1986 New York Mets documentary "Once Upon A Time In Queens": ESPN 30 for 30

This one really hits the sweet spot for me. I was a kid in a small Florida beach town just getting into baseball cards around this time. The closest MLB team to me was the inept Atlanta Braves, who were on WTBS all the time. Sure, Dale Murphy was good and our "local" hero, but the coolest people in the world at that time were Dwight Gooden, Darryl Strawberry and the New York Mets. We collected their cards like they were gold. We cut out their box scores and game summaries from our local newspaper and kept them in binders (which are still at my parents' house). We'd rabidly tune in whenever they played the Braves hoping to see them run laps around them. My brother stayed up and watched the entire wild 19-inning Braves-Mets game in 1985 (the one with the Rick Camp homer to tie up the game in the 18th!), I think the longest game in history at the time. We even got to see a Mets-Cardinals game at Al Lang Field during spring training 1985 and I missed soccer practice to watch the end of game 6 of the NLCS versus the Astros.

This really tickled the nostalgia bone. I liked like callbacks to people previously involved with the Mets such as:
- Davey Johnson, as a Baltimore Oriole, making the last out of the 1969 World Series, the only previous championship for the Mets
- Nolan Ryan a former Met on that 1969 team, facing them in the 1986 NLCS, including a tremendous matchup against Gooden in game 5.
- Mike Scott, former Met, dominating the 1986 NLCS, and being the MVP despite the Mets winning. I wish they could have had a current interview with Mike reflecting on that series.

Some interesting moments for me:
- George Foster showing up in a suit during Game 6. What was that all about? Did he get a ring from the Mets that year even though he was released mid-season?
- Keith Hernandez calling his Dad for advice between at-bats during games!
- People seem think that Red Sox would have won the World Series if Bill Bucker would have fielded Mookie Wilson’s ground ball in game 6, but that's not true. The game was tied 5-5 so it just would have proceeded into the 11th inning and the Mets might have won anyway. Buckner gets way more grief that he deserves.
- Lenny Dykstra, just about every time he talked during his present day interviews.

 

That team should have been a dynasty. But they partied too hard.

 

Frank Cashen's off-season moves didn't help either.

 

Yeah, that part about offering Ray Knight, the 1986 World Series MVP, a paltry $5K raise and just a 1-year contact was baffling. What was that, 2 weeks after winning the Series?!

And trading Kevin Mitchell because Frank Cashen didn't want him to be around Doc and Darryl?

 

Anything about Straw's locker room quickies with ladies recruited from the stands by locker-room attendants?

 

I was 13 in 1986 living in northwest New Jersey. I'd been a baseball fan since I was 7, the Phillies were my first team, Mike Schmidt Pete Rose 1980 World Series. Collected baseball cards, kept my Topps cards organized by team in rubber bands. No worries about keeping anything mint! But I started moving towards the Mets because we got WOR, and I could watch pretty much every game, and they were getting pretty good, with Strawberry & Gooden. And WOR's main announcer was Rusty Staub and Tim Mccarver, who before he became annoying on bigger channels, in those days without all the graphics on tv, was very good at explaining pitches and a lot of the nitty gritty stuff that was fascinating to me. By 86, me and a buddy watched pretty much every game from Spring Training on. What a team. All the position players had their moments, not just the big stars. I remember being on vacation watching the extra inning game against the Mets with a fight and they were running out of players from all the substitutions (they show the fight in the doc a little, but it was a crazy game). Coming home from school in time to watch the afternoon playoff games against to Astros, living and dying on each pitch on those marathon games. And yeah, Game 6 of the WS. 13 was a great age to be a fan of a team like that, with games like that, so many crazy things happening. I'll never ever ever forget the Buckner error, it was already a hell of a "one out away" rally to get to that point.

