Saturday Seasons: You Know How 1986 Ends. Do You Remember How They Got There?

  If you’re a Mets fan, you already know how 1986 ends: a team that manager Davey Johnson declared during spring training would dominate the National League East, for once, did not disappoint. A team that bettered its previous 98-win season by 10 games, finishing 21 and a half games ahead of its nearest rival, the Philadelphia Phillies, and coasting into the postseason. A team that would stare down its Western Division rival and fellow expansion team, the Houston Astros, in a series that ended with two extra-inning games – the last a 16-inning nailbiter with more twists and turns than any of the Mission: Impossible films. A team whose victory ride down the Canyon of Heroes was partly due to the width between Bill Buckner’s legs, but again, if you are a Mets fan, you probably know all of that. And you also know who somehow didn’t manage to make it to the parade.

               You know that the ace of the staff, Dwight Gooden, won 17 games – but that Bob Ojeda, acquired from the Red Sox in the offseason, topped Gooden by winning 18. And that Gooden’s 200 strikeouts were matched by Sid Fernandez to co-lead the staff. And that Ojeda and Ron Darling both had ERAs better than Gooden’s 2.84. And that Jesse Orosco and Roger McDowell formed a lefty-righty bullpen combo that racked up 44 saves between them, with McDowell appearing in 76 games and Orosco 69.

               You know that Gary Carter drove in 105 runs to lead the team, and that his home run total of 24 was three behind Darryl Strawberry, who smashed 27 and drove in 93. You know that Keith Hernandez and Ray Knight ably manned the corners and that the two platoons – Wally Backman and Tim Teufel at second and Mookie Wilson and Lenny Dysktra in center – gave manager Johnson incredibly flexibility with his lineup.

               But it wasn’t just that they won, it was how – how this collection of larger-than-life personalities swaggered their way through the season on the field – and off.

               Of the many books written by, and about, the 1986 Mets, one of the best – and certainly the most appropriately titled – was Jeff Passen’s “The Bad Guys Won: A Season of Brawling, Boozing, Bimbo Chasing and Championship Baseball with Straw, Doc, Mookie, Nails, the Kid and the Rest of the 1986 Mets, the Rowdiest Team Ever to Put on a New York Uniform – and Maybe the Best.”

               Brawls? There were many, and some even occurred on the field. Like the one on May 27 during a game at Shea Stadium against the Dodgers. The Dodgers had already weathered an intramural fight – Greg Brock and Steve Sax going at each other in the dugout before the game, broken up by reliever Tom Niedenfuer, who turned around and precipitated the fight that included the Mets. In the sixth inning, Niedenfuer served up a grand slam to George Foster and then plunked the next batter, Ray Knight, in the left elbow. Knight, armed with knowledge of Niedenfuer’s brushback tendencies from having read Dodger manager Tommy Lasorda’s book, believed it was intentional and charged the mound, followed by his team.

               “I wasn’t worried about Ray,” manager Johnson was quoted as saying in the next day’s Newsday about his third baseman, a Gold Gloves boxer. “I was worried about everyone else.”

               As the benches cleared, Foster tried to play peacemaker. “I felt Niedenfuer picked on the wrong guy,” Foster was quoted in the same article. “It turned out he tackled Ray, but Ray got a few in.” Strangely, nobody was ejected.

               That was not the case two weeks later, on July 6, with Rick Rhoden on the mound for the Pirates and Bill Robinson coaching first base for the Mets. In the top of the fifth, the Mets, believing Rhoden was scuffing the ball, had one inspected (it was taken out of play) and then insisted that the umpires inspect Rhoden for the raison d’abrasion. The search was unsuccessful, but when the inning ended, Rhoden and Robinson got into a verbal exchange that became physical when Robinson shoved Rhoden. “If it was me, I would have decked him,” Johnson said afterward in the Newsday story, defending his coach. Benches emptied, players squared off. Punches were thrown. “This was another real one,” Johnson said, harkening back to the Maty 27 melee. “It got nasty.” This time someone – Robinson – was ejected.

