An audio tape of the radio broadcast of the Mets first spring training game came to light. Howard Cosell hosted the pre-game and post-game show:
The rare audio time capsule of the game was preserved by Marc Gold, one of those abandoned Dodger fans who was instantly smitten with the Mets. Gold’s grandmother had bought him a Telectrosonic reel-to-reel tape recorder for his bar mitzvah about 18 months before the Mets began playing, and he was eager to put it to use. Gold’s father connected the radio to the tape deck to eliminate background noise.
The excerpt the Times provides has Cosell interviewing Gil Hodges.
This is very cool! I want tot hear it.
I love that piece of writing tho — he was eager to use it, so he waited 18 months to put it to use. LOL
What struck me was how quickly things can change in baseball. The Mets went from the worst ever to World Series winners in a short period of time. Cosell was interviewing Hodges in 1962; six years later, Hodges was the manager; a year after that, they won the World Series with a good team and a great pitching staff. For perspective, it was just six seasons ago that the Mets were on the verge of going to the Series and looked as if they would be a good team for years to come.