I remember in 86, somehow Ron Darling came to our town and signed autographs for something, and I got my card signed. No telling where that is now! And my dad took me to Shea for a game over labor day weekend. He had $40 and got us two scalped tickets in the parking lot and asked the guy if he'd sell the tickets for $30 so he could buy me a hot dog, and the scalper was cool with it.

The next year they didn't make it back, I moved to Houston where there was no way other kids would let you stay a Mets fan, that's a traitor! So I slowly became a home team fan. By college and the strikes and the steroids, players moving teams all the time and less stars that stayed with the same team, and my beloved Mets were traded away. I remember being really mad about Kevin Mitchell being traded because not only was he a great hitter in 86, but I think he played every position except pitched and catcher that year. And of course the wasted potential of Gooden and Strawberry (plus my favorite MLB player Pete Rose getting banned from baseball), I lost interest in obsessively following baseball. Used to piss me off in 87/88/89 Strawberry just seemed to half ass everything, and have less and less moments of greatness. It never felt like a slump as much as not having the fire.

So yeah, catching the doc this week, I watched the first two episodes, it's been great reliving these things I hadn't thought about in ages. I didnt realize Gary Clark was such a "gee whiz" clean guy. I knew Mookie's injury was what brough Dykstra to the team but didn't know they had footage of it, damn. Little things like Kiners Korner! I've watched the first two episodes and plan to watch the last two tonight. Great fond memories of that year.

 

Not in depth, but yeah.

 

I may have watched it wrong but I got the feeling it was Keith’s dad who kept calling between innings since Keith didn’t seem thrilled with the advice he kept getting that wasn’t helpful.


There was a GREAT 30 for 30 on Buckner and Bartman about 8-9 years ago. I think nowadays fans realize Buckner got way too much blame. The fans needed a scapegoat and that was an easy one, just as Bartman was for the Cubs.
Centromatic’s Will Johnson does baseball paintings and his Buckner was used in that old 30 for 30 doc, I’ve got a print of it on my wall.

 

Maybe. The 1984 Tigers dominated but that was the only World Series they won. They barely squeaked into the 1987 playoffs and lost and that was it for that core group of players. It's hard to repeat. A lot of things have to go just right to win. That's sports.

 

I was surprised too to learn about Gary Carter being so clean-cut, but I figured it was well-known to the locals through interviews, commercials, profiles, etc. Kiner's Korner, yes! The only reason I even knew what that was was because I had Dwight Gooden's 1984 book "Rookie", which talked about it. I'd never seen it back then of course but I could imagine what it might be. I could have looked up some shows on Youtube I guess but I was only reminded of it again by the documentary.

 

I always knew a lot of guys didn't like Gary Carter but I didn't know why.

 

I was in Greenwich Village partying with my buddies, watching Game 6. We got kicked out of the bar because someone started doing whippets. We got booted.

The minute we were on the street the entire city sounded in a roar, windows opened, people screaming. We ran to the bar window to see the replay of Buckner’s boot! Was as surreal a scene as I’ve ever been in.

I had tickets to Game 7, but it was rained out and I couldn’t stay and had to give up my ticket!

 

Gary was one of the few people Mookie Wilson had some choice words for in his book, which was surprising to me. He said Gary was sort of a spotlight hog. And apparently Gary demanded to be co-captain after Keith Hernandez was named captain and that didn't sit well with the team either.

I was 10 in 1986. I paid $50 a couple years ago to get an autograph and a photo with Mookie. There's probably less than five people in the world that I'd do that for. He's a great man. He and HOJO were my two favorite Mets.

When Mookie went to Toronto, and they traded Lenny and McDowell to the Phillies for Juan Samuel.... I never recovered. It was just too infuriating. Being a kid it's hard to accept the business end of things.

I totally missed this doc but hope to catch it the next time it is on.

