Josh Harder

It’s always useful to remember what Leo Durocher once said about the Mets when they were first becoming something more than a cute little story early in the summer of 1969. The first-place Cubs had dropped the first two games of an intriguing three-game series with the second-place Mets at Shea Stadium, the first genuinely important games the Mets had ever played.

Then, a day after Tom Seaver’s famed “Imperfect Game” one-hitter, a hail of bad fielding and bad baserunning and bad pitching had sabotaged them in the third game, depriving them of a sweep.

“Were those the real Cubs?” someone asked Durocher.

“No,” Leo the Lip replied, “those were the real Mets.”