Scroll Down to Read Today’s Essay

Subscribe to Baseball History Comes Alive for automatic updates. As a Free Bonus, you’ll get instant access to my Special Report: Gary’s Handy Dandy World Series Reference Guide!

Today we are happy to welcome back Bill Schaefer with a deep dive into the Mets’ incredible victory in the 1986 World Series. I think you’ll enjoy Bill’s analysis. -GL

The Greatest World Series Game Ever?

“When you’re going good it doesn’t get any better than being in New York. But when you’re going bad it doesn’t get any worse.”-Davey Johnson

In the spring of 1986, a gathering storm gained strength and altered the axis of the National League East division.

Manager Davey Johnson stated matter-of-factly, “We’re not just a good ball club, we expect to dominate.” Brash words but Keith Hernandez emphasized, “Davey was the perfect manager for us, a master psychologist.”

The team ripped off 11 straight in April and by the fourth of July they had won 54 games. However, the Mets were not nice nellie sportsmen. This was a bunch of partying, arrogant, super talented guys who were disliked intensely around the league. Their fans loved them—they won games and were burying the competition! With 108 wins they would finish 21.5 games ahead of the second place Phillies.

Here are a few notable events in the 1986 season:

• July 19-After losing in Houston, Tim Teufel, Ron Darling, Rick Aguilera and Bobby Ojeda went to Cooters Executive Games and Burgers to celebrate the birth of Tim’s child. They wanted to party past closing at 2 am and wouldn’t take no for an answer. They wound up in a holding cell for 11 hours inside the Houston City Jail.
• July 22 Cincinnati-In the 10^th inning pinch runner Eric Davis bumped Ray Knight at third base and received a right cross to the jaw from the former Gold Glove boxer. Kevin Mitchell entered the ensuing fray and began to  toss players around like rag dolls. “Ray Knight and Kevin Mitchell are two of the top 50 brawlers in baseball history,” wrote author Jeff Pearlman.
• October 15 Houston-Mets won a 16-inning thriller vs the Astros to clinch a WS berth. With champagne, beer and hard liquor flowing freely on the charter flight back to New York, players’ wives and players broke seats and started a food fight at 30,000 feet. It was the last time the team flew with United Airlines, which sent a bill for $7500 worth of damages.

 “If you Listen to the experts there’s no reason for us to show up. The Mets     have it won.” Mgr. John McNamara

With barely time to take a deep breath, on Saturday night, October 18 at Shea Stadium, the Mets were now about to face the formidable Boston Red Sox with a loaded lineup and sometimes brilliant pitching.

The Mets at the nadir of their physical and emotional energy banks after a brutal NLCS with the Houston Astros fell 1-0 to the Sox and a flawless Bruce Hurst. Ron Darling matched goose eggs with the Red Sox lefty but was victimized in the 7^th inning by a Tim Teufel error and an unearned run. Gooden was roughed up in game two 9-3. And now, after two devastating home losses, the Mets had to hit the road to Beantown.

Bobby Ojeda (18-5, 2.57 ERA) shackled his former mates (7 innings, 1 run, 5 hits) and the Mets jumped on Oil Can Boyd early. The Mets won again the next night to even the Series but lost the finale in Boston as Gooden was once again ineffective. Dwight allowed 17 hits and eight runs in nine innings against the Red Sox. He claimed fatigue and was sweating profusely on the mound. Now, back to New York. One game from elimination.

In his second start of the Series, Ojeda was poised to throw the first pitch in game six, Saturday night October 25—when suddenly out of the night sky a soap opera actor parachuted onto the field at Shea Stadium with a “Go Mets” banner dangling from his ripcord. Under normal circumstances that would be an unusual event, but for the Mets not so much.

Bobby O and Roger Clemens pitched well, and the Mets came from behind twice to carry the game into extra innings. Then Dave Henderson sent a Rick Aguilera fastball crashing into a Newsday sign far over the left field fence. Henderson’s second homerun of the Series precipitated an enormous hush that enveloped Shea Stadium. “It was so quiet in New York, you could almost hear Boston,” said Vin Scully. Then Wade Boggs drove in another run and every Met fan’s stomach was tied in a Gordian knot.

Former Met Calvin Shiraldi retired Wally Bachman and Keith Hernandes in the home half of the 10^th. When Keith’s ball was caught at the edge of the warning track in centerfield you knew it was over. (Hernandez retired to the clubhouse to watch the game with a Winston light cigarette in one hand and a Budweiser in the other. He would admit years later in the Mets TV booth, “I’m not proud of that. Not my finest hour.”)

The feeling for me was not only disbelief but a strange sense of unreality. How could this extraordinary team lose the World Series in six games to anybody?

But it had to be over. Champagne and a huge trophy were already set up in the Boston clubhouse. Then the camera panned to the Red Sox dugout and there they stood; the Sox poised for wild jubilation. But wait…is that Oil Can Boyd at the top step waiting to lead the charge? A pitcher nicknamed Oil Can with a World Series 7.71 ERA taking the first step to the championship podium. Would the baseball gods allow this to happen?

Mad Magazine might have printed a bizarre cover depicting a cockeyed universe with the word TILT planted in the middle of the page.

And it didn’t happen. Gary Carter swatted a liner to left field for a base hit. Kevin Mitchell, on the phone with his travel agent, was summoned as a pinch hitter and promptly barreled a bullet hooking into the outfield to the left of second base for another hit. Then Ray Knight fought off a tough two-seam fastball and muscled a looping liner into right center. Carter scored and Mitchell galloped to third.

Enter Bob Stanley for Boston who, on the seventh serve to Mookie Wilson, uncorked a wild pitch scoring Mitchell and the game, unbelievably, was tied!

We all know what followed was the Bill Buckner miscue that allowed Ray Knight (WS MVP) to score the winning run and how Bill was so unfairly vilified for his error. Fan favorite Mookie Wilson said, “90 percent I beat Buckner to the bag even if he fields the ball cleanly.” Plus, once the Mets tied the game with two out, nobody on and trailing by two runs with 55,000 delirious fans screaming “We will rock you” – there was no way they were going to lose that game.

The Mets win expectancy when Gary Carter came to bat with two out was one percent.

For me, game six Mets-Red Sox 1986 is the greatest World Series game ever played. If not…it’s certainly among ‘em!

Bill Schaefer

SOURCES: Doc: A Memoir, Dwight Gooden; The Bad Guys Won, Jeff Pearlman; Wikipedia: Frank Cashen, Bob Stanley, Mookie Wilson; Baseball Ref: Ojeda, Darling, Dave Henderson, Wilson; 1985, 1986 Mets Schedule Almanac. Joe Caroselli, baseball historian.