All told, these Mets were involved in four brawls in an eight-week span, with the capper on July 22 in Cincinnati, again with Knight at the center, exchanging words, and then shoves, with Reds outfielder Eric Davis, who accidentally bumped Knight when standing up after successfully stealing third base. When Knight threw a right hook that connected with Davis, benches emptied again. Met Kevin Mitchell, himself a world-class baseball brawler, threw Reds around like rag dolls. But the Reds had their own secret weapon: karate black belt John Denny, who subdued Carter with a strong shoulder blade grip. Four players were ejected, three of them Mets, who were so shorthanded that  manager Johnson had to send reliver Orosco out to play right field (only to call him to the mound later in the inning).

               And those were only the on-field brawls. Word association: When you hear the word, “Cooter’s,” what immediately comes to mind? To Mets fans, it takes them back to July 19, 1986, when his teammates took Teufel to the popular Houston sports bar to celebrate the birth of Teufel’s first child (perhaps it was popular because they let players drink for free). At about 2 a.m., as the players left, an off-duty Houston police officer moonlighting as bar security told Teufel he couldn’t take his beer with him because of a Texas open-container law. Again, another scuffle, in which Darling threw a punch that landed on one of the officers before Darling was thrown through a plate glass window. Teufel, Darling, Ojeda and Rick Aguilera were arrested and spent 11 hours in a holding cell before being released. Teufel and Darling were charged with assault (they would later plead to misdemeanors and pay $200 fines) and Ojeda and Aguilera with hindering an arrest (charges dropped). Capitalizing on the notoriety, the bar began selling t-shirts that said, “Houston Police 4 NY Mets 0.”

               But perhaps the ugliest incident of the season came on August 7, when the Mets parted ways with outfielder George Foster, their highest-paid player and a highly-celebrated acquisition a few years before. Temperamentally, the soft-spoken Foster didn’t fit in with his rowdy teammates, and his production certainly had fallen off from the previous two years – so much so that he was benched in favor of rookie Kevin Mitchell.

               But what hastened his release, reports at the time noted, were some remarks Foster had made to a reporter for the Gannett-Rockland Newspapers, essentially accusing the Mets of racial bias. The quote: “''I'm not saying it's a racial thing. But that seems to be the case in sports these days. When a ball club can, they replace a George Foster or a Mookie Wilson with a more popular white player...I think the Mets would rather promote a Gary Carter or a Keith Hernandez to the fans so parents who want to can point to them as role models for their children, rather than a Darryl Strawberry or a Dwight Gooden or a George Foster.''

               Foster contended his remarks had been taken out of context, but Johnson said he was still offended and told the front office he would no longer feel comfortable with Foster playing for the Mets (not to mention that since being benched, Foster had gone 2 for 28 with 10 strikeout and one RBI in 12 games). General manager Frank Cashen acquiesced, with the Mets eating $1.7 million: the $700,000 due Foster for the rest of the season and $500,000 in option buyouts for 1987 and 1988.

               Reaction from his teammates seem to have broken somewhat along racial lines, according to quotes in newspaper stories, “I’m disappointed in the way the organization handled it,” Strawberry told Newsday’s Marty Noble. But Backman told Noble, “Good riddance…He brought it on himself…You don’t come up with this racist stuff and call yourself a teammate.”

               As Mike Lupica wrote in the Daily News, “Foster has a right to be hurt, and a right to be angry. He can feel betrayed if he wants to. But he has to know the Mets don’t want him any more because he’s not a very good baseball player.”

               “Foster was never a good influence in the Mets clubhouse, and now he has become trouble in a season when the Mets don’t need any,” Lupica added.

               Whatever the cause, and whatever the individual players’ feelings, the action was a mere blip in the season as the team charged its way into October. And suddenly, things got considerably harder.

               First, they faced an NL West-champion Houston Astros team that featured two former Mets in its rotation: Mike Scott, who learned how to scuff a baseball after leaving New York and became unhittable, whiffing 306 batters in 1986; and Nolan Ryan, who learned how to control his fastball. Ryan struck out 194, but pitched almost 100 fewer innings than Scott. The biggest bat in their lineup was first baseman Glenn Davis, with 31 home runs and 101 RBI.

