Game 6
Growing up a Mets fan in the mid 70’s and early 80’s was not easy. Many fair-weather fans switched over to the Yankees during their run in the late 70’s. Not me. Not my brothers or my friends. We stuck by this team from day one. Being a native New Yorker and living my first 27 years just a short subway ride from mid-town Manhattan, I became a huge Mets fan. All of my friends were Mets fans. My brothers were Mets fans. There wasn’t one Yankee fan in the bunch! The odds of that happening have to be very low. As a kid in grade school, then high school, my friends and I would walk a couple of miles to the Path station in Harrison, NJ and take the subway all the way to Flushing, Queens, Shea Stadium. It would drop us off right at the stadium. We’d buy the cheapest seats we could for a couple of dollars and then sneak down to the field level. No one cared back then. You can’t get away with that today. We went to countless games, many times by ourselves with no adult supervision, even when we were 13 and 14 years old! Of course, we lied to our parents. Each of us told our parents that our friends’ older brother was taking us. Sometimes that was true, but most times it wasn’t. In 1986, we decided to all pitch in and buy a pool of 6 season tickets for every Sunday home game.
If we didn’t watch every game in 1986, then it was nearly every game. A couple of us purchased NY Sports Channel which covered every single Mets game during the season. When we weren’t at the games, we alternated houses, sometimes we’d watch the game in my basement at my house and other times we’d walk around the corner and watch it at my friend’s house. Because we were season ticket holders, we were given the opportunity to buy 1 playoff game and 2 World Series tickets at face value (all 6 seats). We had tickets to Game 4 of the National League Championship Series and Game 2 and Games 6 of the World Series. They lost the first two games we went to. Were we a jinx? Our only chance now was Game 6. However, we had bigger problems, the Mets lost the first two games of the 1986 WS at home. We were beginning to wonder if there would even be a game 6. Luckily, they wound up taking 2 of 3 in Boston setting up that memorable night on October 25, 1986.
The group was so excited. We knew this would be a special night. We rented a stretch limousine. Filled it with wine coolers and beer, dressed in our favorite Mets gear and headed off early to the ballpark. We tailgated in the parking lot for a couple of hours and then finally, it was game time. The feeling in the ballpark that night was electric. I know this term has been used by many commentators throughout the years, but in NY on certain nights during specific special events, you CAN feel the electricity buzzing throughout the stadium. The best way I can describe it is goosebumps and butterflies. The feeling of excitement in you and 55,000 other human beings happening at the same time. Everyone anticipating a win for the home team creates an adrenaline rush sometimes causing goosebumps on your body and butterflies in your stomach. When you multiply this feeling 55,000 times in a confined space, the ultimate sensation experienced is that of electricity. It’s an awesome feeling.
Although our regular season tickets were very good seats, directly behind home plate in
the mezzanine section, our playoff tickets were in the nosebleed section near the very top rows in right field. We didn’t care. We were there and remember, we paid face value whereas many folks wound up paying thousands. We had opportunities to sell those tickets and make a great deal of money but that was never an option. No one gave it a second thought. As the game was about to begin, there began a buzz throughout the stadium which got louder and louder. Folks began cheering, players and others were looking to the heavens towards right field in our direction. What’s going on? All of a sudden, we finally realized what the commotion was all about. A parachute was descending down from right field. We were blocked by the stadium which is why we couldn’t see him descending. He flew right over us and landed perfectly in the infield, flying a sign that read, Go Mets. Only in NY! What made this so great was that in game 5 in Boston, as the RedSox were a few outs away from taking a 3-2 lead in the series, someone had crafted a makeshift banner made out of cutout cardboard attached to two helium balloons with the words Go BoSox which hovered around the infield area for a few minutes while the crowd cheered and roared. As usual, New Yorkers went bigger and better.
Game 6 was a close one and eventually went to extra innings. In the top of the 10th inning, Boston scored 2 runs and lead the Mets 5-3. Was the dream over? It sure felt like it. As a matter of fact, folks started to leave the stadium in disgust. One thing about the fans in NY, they are the best fans in the world when you win and are really pissed off and nasty when you lose. We were stunned. We sat in silence. Next up, Wally Backman, he flied out for the first out. There go the people in the rows in front of us. They must have been all together. They all got up in disgust and left in a haste. Keith Hernandez hit the ball hard, but he too flied out for the second out of the inning. Oh man, it really is over. A terrible ending to a great night. More people start leaving the stadium now. As for my group, we just sat there not saying anything. We couldn’t believe what was unfolding in front of us. My brother’s girlfriend and her sister gave us a consoling, “It’s OK, they can still win”. Be quiet woman! You don’t know what you’re talkin’ about. Just leave us alone and let us sulk in peace! We didn’t actually say that we didn’t say anything, but we thought it. What happened next was magical.
Gary Carter singled to keep the inning alive. Kevin Mitchell had to be retrieved from the clubhouse to pinch hit for the pitcher. He was on the phone booking his flight back home to California! Seriously? He singled. The tying runs are now on base with Ray Knight at the plate. Knight went 0-2 on the count before the third straight two-out single to cut the score to 5-4 putting runners on 1st and 3rd. What in the world is happening? The BoSox manager makes a pitching change and brings in Bob Stanley, a sinker ball pitcher. The fans who left the ball game in disgust earlier in the inning are now watching from the subway ramp outside the stadium. Mookie Wilson is at the plate now. The count was 2-2 when Stanley threw one of those sinker balls in the dirt and it got past the catcher. Mitchell scores and the game is tied! The place is rocking! You can feel the stadium moving. It’s deafening. Ray Knight is now on second base. Mookie is still at the plate. He hits a little dribbler down the first base line and starts motoring towards first base while Bill Bucker moves after the ball and bends down to pick it up and step on first base for the third out, but that didn’t happen. The ball slipped between Buckner’s legs down the right field line. Ray Knight scores all the way from second and the Mets win the ball game! I don’t remember seeing Knight cross home plate. My friend Pete and I were so excited we jumped up in the air at the same time and hugged each other. As we did, we lost our balance and fell a couple of rows down in front of us, landing awkwardly on the plastic and metal chairs and coming to rest on the cold stadium concrete. Neither of us felt a thing. The adrenaline was pumping so hard and fast, we just got up and continued celebrating. It’s a good thing the folks in front of us left before the comeback. The next morning, my lower backside was completely black from the bruises.
What came next was euphoria. Everyone was hugging each other. Strangers hugging strangers. No one wanted to leave the stadium. Women were crying, men were shouting. As the crowd was filing out of the stadium, people would just yell out at the top of their lungs. They weren’t yelling anything in particular, just yelling. It was as if all the sadness, disgust, anger and heartache that had sunk in with two out and nobody on in the bottom of the 10th inning had to be released and the only way to expel this was to high-five unfamiliar people around you and break into periodic outbursts of howling and screaming. This continued in the parking lot and then onto the highway. As we were stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic, celebrating in our limousine, cars continued honking, folks continued shouting out their windows, and people were leaving their cars and jumping up and down, going car to car hugging and kissing. It was incredible. I’ve never seen anything like it before and probably never will again.
Those reading this may say to themselves, what’s the big deal. It’s just a game after all. True, it is just a baseball game. But on this night, it felt like it was more than a game. It was something else. The World Series wasn’t over yet but it sure felt like it was. I didn’t even think about Game 7 until the next day. For now, we’d just savor the moment and hold onto this magical evening as long as we could. It would go down as a memorable moment in history, referenced in movies and TV shows and became part of this country’s pop culture. Those who were there will remember it forever, even those who were not there will never forget where they were. It was and will forever be remembered as Game 6.
