Saturday Seasons The 1990 Mets: The Curtain Falls

If you’re a Mets fan who remembers 1990, first of all — congratulations on surviving parachute pants, Crystal Pepsi, and your mom yelling at you to “rewind the Blockbuster tape before returning it.” Second, you’ll remember this season as the last gasp of an era.

The Mets went 91–71 — a record plenty of franchises would’ve carved into granite ,but for us? It felt like the beginning of the end. This was the final winning season until 1997, which means kids born in the aftermath of the 1986 parade were old enough to get their driver’s licenses before the Mets sniffed another above-.500 finish.

This was the winter the front office basically put a “For Sale” sign on the front lawn at Shea. Out went Gary Carter and Keith Hernandez — two cornerstones of the ’86 champs, two leaders, two guys who made Mets baseball feel like Broadway theater. They were replaced by Mackey Sasser (who could hit, but trying to watch him throw to second was like playing Paperboy on Nintendo—you never knew if the delivery was landing on the porch, the lawn, or through a window) and Dave Magadan, who was steady if not exactly Keithian.

Juan Samuel? Gone. Randy Myers? Gone, shipped out to Cincinnati for John Franco, who would go on to save games for the Mets until what felt like Y2K.

By the time spring training rolled around, you knew this was still a good team, but the champagne corks of ’86 were starting to feel like they’d been popped in another lifetime.

Let’s give credit: the ’90 Mets could hit. Strawberry mashed 37 home runs and drove in 108. Howard Johnson — HoJo, the original power-hitting infielder before launch angle was a thing — added 23 bombs and 34 steals. Sasser and Magadan both hit .300. Kevin McReynolds hit his quiet 20-plus homers (he was basically Mets baseball’s answer to a rotary phone: dependable but never exciting).

The lineup scored the most runs in the National League. They were like the “Seinfeld” pilot, which debuted in 1990 — maybe not everyone realized it yet, but this was a killer lineup.

Frank Viola was the ace, racking up 20 wins and finishing third in the Cy Young. He was also the last Mets pitcher of the 20th century to win 20 games. (File that under: “Things you didn’t know you missed until you read them again.”)

Dwight Gooden, trying to hold onto his magic, went 19–7, though his ERA was closer to 4 than the 2.5 masterpiece days of ’85. Sid Fernandez struck guys out but went 9–14 because the Mets apparently saved their runs for everyone else.

And then there was David Cone, steady as always, the Mets’ human safety net.

In the bullpen, Franco settled in as closer and was nails (33 saves). But the aura of invincibility the staff once carried? That was already fading.

The Mets stumbled out of the gate. By Memorial Day they were under .500, and Davey Johnson ,the man who’d managed the team through the glory days — was fired. Bud Harrelson stepped in, and Bud was a nice guy, beloved, a 1969 hero but it felt like putting a band-aid on the Titanic.

Still, the Mets rallied. They ripped off a hot streak in June, climbed back into the race, and even snuck into first place for a bit in August. But every time it looked like they were about to channel the magic of ’86, the offense would go cold at the worst moment.

The Pirates : Barry Bonds, Bobby Bonilla, Andy Van Slyke had swagger, and they weren’t intimidated anymore. When the Mets had a chance to close the gap in September head-to-head at Three Rivers, Pittsburgh punched back. The Mets faded, finishing four games behind.

It wasn’t 1962-bad. It wasn’t collapse-bad. But it was “you can feel the window closing” bad.

While the Mets were duking it out with Pittsburgh, the world was moving fast:

The Simpsons had just debuted in primetime and Bart was telling us to “Eat My Shorts” — something Mets fans could relate to after another NL East near-miss.

Nelson Mandela was freed from prison.

Milli Vanilli got caught lip-syncing, proving even Grammy voters sometimes swing and miss.

The ’90 Mets were still very good. They were still scary on paper. But you could feel it. Carter and Keith were gone. Darryl’s relationship with New York was starting to unravel. Cone would be gone soon. Davey Johnson was out.

The dynasty-that-never-was was fading, replaced by tabloid drama and trades that felt more like panic than brilliance.

And sure enough, 1990 would be the last winning season until 1997. The ride that began in ’84, peaked in ’86, and lingered through the end of the decade finally hit the brakes.

91 wins. Four games short. One era over.