Saturday Seasons : 1994 If the Glove Don’t Fit, You’re Probably Playing Shortstop for the ’94 Mets

If the 1994 Mets were a metaphor, they’d be a white Ford Bronco lumbering down the Long Island Expressway with the hazards on. Everyone in New York knew it wasn’t going to end well — but we couldn’t stop watching.

While O.J. Simpson’s real-life slow-speed chase captivated the country that summer, the Mets were running their own version in Queens: a low-drama, low-speed pursuit of competence that ended in surrender long before the season did. You could almost hear the crowd at Shea chanting, “Pull over!” every time they kicked another grounder or stranded a runner in scoring position.

This was supposed to be the rebound. After the toxic circus of 1993, fans dared to believe that things couldn’t possibly get worse. The front office said the right things. Dallas Green said the loud things. And a roster full of familiar names — Bonilla, Kent, Hundley, Saberhagen looked, on paper, like the kind of group that might at least stop embarrassing itself on a nightly basis.

Instead, the ’94 Mets played 113 games that felt like 213. They finished 55–58 when the season screeched to a halt in August — a mercy killing via players’ strike. Their team OPS (.709) was 85 points below league average, their rotation behind Bret Saberhagen resembled a traveling trauma unit, and the most consistent thing about them was the daily sense of dread that hung over Shea like Scar’s shadow over Simba only this time, Mufasa wasn’t coming to save anybody. No hakuna matata in sight.

Believe it or not, even in this mess, a few guys made you remember why we watch , and why I keep writing about them instead of seeking therapy. While the rest of the roster was auditioning for Baseball’s Bloopers, Bret Saberhagen was out there carving lineups like it was still 1985.: 14–4, a 2.74 ERA, four complete games, and the faint glimmer of Cy Young votes before the curtain dropped. Bobby Bonilla, in his final full Mets season, remembered how to hit (.290, 20 HR, .878 OPS) though fans mostly remembered how to boo him. And Jeff Kent quietly put together a perfectly Kent-like year: .292, 24 doubles, 14 homers, 68 RBI, and the permanent aura of a man wondering why his teammates weren’t taking this more seriously.

Then there was Todd Hundley, the 25-year-old catcher who mashed 16 homers and struck out 73 times, usually in that order. He was still a year or two away from the historic power surge that would make him a Mets legend, but you could see the gears turning and the veins popping even then.

And if you squint, you can find future trivia answers scattered through the debris: Rico Brogna hit .351 in his first taste of Queens. John Franco saved 30 games. And somewhere in the bullpen, a young righty named Josías Manzanillo was quietly becoming the only reliever not to completely horrify the paying public.

It didn’t help that, while the Mets were spinning their wheels in Queens, the rest of New York sports was throwing a parade without them.

The Yankees under a young, no-nonsense Buck Showalter were in first place, finally looking like a franchise with a future instead of a monument to mediocrity. Across town, the Rangers had just skated their way down the Canyon of Heroes, ending 54 years of hockey heartache and giving every New Yorker a reason to honk their horn for three straight weeks.

And over at Madison Square Garden, Patrick Ewing and the Knicks were in the middle of a gritty, blood-pressure-spiking run to the NBA Finals. New York was buzzing. It was electric. Everywhere you looked — Broadway, the Bronx, or the blueline — there was hope and momentum.

Everywhere except Flushing.

At Shea, hope was something you paid $12 for and got rained out before the third inning.

But oh, the rest of them. Ryan Thompson hit 18 home runs and .225 in between wild misadventures in center field. José Vizcaíno managed 456 plate appearances, three home runs, and a batting line (.256/.310/.324) that could sedate a caffeinated squirrel. Joe Orsulak, Kevin McReynolds, and David Segui all took turns proving that “veteran presence” doesn’t necessarily mean “positive influence.”

On the mound, after Saberhagen and Bobby Jones (who was actually decent at 12–7, 3.15 ERA), things spiraled into performance art. Dwight Gooden, battling demons, posted a 6.31 ERA in his final Mets chapter. Pete Smith gave up 25 home runs in 131 innings, which feels like it should come with an asterisk and a public apology.

By July, Shea Stadium felt less like the home of the Amazins and more like a halfway house for broken dreams and bad attitudes like a watch party the 1994 reboot of Get Smart starring Andy Dick.

Attendance sagged. Hope sagged. Even the skyline of Queens seemed to lean away a little, as if embarrassed to be seen with them. Then, on August 12, 1994, baseball stopped — and for once, Mets fans didn’t mind. There was no final humiliation, no September collapse. Just merciful silence.

In the years since, most of the ’94 Mets have faded into trivia-night obscurity. Jeff Kent went on to win an MVP. Bobby Bonilla’s contract became a national holiday. Todd Hundley finally exploded (in a good way). But for one strange, abbreviated summer, they all wore the same uniform and shared the same collective shrug.

In the end, the 1994 Mets didn’t crash so much as they coasted to a stop — hazards still blinking, radio still tuned to Z100, everyone pretending this was all part of the plan. Bret Saberhagen’s arm deserved better, Bobby Bonilla’s paycheck — well, that story was just getting started.

But here’s the silver lining: the Mets didn’t make the playoffs. They didn’t win the pennant. They didn’t win the World Series.

And neither did anyone else.

When the players’ strike pulled the plug that August, it was like the entire league joined the chase and decided to hit the brakes together. No champagne, no dogpile, no ticker tape. Just 30 teams sitting in their metaphorical Broncos, idling on the highway, wondering what the hell just happened.