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The Mookie Precedent

G-Fafif Aug 07 2013 07:05 AM

Eric Young, Jr., last night summoned memories of a late Sunday afternoon just a touch more than 30 years ago. The Happiest Recap brings you a sneak peek from Second Base (appropriately enough): Game 191 July 31, 1983 (2nd) Mets 1 Pirates 0 (12) This, you might say, is where the Mets began to become the Mets, at least the Mets as they were on the verge of being understood. It wasn’t an instantaneous transformation, but it takes only a little hindsight to see how the pieces were coming together sooner than perhaps could be comprehended in real time. In real time, the summer of 1983 had been a terrible time. This Sunday doubleheader at Shea commenced to changing all that. It couldn’t all be done in one day, even with a pair of twelve-inning victories and a Banner Day parade thrown in, but the seeds of contentedness could be viewed as finally taking root. After entering the day as hopeless, hapless and 28 games below .500, the Mets bury themselves early versus the Pirates, falling behind, 6-1, in the sixth, but storming back to tie it in the eighth — propelled by back-to-back home runs from Keith Hernandez and George Foster — and they win it in the twelfth, when Bob Bailor drives in Darryl Strawberry against long-ago Met farmhand Jim Bibby. Jesse Orosco pitches four scoreless innings to gain the 7-6 win. Then come the banners. After which comes discouragement. The Met bats do nothing worth writing home (or on a bedsheet) about. Jose DeLeon has his way with them, collecting eleven strikeouts in nine innings. He collects all kinds of outs, actually. The Mets don’t get a hit off DeLeon until there’s one out in the ninth (Hubie Brooks doing the honors) and then that hitter is erased on a double play (Hernandez’s, no less). But amazingly, the Mets are still in a scoreless duel because the mostly flammable Mike Torrez is bottom-line matching DeLeon. He’s not the same kind of untouchable (or “perfect” as Brooks judged) as DeLeon, but Torrez manages to scatter eight hits over eleven innings without allowing a single Buc to cross home plate. It’s the most innings any Met pitcher has thrown in one game since Jerry Koosman went eleven five years earlier…and it’s the last time a Mets pitcher will ever go that far into a game. Perhaps manager Frank “Hondo” Howard figures that with a last-place club, there’s nothing to save Torrez for. The Mets’ second hit, in the tenth, is also erased on a double play (a Bailor lineout). In the bottom of the eleventh, Howard pinch-hits Rusty Staub for Torrez, but even Le Grand Orange comes up empty against Kent Tekulve, who replaced DeLeon in the tenth. In the twelfth, Hondo turns to hot hand Orosco to keep the Pirates at bay a little longer. The strategy works — Jesse walks Gene Tenace with two out but retires Lee Lacy to escape unscathed. The Mets’ misbegotten 1983 marketing slogan was Now The Fun Starts. It took four months, but at last it was to prove itself accurate. Bottom of the twelfth. Mookie Wilson sparks matters by singling off Manny Sarmiento. Mook’s the first Mets leadoff batter to reach base since Keith walked to start the fourth (and was erased on a strike ’em out, throw ‘em out double play; Mookie’s single means the Mets have as many hits as double plays hit or run into in this game). Hubie is ordered to bunt and he complies, sacrificing Wilson to second. Chuck Tanner, no dummy, walks Hernandez to get to George Foster and set up yet another double play. It’s not bad strategy considering Foster is slow and Hernandez is slow. But Mookie is fast, and what happens unfolds in a Flushing minute: Foster grounds to Johnny Ray at second. Not a lightning fast grounder — and it’s not picked perfectly cleanly by Ray. Hernandez, as noted, is not lightning fast, either, but he runs and slides hard enough to make life difficult for Dale Berra, the shortstop who forces Mex. That’s one out. Meanwhile, Mookie is zipping around third. Foster is charging, in his fashion, for first, which he reaches safely. Which means Mookie Wilson is scoring the winning run from second base on a ground ball out. “I didn’t know Mookie was trying to score until the last second,” Berra said as he gave up on the 4-6-3 DP and tried to nail the Mets’ speedster. No dice. Mookie had one destination in mind from the nanosecond George connected, and it wasn’t third. After receiving the high sign from third base coach Bobby Valentine, he knew where he was going. “All my thoughts were collected before Foster even came to bat,” Mookie explained. “I’d already looked down at Bobby and got the OK, so there was no hesitation. He’d told me to go ahead.” Mookie went as fast as he could, which the National League had noticed was about as fast anybody could. Berra: “Once Johnny didn’t field the ball cleanly, I thought about Wilson trying to score, but I didn’t see him.” And how are you gonna catch what you can’t see? With Mookie making himself a blur, the Mets win the nightcap, 1-0, in 12 after winning the opener, 7-6, in 12. Jesse Orosco, an All-Star selection earlier in the month, wins both ends of the doubleheader, the first time a Met pitcher has done so since Willard Hunter in 1964. Jesse will go on to become the National League’s most dynamic relief pitcher over the final two months of the season and finish third in the Cy Young voting. Mookie, in the meantime, establishes a signature play. He will actually replicate it three days later in the bottom of the ninth of a tie game versus Montreal, scoring from second under eerily similar circumstances (one out, grounder, same cast of supporting batters, same winning pitcher). His recognition as one of the sport’s true generators of excitement grows. And the Mets? They’re out of it, of course, but they inject some life into their deadly ways at last, finishing their final 60 games with a record of 31-29, pretty much the first time in a decade that they’ve gone out on an indisputable high note, 68-94 bottom-line mark notwithstanding. Mookie’s in place. Jesse’s in place. Mex is here. Hubie…Darryl…even Foster drives in 90 runs. Frank Howard will be replaced by the manager from Tidewater, who will bring with him some of the best starters the Mets’ minor leagues are developing. And in relatively little time, there will be consecutive Mets games whose indelible moments will include Mookie Wilson hustling along the basepaths and Jesse Orosco recording a final out. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. 1983 was billed as the “now” when the fun was to start. On a most banner day at the end of July, it really kind of did.