               Gooden battled Scott in the first game of the series, played at the Astrodome, and Davis’ second-inning homer accounted for the game’s only run. Mets bats woke up a bit in game two, as Ojeda beat Ryan, 6-5. In game three, at Shea, Lenny Dykstra hit a dramatic walk-off to give the Mets a 6-5 win, but Scott again beat the Mets in game four, holding them to three hits as the only runs were scored on two homers off Sid Fernandez.

               That set up two memorable games – one at Shea, the other at the Astrodome. The Mets won game five on a walkoff single with the bases loaded by Carter in the bottom of the 12^th. And game six – one for the ages. The Astros put up a quick three runs against Ojeda in the bottom of the first, and that held until the top of the ninth, when the Mets rallied to tie the game. That’s how it stood until the 14^th, when the Mets took the lead on a Backman single, but Orosco gave up a home run to Billy Hatcher. In the bottom of the frame. The tension continued – it was important to win this game to avoid facing Scott for a third time in game seven – until the 16^th, when the Mets put up a three spot and things looked good. But Orosco, pitching his third inning (relievers did that in those days), gave back two of the runs before striking out Bass to end the game and give the Mets the pennant.

               It was time to celebrate, and celebrate the Mets did on the plane home to New York – in a way that was characteristic of that Mets squad. Much has been written about the debauchery – about the seats that were broken, about the food fight, about the cocaine that was consumed in the back of the plane. “A bunch of bad boys,” Strawberry would say years later in a video. “We knew how to be ugly, we knew how to be raunchy.”

               Let’s just say the Mets, as a team, were never allowed to fly the friendly skies of United Airlines again.

               And then came the World Series against the Boston Red Sox. The Bosox take games one and two at Shea. Merts take three and four at Fenway. Sox take game five, also at Fenway, and the Mets face elimination as the series return to Shea for game six. Red Sox plate runs in each of the first two innings. Mets tie it up with two in the fifth. Red Sox take the lead in the seventh, but the Mets tie it up in the eighth. It goes to extra innings and in the 10^th, the Sox put up two runs on a Dave Henderson home run and a Marty Barrett single that scored Wade Boggs. Which brings us to the bottom of the 10^th, and after two quick outs, it looked like the Red Sox were finally going to overcome the Curse of the Bambino. So sure was he that the game was essentially over, Hernandez went into the locker room and took off his uniform.

               Much as been written and filmed about what happened next. A Carter single. A pinch hit single by Mitchell. Down to his last strike, Knight singled, scoring Carter and sending Mitchell to third. Calvin Schiraldi, a former Met, replaces Bob Stanley on the mound and Mookie Wilson comes to bat. On the seventh pitch of the at bat, Schiraldi throws one low and inside; it gets past catcher Rich German, scoring Mitchell. The game is tied. And then the curse rears its ugly head. We could write about what happened, but Vin Scully says it better in the much-viewed video:

               Game seven was almost an afterthought. The Mets won, 8-5 to clinch their second, and, so far, last championship.

               The next day, an estimated 2.2 million people turned out to the Canyon of Heroes  -- crowding window ledges, climbing trees, perching atop traffic lights and telephone booths  -- to shower the Mets with computer paper, punch cards, confetti, torn telephone books and toilet paper and to boo Mayor Edward Koch and other politicians standing between them and hearing their heroes speak.

“It was great, and scary,” Mary Robinson, wife of Met coach Bill Robinson, was quoted in a Los Angeles Times article. “We were afraid they were going to take us out of our cars.”

Notably absent from the festivities: Dwight Gooden. The Mets ace initially told teammates he had overslept but admitted years later that he was in a Long Island drug dealer’s apartment, where he had spent the night snorting cocaine, too high and paranoid to join them. Instead, he watched the parade on television "Here I am in the projects in a drug dealer's apartment with guys I don't even know, with drugs in the house, watching it," he said in an ESPN documentary. "It's a horrible feeling."

It was a bad omen for the 1987 season, because just before it would start, their ace would test positive for cocaine and instead of taking the mound for the season opener, he would be in the Smithters Alcoholism and Drug Treatment Center.

But that’s part of next week’s story.