 

Knight didn’t exactly play well with Baltimore and Detroit his next two years. Plus he had a poor year in 1985. And the Mets had Howard Johnson waiting in the wings. Funny thing is everyone now doesn’t like trading away Kevin Mitchell (although he got traded frequently by other teams, then again ultimately McReynolds was lazy) but at the time every Mets fan I knew didn’t like trading Shawn Abner. He was supposedly the crown jewel of the farm system. He did very little in the majors.

 

Juan Samuel wow there’s a name I forgot! You know with Kevin Mitchell and Ray Knight fizzling on other teams - it was all the right guys right place right time. And also when you’ve been in the biggest city, booze drugs women, winning almost without trying, going to somewhere like Toronto with new guys is a let down and you lose that motivation and spark.


And that’s funny about Mook talking rough onGary. That mix of showboat and clean cut had to be a weird mix in the clubhouse. Hernandez saying he was annoying as hell like fingernails on a chalkboard, but he got there early, worked hard thru bad knees, and did his job… there’s no denying they needed Carter too.

 

Lived in Houston and went to game 1 of the NLCS, Gooden vs Scott, Astros won 1-0.

 

I was at Barrence Whitfield's 60th Birthday celebration which was held at the Arlington Theatre & a highlight was former Red Sox pitcher Oil Can Boyd giving Barrence, a big Mets fan, personalized Mets shirt. That wouldn't have happened in 1986!

The '86 Mets were very lucky getting by Houston in the NLCS & having the Sox manager keep Buckner (who got a raw deal) in too long. Any feelings of pain & frustration I had from '86 went due to 2004, 2007, 2013 & 2018

 

What I remember the most from the '86 series was Jim Rice catching the second out in that fateful inning. He kind of clutched it and his body language was like "we got this thing baby". You could just read it on him.

The other thing I remember about that series was how sloppy it was. I mean, while it was very exciting, it was about who was going to make the most mistakes, not really well played.

As far as the doc is concerned, this is an area where ESPN consistently does a good job, and I'm all over the Tom Waits song during the intro.

 

One of my favorite players' names to hear Harry Caray announce. The "first" game under Wrigley Field lights (the one that eventually got rained out) was against Samuel's Phillies - it's is on YouTube in its (shortened) entirety and you get HC in his full Budweiser-fueled glory.

 

Not to threadcrap.
But every time I think of the '86 Mets, (and I was a Mets fan for years and years, even in '86).
I'm always reminded of this book.
The Bad Guys Won by Jeff Pearlman, PopMatters
The Bad Guys Won! by Jeff Pearlman

 

Even if Buckner had fielded the ball cleanly, he wouldn't have beaten Mookie to the bag. Buckner had bad wheels (ankles? I forget what it was). He shouldn't have been out there in that situation.

Besides, that was game six. Game seven was the next day, the Red Sox had a chance to redeem themselves. They didn't.

 

Pearlman was featured quite prominently during all 4 episodes.

Even if he did the series was essentially over when the Mets tied it up, IMHO.

 

I grew up in Philly. One of my former NYer patients always ribs me. Years ago he presented me with a signed Lenny Dykstra picture from his Phillies days. I couldn't sell it on Ebay. In fact I couldn't give it away. Just sayin

 

Thought they did a good job in capturing what an amazing turn of events it was from two outs those at bats. Plus Macnamara’s decisions that hurt them that game more than one bad fielding. Not pulling Buckner when they had the lead like he usually did. Pulling Clemens. Not pulling Schiraldi earlier. Plus give it up for mookie. 2 strike count. Fouls off two. Wild pitch that scored Carter and moved over Ray. Fouls off two more. Then the magical hit. He worked that at bat at two strikes. I mean 9 times out of 10 in that situation the Red Sox get one of those breaks to close it out. Hell if mookie pops up on any of those fouls to be catchable. It was fun watching that part of the doc how at two outs the place was silent, and how it turned. That shot of mookie on the field to the dug out to the clubhouse was great. I hadn t seen that before.

 

What did he say? I have not seen the doc, yet.