The Prospect Public Library will be hosting a book talk and signing with former New York Met, Art Shamsky and writer Erik Sherman as they speak about their new book – AFTER THE MIRACLE: The Lasting Brotherhood of the ’69 Mets on Saturday, May 4th at 2pm at the Prospect Community Center located at 12 Center Street. The Center is directly across from the Library.
The 1962 New York Mets set a record for futility in baseball, losing 120 games, a record that stands to this day. Seven years later, after languishing in the National League cellar year after year, the Mets won the World Series. The “Lovable Losers” suddenly became the “Miracle Mets” in perhaps the greatest worst-to-first transformation in sports history.
Art Shamsky played right field for the 1969 Mets. In AFTER THE MIRACLE: The Lasting Brotherhood of the ’69 Mets he draws on conversations with his former teammates as well as his own recollections to explain how the Mets turned it all around in one year. In 2017, Shamsky organized a trip with former teammates Bud Harrelson, Jerry Koosman, and Ron Swoboda to visit ailing star pitcher Tom Seaver in California, where the men reminisced about how the Mets did it and what has happened to them and their teammates since. Their good-natured banter lets readers eavesdrop on how the players themselves remember the highlight of their careers. For anyone who remembers this extraordinary event – and for those who have only heard about it – AFTER THE MIRACLE is the inside story, a fan’s dream come true.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Art Shamsky was a Major League baseball player for eight years, starting with the Cincinnati Reds in 1965 and then joining the New York Mets in the winter of 1967. Since his retirement from baseball, Shamsky has worked as an on-camera sports broadcaster at WNEW-TV Channel 5 in New York City and on ESPN, and as a broadcaster for the Mets, doing play-by-play and color commentary on radio and television. He is the author of The Magnificent Seasons: How the Jets, Mets, and Knicks Made Sports History and Uplifted a City and the Country. Mr. Shamsky is also a member of the Jewish Baseball Hall of Fame.
Erik Sherman is the author of the critically acclaimed Kings of Queens: Life Beyond Baseball With The ’86 Mets, and is also the coauthor of four highly acclaimed baseball autobiographies: Out At Home (with Glenn Burke), A Pirate For Life (with Steve Blass), the New York Times bestseller Mookie: Life, Baseball, and the ’86 Mets (with Mookie Wilson); and Davey Johnson: My Wild Ride In Baseball And Beyond. Erik is an annual lecturer at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.
Following the Talk there will be a Q&A with Mr. Shamsky and Mr. Sherman.
Books will be available to be purchased at the event.
If you need more information please call the Prospect Library at: 203-758-3001.
Sponsor: Prospect Public Library - Prospect, Connecticut