Back in 1986, the Mets were so big, so loud, so unapologetically Mets that even 20/20—the same show that once spent an hour investigating whether your salad bar was trying to kill you—decided to devote a full segment to them. And why not? On Thursday night, August 21st, 1986, ABC rolled out the red carpet for the Amazin’s, even as the competition (Trapper John, M.D. on one channel and Hill Street Blues on another) politely stepped aside and let the Mets suck all the oxygen out of America’s living rooms. That summer, the Mets were the hottest thing in New York not involving Madonna and a lace glove They were winning, they were brawling, and they were doing it with the kind of swagger that suggested they’d all borrowed Bruce Springsteen’s Born-in-the-U.S.A. stadium-strut.

The segment opens with Barbara Walters, television legend and pioneering journalist who had spent decades breaking glass ceilings and making even presidents squirm, introducing the story by admitting she was “glad the New York Mets aren’t playing tonight.” She explained why: if the Mets were on the field, everyone would be watching the game instead of 20/20. That’s a line you almost never would have heard in the ’60s unless the speaker doubled as a grief counselor. But these weren’t your older brother’s Mets, or your dad’s Mets, or the Mets of that weird uncle who still insists Marv Throneberry was underrated. No—these were the 1986 Mets. The kind of team that didn’t wait for October to be crowned; they just showed up in April and acted like they already had the champagne chilling.

And so ABC sent in Dick Schaap, America’s poet laureate of “Wait, what did he just say?”, to figure out how the Mets turned from lovable losers into a pack of baseball-playing, high-fiving, brawl-starting wolf pups. And Schaap—bow-tied, bemused, brilliant—found the answer: Frank Cashen, general manager, white-haired maestro, and the only man in baseball who could look like a college professor grading midterms while simultaneously assembling a championship roster.

Cashen doesn’t so much appear on camera as glide into it like a kindly Irish wizard who grants prospects instead of wishes. His philosophy? “Pitching is 75% of the game.” His other philosophy? If someone is bad for the clubhouse, you subtract them from the equation and somehow the math works out. Addition by subtraction. It’s the same logic I apply to my cholesterol by subtracting doctor's appointments.

But Cashen didn’t build the ’86 Mets alone. He had Joe McIlvaine—his talent guru, a former seminarian whose brain apparently stores scouting reports like the Library of Congress stores secrets. McIlvaine said he could see every player in the system “at night when I go to sleep,” which seems sweet until you realize that’s 180 ballplayers staring at you in the dark.

Schaap then takes us to Little Falls, New York—Class A ball, Class A charm, Class C plumbing—to show us where the Mets factory assembled the next generation. This is where McIlvaine evaluates teenage pitchers the way sommeliers evaluate Pinot Noir. “Nice movement, good finish, hints of courage and competitiveness, pairs well with a veteran catcher.”

Meanwhile, up in Queens, the Mets marketing team was turning Shea Stadium into baseball’s version of Disneyland, if Disneyland had rally caps, Larry, Curly & Moe on the scoreboard, and 48,000 people chanting “STRAWBERRY!” in unison like some kind of baseball cult meeting. They hired Jerry Della Femina, who admitted the job required “panic,” which is probably the most honest thing ever said in advertising.

Their slogan—The Magic Is Back—worked mostly because fans wanted to believe it, much like today when you tell yourself the Mets won’t blow a 2-run lead in the eighth. Little did we know, the magic wasn’t just back. It had bought a condo and planned to stay.

And the players? Well, they were the full circus and three extra rings. Gary Carter was bouncing around Shea like the world's happiest Golden Retriever. Lenny “Nails” Dykstra was proving that height, weight, and self-preservation are merely suggestions. “Darryl Strawberry and Dwight Gooden looked like someone had handed Dr. Brenner the keys to a baseball lab in Hawkins, and the Upside Down had nothing on their talent. Ray Knight was punching his way into the league lead in right hooks. And Roger McDowell was giving shirts to homeless kids while perfecting the art of the hot foot.

Even the brawls were spectacular. The ’86 Mets didn’t just fight—they fought with the passion of men who’d been told someone insulted their mother, their team, and their choice of walk-up music in one sentence. They led the league in wins, swagger, and probable cause.

But the heart of the segment—the real core of the whole thing—is the idea that this team wasn’t just winning baseball games; they were becoming a cultural phenomenon. They were on TV, in commercials, in the tabloids, on billboards, in barroom debates, and occasionally, in police reports. And Schaap wrapped it all up with the sense that we were witnessing something big, something bold, something beautifully, chaotically Mets.

And remember: this aired before the World Series.

Before Houston.

Before Mookie.

Before the ball that rolled through legs and into immortality.

In other words, 20/20 got to the “marvelous Mets” story before the Mets even finished writing it.

Nearly forty years later, the segment feels like a time capsule from a world where the Mets weren’t just good—they were inevitable. And for those of us who were lucky enough to live through it—whether as wide-eyed kids in the Shea Stadium upper deck or grown adults who still behaved like wide-eyed kids—it reminds us why 1986 wasn’t just a season.

It was a mood.

A vibe.

A swagger.

A nearly combustible blend of talent, toughness, and tabloid-ready chaos.

In short—it was Mets baseball at its loudest and loveliest.

And to quote Dick Schaap: amazing is the only word.

Here is the segment in all of its 1986 glory :