The 1986 Mets Rewatch Newsletter is a newsletter pour ceux qui aiment les Mets, un peu ou beaucoup (for people who like the Mets a little or a lot).
I was out of town for the 1986 celebration, so I’m sticking to my usual format of recapping a game. If you want coverage of Saturday’s festivities, there are plenty of good options.
Bonjour! Today's Mets game comes to us on August 9, 1986 from La Stade Olympique, en Francais via the Montreal Expos television network and broadcasters Raymond Lebrun and former Expos pitcher Claude Raymond.
Whether you're clowning around like the Expos mascot, Youppi, or clowning around like a clown (who was actually at the game), this is one of the Mets best comeback wins of the 1986 regular season.
That clown freaks me out! I feel like I’ve seen him in a lot of blooper reels
I'm going to skip over a lot of the particulars because there weren't a lot of Mets highlights in the first seven innings, other than this diving play by Ray Knight that ended the fourth inning.
40-year-old video doesn’t restore well.
At that point the Mets were behind 2-0 and it would get worse. An error by Wally Backman in the fifth handed the Expos a run to put them ahead 3-0. Ron Darling also made an error in a seventh inning in which the Expos scored three times to go up 6-1.
But as you know, no lead is safe against the 1986 Mets. Through the first six innings Expos starter Jay Tibbs allowed one run and two hits. Howard Johnson got him for a double to lead off the seventh well. Lee Mazzilli walked and then Len Dykstra hit a first-pitch single to right field scoring Johnson.
Canadian TV was doing different things from American TV circa 1986, so we got this interesting replay angle of Dykstra's hit.
Expos manager Buck Rodgers then brought lefty and future Met, Bob McClure, in to pitch to for Backman, but Davey Johnson pinch-hit Tim Teufel, who walked. This brought up Keith Hernandez.
If you're hard-core you might recall that Keith Hernandez and Bob McClure were childhood friends AND that Hernandez got a huge hit for the Cardinals against then-Brewer McClure in Game 7 of the 1982 World Series.
For his career, Hernandez went 3-for-18 vs McClure combining the regular season and the postseason. This would be one of the three hits, a two-strike two-run single to right field that cut the Expos lead to 6-4.
That ended McClure's day and in came future Met Tim Burke via a bullpen cart escort.
As bullpen carts go, I’m not impressed.
Burke was a good pitcher in his day (as was McClure) but not in this game. He hit Gary Carter with his first pitch to load the bases. Darryl Strawberry followed with a sacrifice fly to left field.
After Burke tried to pick Keith Hernandez off third base (how often do you see that?) Mookie Wilson hit a 1-2 hanging curveball over the right field fence for a go-ahead three-run homer.
The call of the home run was "Le lance de Burk. La balle est frappé (accent e) avec beaucoup de forces dans la droite. Dawson la regarde passer pardessus la cloture circuit de Mookie Wilson"
And that translates to:
"Burke's pitch … The ball is hit with great force to right field; Dawson watches it sail over the fence. A home run for Mookie Wilson."
Mets fans were very excited by Wilson's home run and the camera crews found a lot of them among the Expos largest home crowd of the season to that point, a little over 33,000.
The Mets had the lead after a 26-minute top of the eighth but the game was far from over.
With one out in the bottom of the eighth, Tim Wallach reached on an infield hit to shortstop Howard Johnson. It was an extremely close but first base ump Greg Bonin got it right.
It was quite a rough inning for Hojo, who then threw away a potential double play ball at second base, which put one runner on third and the tying run on second base. Reliever Roger McDowell had done his job, but the inning played on.
The next hitter, Luis Rivera, hit a grounder to shortstop, Hojo nearly threw this one away too but Hernandez comes way off the bag to catch it and tag him. A run scores to cut the Mets lead to 8-7 but check out the different angles that show where Hernandez was when he caught the throw and made the tag.
Look how far off the base Hernandez is!
You’re out!
With two outs, McDowell had a chance to escape with the lead, but when pinch-hitter extraordinaire Wallace Johnson hit a line drive to left that Lee Mazzilli dove for and missed, the tying run scored and Johnson reached third with a triple. McDowell kept the game tied by fielding a high chop from Jim Wohlford for the final out of the eighth inning.
In the ninth inning the Expos went to their closer, Jeff Reardon to try to keep the game tied. No such luck. Not against the 1986 Mets.
Reardon walked three hitters, sandwiching two around a bunt, so the bases were loaded for Gary Carter.
This made for a cool moment. Two years removed from being traded by the Expos to the Mets, here was Carter in his former home park with a chance to win a game. I don't know if Carter got more nervous or excited when facing the Expos. His career slashline vs them was .222/.289/.351, a .640 OPS that was his worst vs any team (Carter's best was .873 vs the Mets.
Brief fun story here. I’ve always felt an affinity to Carter for two reasons.
I learned he was traded to the Mets in the middle of an episode of Kate & Allie when CBS-2 news anchor Jim Jensen teased news of a major trade during a commercial break. My dad called Sportsphone (976-1313) and started screaming when he learned what the deal was.
My aunt Shelley took me to Macy’s to get Gary Carter’s autograph prior to the 1986 season. I remember the guy in front of us said “Don’t touch his knee” which was a reference to Carter having had surgery recently. He signed a black-and-white photo for me after a two-hour wait. It was worth it.
Anyway, Carter watched a curve for a strike, was late on a fastball, then fouled another pitch back. Then he hit a grounder up the middle and the ball sped up on the turf for a two-run single to center. The Mets led, 10-8.
In the bottom of the ninth, the Expos made a pair of first-pitch outs. George Wright singled to bring up Andre Dawson as the tying run, but it was a rather anti-climactic matchup. Dawson popped out to Carter. Carter was psyched. He did his usual fist-pump and then his signature HIGH-5 (high in the air) with Orosco).
"Regard sa reaction, je pense que ca la victoire surtout cotre les expos tres exuberant la marque," said the announcer Lebrun.
That translates to "Looking at his reaction, I think that victory-especially against the Expos—really got him fired up."
Oui, oui.
You can contact me on Bluesky or via e-mail ([email protected]). You can find my other newsletter, which summarizes interviews I do with journalists, here.