Kiners Korner Chronicles No. 14: The Kid Arrives

Welcome back to the Kiners Korner Chronicles — the real ones. We've brought back Tom Seaver's homecoming, a new owner taking his seat, and an umpire holding court in a rain delay. This time we rewind to Opening Day, April 9, 1985 — a day that played out like a movie script, which is exactly what Ralph Kiner said about it on the air, and he had the comparison ready: Glenn Close, the female star of The Natural, had sung the national anthem at Shea that afternoon.

In the movie, Robert Redford's Roy Hobbs hits the home run and wins the ball game. At Shea, the part was played by a catcher wearing a Mets uniform for the very first time: Gary Carter, acquired from Montreal the previous December to be the last piece of a team that intended to win. And sitting beside him in the guest chairs was the man who had started everything that day, center fielder Mookie Wilson.

The Game — Tuesday, April 9, 1985

Tuesday, April 9, 1985. A sellout crowd of 46,781 came to Shea for the home opener against Whitey Herzog's St. Louis Cardinals, and the Mets gave them a lineup worth the ticket: Wally Backman, Mookie, Keith Hernandez, and hitting cleanup in his Mets debut, Carter — with 20-year-old Dwight Gooden, the reigning Rookie of the Year, on the mound against Joaquín Andújar.

The Mets struck in the first. Wilson singled up the middle — the Mets' first hit of 1985 — stole second, and scored when Hernandez drilled a single that went off Andújar's bare hand. Then Carter stepped in for his first plate appearance as a Met and Andújar drilled him on the elbow. He stayed in the game, the bases filled, and Howard Johnson walked to force in a second run. Jack Clark's homer cut it to 2–1 in the second, and in the third a passed ball by Carter let the tying run home — but George Foster answered with a homer of his own, Hernandez singled Gooden home in the fourth, and Rafael Santana doubled Foster home in the fifth. Five to two, Mets, and it looked like a waltz.

It never is. Gooden was superb for six innings — six strikeouts, the only real damage Clark's homer — but he left in the seventh with two men aboard, and Doug Sisk couldn't hold them. Two Cardinals runs made it 5–4, and in the ninth St. Louis tied it, 5–5. Tom Gorman threw a perfect tenth. And in the bottom of the inning, with one out, Carter came up against Neil Allen — the former Met, traded away in the deal that once brought Hernandez to New York — and Allen hung a curveball. Carter put it out. Mets 6, Cardinals 5. His first home run as a Met won his first game as a Met.

The Show

The tape opens with Ralph in a mood to match the day. “This is the 24th year of our broadcast,” he tells the audience, before introducing “our special guest... obviously Gary Cooper.” A beat. “Gary Cooper? That's pretty good.” Carter — who would answer to “Kid” for the rest of his life — grins through it, an ice pack strapped to the elbow Andújar had found in the first inning.

That elbow is where the interview starts, because it scared him. Two years earlier in Montreal, a Chuck Rainey fastball had hit him in about the same spot and bothered him all season. This one found the nerve: the feeling went out of his hand and his arm, and all he could do was try to force it back. Andújar, to his credit, looked over and asked if he was all right — Carter never thought it was intentional. He stayed in the game. Which is how his first day as a Met got started: hit by a pitch his first time up, a passed ball, a strikeout, and Andújar stealing a base against him. “It wasn't a very good beginning,” Ralph says. “But the result at the end was outstanding.”

Carter is honest about the butterflies — a huge crowd, everybody wanting to do well, maybe a little extra pressure the Mets put on themselves. Then Ralph rolls the replay of the tenth, and Carter walks him through the at-bat against Allen. The first curveball was a little high. He was looking for one he could get out over the plate: “All I was looking for was just a pitch that I could get out over the plate. Fortunately, it was there — so I'll take it.” Around the bases, he says, he was so excited he doesn't know what he was thinking — just the fans, and his teammates waiting at home plate. “That's the first one I've hit in the bottom of the tenth, actually, to win the ball game.”

And then the Kid says the thing the whole afternoon had been building toward. He's thankful, he says — thankful for the opportunity to come to New York and be part of this ball club. “I just want to win so bad,” he says, “and just help this ball club get to the World Series.” Twenty months later, he would. But on this day it was a promise, made with an ice pack on his elbow.

Ralph, being Ralph, does not let the passed ball go. Carter owns it completely — the shadows had started to come down, it got dark, and “I just flat out missed the ball.” The man it embarrassed him in front of gets nothing but praise: Gooden “just threw outstanding,” and Carter says he's proud of the whole young staff and how they threw all spring. As for Andújar stealing a base — the only steal against the Mets all day — that one he lays at the feet of Andújar himself. Hernandez knew him from their St. Louis days, Carter explains, and Joaquín is crazy enough to try anything: “He does anything, and he's crazy enough that he'll do those kind of things — and then he slides in and hurts his knee or something. So that's Andújar, isn't it?”

Mookie's segment is quieter, and it starts in the top of the first, when Tommy Herr drove one to deep center and Wilson lost it in the sun and the shadows — you couldn't see the ball, he says, until it was over the stands, and normally it would have been too late. The wind held it up, and he caught it in the heel of the glove. Then he went and got the season's first hit, and stole second anyway — carefully. He'd been nursing a leg, hadn't run all spring, and was hesitant until the first move told him it would hold up: once he hit the ground, he says, it was all over. The second steal was no contest at all. His verdict on the opener is pure Mookie: “It was just a full team effort today, Ralph. Everybody contributed in their own way.”

Carter gets the last word, and it's the line this episode will be remembered by. Spring training didn't make it official, he says. This did. “I guess I'm now officially a Met.” The tape rolls on into the highlights — Ralph narrating the whole ten innings over again, because on Opening Day 1985 nobody at Shea was in a hurry to leave. More rescued shows are on the way as we work through the tapes one by one. And if you're sitting on a tape of this show — any tape, any year — the hunt is still on, and we want to hear from you.

Down on the Korner — the book Howie and I wrote about this show and these Mets — is available here.

Watch the rescued episodes as we revisit them: the Kiner's Korner archive playlist.

Box score: Retrosheet via Baseball-Reference.

🔔 Get the Korner in Your Inbox

The Rumor Roundup, the Chronicles, Sunday School and everything from the Korner — delivered free every Sunday morning, plus a breaking-edition alert when the Mets make a move. Just drop your email in the form below and you're in.