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The 1986 Mets Rewatch Newsletter is a newsletter for Mets fans whose season is not over, but for whom the inevitable has finally become a reality.
"It's a lot like being pregnant. You know it's going to come. The event will take place. But there's going to be some pain with it."
- Anne McCarver, wife of Mets broadcaster Tim McCarver.
The Mets labored to clinch the NL East, losing three straight games to the Phillies and another to the Cardinals when they were in position to wrap things up a few weeks before the season ended. But bullpen coach Vern Hoscheit had done the figuring a few weeks earlier and concluded that September 17 against the Cubs would be the day. He would be right.
This was a fun game to rewatch. I was 11 years old and my dad took me. We paid $65 for 2 tickets from a scalper and sat in Loge on the first base side, right in line with the day's star, rookie first baseman Dave Magadan, who was making his first career start in place of flu-bugged Keith Hernandez.
The pitching matchup was Dwight Gooden against future Hall-of-Famer Dennis Eckersley.
Both teams got a runner to third base in the first inning but didn't score. The Mets should've but Magadan held at third base when Shawon Dunston dropped a popup while trying to make a catch with his back to the infield in shallow center field.
Magadan atoned with a nice defensive play, catching Ray Knight's throw and coming off first base to tag out Jody Davis in his bid for a hit. "It's tough to make a tag like that on the legs because the legs are moving. It's like tagging a piston," said McCarver (Tim, not Anne). Meanwhile Ralph Kiner read a promo for the movie From Here To Eternity and dropped a one-liner on it being an eternity for the Mets to clinch the NL East. Good one!
In the bottom of the third the Mets broke through. With two men on base Magadan hit a hard single down the right field line to score the game's first run and Darryl Strawberry plated the second with a single of his own. Magadan was calm and composed at the plate leading McCarver to wonder if he sweated.
Meanwhile Gooden was pretty good. He'd finish the day with 8 strikeouts (and 5 walks). He had a good fastball and a true 12-to-6 curveball. Here's a visual montage from some of the swings and takes against him. He was helped a little bit by his defense, particularly Mookie Wilson running down a pair of fly balls in the fifth inning.
In the bottom of the 5th McCarver responded to a letter from the professor in Florida regarding Kiner's use of the term "patiently aggressive." brings up the term patiently aggressive. The professor explained that this was an oxymoron, which McCarver pronounced "OXY-mah-ron" defined as a figure of speech in which two strikingly opposite words are placed side by side, juxtaposed, and the meaning is therefore achieved when logically there can be none."
Len Dykstra interrupted the vocabulary class by doubling down the right field line. As unrolled rolls of toilet paper streamed from the stands, Kiner told of how fans stormed the field in 1969. "The Mets are hoping that fans will really not do that this year." And how he hoped fans would be "patiently aggressive."
Meanwhile, after Eckersley botched a chance to get Dykstra at third base on a Wally Backman bunt, Magadan continued his hot-hitting night with an RBI single to center to make it 3-0. The Cubs stranded runners in scoring position in both the fifth and sixth innings.
In the seventh Magadan reached on a hard ground ball that Leon Durham couldn't handle. It was scored an error. When Davey Johnson pulled Magadan for a pinch-runner, Magadan got enough of an ovation to give a curtain call.
That pinch-runner, Stan Jefferson, scored on Darryl Strawberry's single against reliever Frank Dipino. That made it 4-0
A then-rookie Rafael Palmeiro hit a two-run home run against Gooden in the eighth inning, the second home run of his MLB career. Undaunted, Gooden took the 4-2 into the ninth.
The last moments of labor involved a little struggle. Jody Davis walked to lead off the ninth inning and then with one out, Gooden-killer Chris Speier improved to 7-for-10 career against Doc with his single. But Gooden struck Jerry Mumphrey out looking for the second out.
The last hope for the Cubs was Chico Walker. To Red Sox fans of a certain age, he's known as the guy who came in for Carl Yastrzemski in Yaz's last game at Fenway Park. But to Mets fans my age and older, he's the guy whose ground out to Wally Backman birthed a division title for the 1986 Mets.
Funny postscript is that I once won a Mets extra trivia call-in by knowing Walker was that answer and Howie Rose referred to me as "Mac Simons."
Mets fans did in fact go overboard in storming the field. One thing I've been wondering is whether this was the last year of fans storming the field en masse (they did so when the 1986 Angels clinched the AL West too). It's one of those things that I'm glad doesn't happen anymore and it's good to see that we're more civilized about it.
The image I always remember from the on-field celebration is that of a lone cop trying to protect the players in the immediate aftermath of the Mets getting the last out. I feel bad for him, because he was right in the thick of it. I hope he made it out alright.
Here’s some highlights from Channel 9’s coverage of the postgame celebration in the Mets locker room.
"I was in another world out there. You wonder if you can perform under that kind of pressure. You don't do it in Triple-A and I just felt great out there. It's a great feeling to come here and feel like you're a part of this team.” - Dave Magadan
"You deserve some champagne" - Darryl Strawberry
"I'm glad it's over with … I told them in spring training it takes 24 men to win a pennant. I'm trying to stay away from these guys before they kill me." - Davey Johnson.
"This is 86, the year of the Mets" – Roger McDowell
“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh.” - Keith Hernandez
"One of the best days of my life" – Dwight Gooden
"When they traded me from Houston in 1984 they asked me what club I'd like to go to. I said New York because I thought they had something special going on here." – Ray Knight
Poor Ralph Kiner!
"This is like a scene out of Animal House." Channel 9’s Steve Albert gets creamed too
And somehow, we went from this torn up field …
To this by the next afternoon.
The Shea Stadium grounds crew, led by Pete Flynn, were the real MVPs that night. And by the way, look which rookie pitched for the Cubs (and got rocked) the next day!
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.