1986 Mets: A Year to Remember

As the New York Mets are eight wins from a World Series title, I’m reliving stories from my childhood that explain away my ardent allegiance and connection to the Amazins’. The next several articles will reflect these stories.

This is one story of my Mets fandom from ages 10-14.

I think about my visits to my grandparents in Lynbrook, Long Island. My parents would drive my sister Rebecca and me, finishing their two hour commute from Connecticut, gradually slowing down their maroon Honda in the gravel driveway of my grandparent humble two story brick house. I can still hear the crumbling of the rubber on the gravel, alerting Rebecca and me that we had arrived. She and I would scramble out of the car, and be embraced by Grandpa Joey awaiting us at his creaky screened front door, while Grandma Savva beckoned us in from the kitchen.

Whenever Rebecca and I visited, Savva was always brewing soup - a concoction I grew up thinking was her homemade recipe. We called it “Savva’s soup”, a salty chicken broth filled with thin curly noodles. Only years later - well beyond the age of learning Santa’s fictitiousness -  my sister and I discovered the soup was store-bought Maruchan Chicken Flavored Ramen.

Eventually the deceit of Savva’s white lie was quickly brushed aside, because I knew her intention was based in love. Upon our visits, I appreciated the familiarity of the soup, which acted as the weekend’s Opening Ceremony for the main events like feeding ducks at Grant Park, playing arcade games at Nathans, and lapping up a pint of creamsicle ice cream at Ralph’s Ices . 

For all the jam packed schedule the weekend provided, I had my own routine. While my grandparents and sister played cards or fingerprinted, I would lay on my grandparents bed watching the VHS 1986 Mets: A Year to Remember.

Joey had first introduced me to the video. One day, he wanted to keep me preoccupied (maybe I was being restless or teasing my sister), but rather than set me in front of cartoons or the Disney Channel, he wanted to educate me on a very cherished baseball team.

This video was my first acquaintance with the ‘86 Mets - a number/word combo that would be etched in New York sports lore. For the thousands of Mets broadcasts, I, conversations with Mets fans, and just being a citizen of the Metsverse, I would be well acquainted with the importance of this specific year and team.

But here, at 10 years old, was my first instance to be indoctrinated…watching this video at a time where I’m not just learning about the sport of baseball (I didn’t know concepts like platoon player or reliever), but my knowledge of cinematic drama and storytelling was non-existent as well.

Without having any framework for how a director stages a film, let alone one about a “Year in Review” sports video, I was captivated by the opening scene. A pitch black screen followed a few seconds later by the words October 25, 1986. I hear an ominous white noise (reminiscent of the harrowing opening chords in The Shining), the scene opens with an aerial zoom shot of Shea Stadium, followed by a pan of the dejected Mets dugout.

Following the look of despair comes a voiceover. Clipped cutaways between the calm and chaos commence. 

A wild pitch, a runner scores, a Met dribbles a ground ball to the Red Sox first baseman which goes through his legs. Another Met runs from third and touches home plate. He’s mobbed by his teammates. 

The frame jolts to black and amidst the frenzy of the crowd, you hear a broadcaster:

“The Mets will win the ballgame! The Mets win! They win!” 

*You can watch this clip by clicking the video below (:10-2:03)

Throughout my childhood visits to Lynbrook, I watched this hour long video eight times. 

I evolved with each viewing. On my path to my 10,000 hours of watching baseball, I gained deeper and deeper comprehension of what a winning ballclub does for its fans and what a World Series title means to its franchise’s legacy. 

The ‘86 Mets were composed of crazy humans who made fiery ballplayers, and most importantly, winners. Without winners, you can’t captivate an entire city, no matter how intriguing a roster of characters. But this team won a lot - utterly dominant from April to October in capturing 108 regular season victories - the third most ever in National League history.

While unflappable during the regular season, they were vulnerable in the postseason. 

Fortunately, through dramatic walk off homers and 16 inning rope-a-dopes, the Mets defeated the Houston Astros to advance to the World Series. 

Their Fall Classic matchup was against the Boston Red Sox, the cursed team who hadn’t won in seven decades. Perhaps it would time for Sox’ glory, after all New England didn’t care about the Mets “team of destiny” label. They had their own narrative to seal. 

After putting themselves in a 3 games to 2 hole against Boston, this Mets squad was staring at labels of “disappointment” and “failure” if they lost Game 6 and thus the World Series. 

These depressing monikers were at the forefront of every Met fan as they reached the edge of the abyss. Trailing by 2 runs. 10th inning, 2 outs, nobody on.  

By the eighth and final time I watched the replay of this comeback, I was mature enough to revel in the symbolism of the Bill Buckner play. I thought about that thin modicum of time between tears of pain and tears of joy. The seismic shift in trajectory of both franchises, guided by a random series of discreet units of baseball time -  batters, wild pitches, errors.

Grandpa Joey would join me on his bed to relive this bottom of the 10th. After Ray Knight scores the game winning run, he would feel relief as if he was back at the stadium - reiterating how the tense, palpably doomed crowd of 57,000 Mets fans would need about 5 minutes of real time to transform into the equivalent of a thousand New Years Eves. 

Joey knew because he, as well as Savva and my parents, were at Shea Stadium for Game 6. 

After the Mets miraculously won Game 6, Game 7 was a mere formality.  

Trying to relive the ascension to nirvana, Joey would always tell me to watch the final pitch of the world series - mainly because Jesse Orosco’s glove.

Orosco windmilled his glove into the ether, a cathartic release building after a series of so much tension and unease. 

As the glove became symbolic for the unbridled spirit of the Flushing Faithful, flying into the heavens without a care to return its terrestrial home, Joey would gleefully repeat:

“Watch the glove. Watch it. Ready? Wippeeeee there it goes!”

To this day, Orosco holds the best World Series winning celebration.

To this day, his glove still hasn’t landed.