituals.

Swoboda confirmed the legend. "It was the most...intense baseball I ever remember being a part of. And I didn't do much in those games, personally, but I was there."

He continued, "I thought for most of that season that we were going to be the pumpkin in their Cinderella story, you know? And that wasn't a good feeling, cause I knew we were a little better as a team, but I didn't know how much better."

The Cubs will forever be remembered for their dramatic plunge from first in 1969, while the Mets went on to a glorious finish. They swept the mighty Atlanta Braves, anchored by slugger Hank Aaron, three games to one, before playing in their first World Series against a heavily-favored Baltimore Orioles team.

The Mets would win it before a raucous New York crowd, four games to one. But they did start out slow by losing the very first game in Baltimore 4-1. And no one initially had greater regrets about that loss than Swoboda who, returning to his hometown, had it rough from the game's very first pitch.

Hitting against ace Tom Seaver, Oriole leadoff batter Don Buford drove a ball to deep right field, Swoboda's territory, for a home run. Swoboda believes to this day that he should have kept it in the park.

"I let it go over the fence cause I was so nervous I could hardly move," said Swoboda. "I didn't get back on the ball, and let it go over the fence, and I was embarrassed."

Of all teammates, it was Kranepool who settled Swoboda down, and got his mind back in the game. "I was yappin about how upset I was on the bench... And Kranepool, I walked by him, and Kranepool just kind of said, 'Ah, shut up! Go get em, Get the next one.'"

"And I shut up, and tried to get the next one."

That's exactly what he did. Patrolling right field in Game 4 of the series, Swoboda made what is considered to be the catch of the Series, diving to his right to snare a liner that would have been a ninth-inning, extra-base hit for Baltimore; instead, it was merely a sacrifice fly that momentarily tied the game. It became Swoboda's signature play, and for what the outfielder has come to be remembered. All you have to say is "Swoboda's catch," and a Met fan knows what you mean.

For example, one senior fan, who identified himself as Jim, told the story of how he was working for New York Telephone during the Series. He was stationed just outside of a building filled with 100 female employees, all tuned into Game 4. Suddenly, he heard shrieks coming from the room next door. He ran inside. "And they're throwing all their papers in the air like this. I asked, 'What happened? What happened?' and they said, 'Ron Swoboda just saved the day!'" said the fan.

Of course, the catch wasn't Swoboda's sole contribution to the winning cause. Swoboda distinctly remembers hitting two home runs off of pitcher Steve Carlton during the regular season to single-handedly win a 4-3 game for the Mets. His big Series catch, said Swoboda, was merely "icing" on a great season.

Of course, not long after saying this, a young boy approached him and eagerly asked, "What were you thinking about when you made that catch?" So Swoboda knows that will forever be his designated highlight.

"Most of us think in highlights," acknowledged Swoboda, "and I always made the joke, you know, after you've played nine years in the Big Leagues, you oughta have at least 10 seconds of highlight film, and I do."

Kranepool only had four at-bats in the Series, but he did stroke a home run in Game 3 to enhance pitcher Gary Gentry's lead in what would become a 5-0 shutout. And the whole time, Kranepool was just enjoying the October atmosphere.

"It was the first time the Mets had won anything," said Kranepool. "So, we really enjoyed the festivities involved in chasing the pennant, the Series and the celebrations, and, of course, the ticker-tape parade in New York. I mean, that's a fantastic event that you can never forget."

"It's the biggest thrill anybody can have in sports, to win any championship," Kranepool once said in an earlier interview with the Tribune. "You're in the World Series, you're on Cloud Nine."

And so the Miracle Mets were reminded once more what Cloud Nine felt like when they briefly reunited, 30 years after their glory. With the festivities completed, the players have returned home. Of course, home isn't far for Jericho's Kranepool, who spends his time managing several businesses and relaxing on his boat. "I've been out on the island almost 30 years," said Kranepool. "I'll never move out of here. I love it. The waters of Long Island are great. The people are a lot of fun. So this is where my family lives, and this is where we're going to stay."

Swoboda, on the other hand, has returned to New Orleans where he broadcasts games for the New Orleans Zephyrs minor league baseball club, and writes a column in New Orleans Magazine. Nevertheless, Swoboda realizes that much of who he is today was shaped by his life in Syosset.

"I was very lucky to be in Syosset," said Swoboda. "I was able to move into an area where the people were educated...I met people who turned me on to jazz music and on to impressionist painting because they were a little, you know, culturally ahead of me...It was a very eclectic group, and we're still friends to this day."

Kranepool and Swoboda, who for a time roomed with each other on the road, are still able to maintain their friendship as business partners for a company called Global Encasement.

Thirty years later, former teammates reunite, players remain friends, and fans still passionately care. That in itself is as much a part of the 1969 Mets' Miracle, as was the original victory.