How 1972 actually went.
The season began with grief when Gil Hodges died suddenly during spring training. Yogi Berra took over a club that had lost the leader behind its championship identity. The change altered the emotional center of the Mets. Injuries and an interrupted schedule made the year uneven, but the pitching staff again prevented it from falling apart.
Jon Matlack became the bright spot. The left-hander won 15 games, posted a 2.32 ERA, and earned Rookie of the Year, joining Seaver and Koosman in a frightening rotation. John Milner added left-handed power, while Willie Mays arrived from the Giants and returned one of New York’s greatest baseball figures to the city.
The Mets finished 83–73 after games were lost to a players’ strike at the start of the season. Third place felt less important than the transition happening around it. Hodges was gone, Mays was near the end, and Matlack represented the next part of the pitching tradition. The team remained talented enough to matter, though it no longer felt as settled as the 1969 group.
A painful year still gave the Mets Matlack and one last New York chapter for Willie Mays.