Centerfield Aug 07 2013 07:34 AM Re: The Mookie Precedent

I think it's awesome that someone does something in 2013 and everyone thinks of a guy who played 30 years ago. Mookie is great.

John Cougar Lunchbucket Aug 07 2013 07:42 AM Re: The Mookie Precedent

I know Im also not the only one who had an Omir Santos flashback when the Rockies went looking for a backup catcher to pinch hit last night.

Edgy MD Aug 07 2013 07:56 AM Re: The Mookie Precedent

Also had Koo memories. But I have a surfeit of memories about that Mookie game. I think about it all the time. [list=1][*]I watched the conclusion of Game One at my sister's seedy-assed Lower East Side apartment. Afterward, we went out to see a matinee (Risky Business, I'm pretty sure.) I was delighted to find game two still going (eighth or ninth, maybe) when I got back, and I watched that through until the Mookietastic end. I was the worst teenage visitor to an older sibling's city apartment ever. [/*:m] [*]This might have been Foster's 1,000th RBI, but I believe that was the second time this play happened two weeks later, when there was an actual relay to first and Foster had to beat it in order to give Mookie a chance. [/*:m] [*]I saw Simon and Garfunkle at Shea Stadium about a week later. We got there real early in order to get good general admission position, and we did, right up front. When the home plate gates opened, you figured there'd be a mad stampede for position, but there were still memories of the Who stampede disaster four years earlier, and besides, a good portion of folks who come hours early to wait outside the gate for a S&G concert in 1983 are good and baked by the time the gates open. Anymuck, Paul introduced a song ("You, Me and Julio"?) by saying, "This is sort of a Mookie Wilson song." For a shining minute, and the first time since I was eight, the Mets were more worthy of celebration than the Yankees. There would be more of that to come, but Mookie first kicked that door open. And being sixteen and standing in centerfield at Shea, it was surreal and perfect. Highlight of the show! [/*:m] [*]Years later, like 1992 or 1993, I'm living in my grandmother's dilapidated boarding house in Rockaway. I'm the only boarder, trying to give my grandmother a few more years of nominal independence in her nineties, while commuting ninety minutes into the city, working for peanuts, and reading Joyce and Dostoyevsky on the train. I'm absolutely miserable, graduating into a recession and having no gumption to get my lfie started. There's some low-watt AM outlet that I stumble upon because it broadcasts Manhattan College basketball games. It was a station I hadn't been familiar with growing up, but I get a good signal in Rockaway, because I'm at the beach and all. I realize the morning after a game that the AM host is none other than the Amazin' Bill Mazer, venerable redheaded sports reporter for Channel Five. So I make that my regular morning station. He talks a little sports, he talks a little current events, touches on showbiz, and talks a lot about Jewish affairs. Definitely works from the center left, but a sort of retiring left --- folks who were radical decades earlier but are now polite older company (Gloria Steinem) always had a genial host in Bill Mazer. Genial... so I thought. It's not a sports show per se, but Bill knows his audience, and he still has his old freeby connections, so he occasionally does call-in sports trivia. And waddaya know, he puts the question out there that I have tattooed on my heart. "Who was the last Met pitcher to win both ends of a double header?" Two or three guys get to answer before I do, but they're idiots. I'm all over it. "Jesse Orosco," I calmly say. Bill takes a stressful deep breath. "What year?" "1983!" I speak confidently. I didn't even have to recall it. Everybody knows 1983 was the year Jesse Orosco was winning games in relief like he invented it, even as the Mets starting rotation couldn't buy a win. He was third in Cy Young voting that year. "You're not using one of those sports almanacs, are you?" Mazer comes back at me. "No! Wha'?" Seriously, there are books that will tell you this sort of information? Surely it's recorded somewhere, but how would it be indexed so you can just turn the right page on demand and find out who the last guy Met to win both ends of a doubleheader? What kind of crazy people do that sort of thing? And why does Bill Mazer think I'm one of them? "What DATE was the doubleheader?" He really hit the word DATE with an ugly cynicism I frankly didn't think the Amazin' had in him. I thought hard, not realizing I was damned if I did and damned if I didn't. I thought about the time of summer, the temperature that day, the proximity to the Simon and Garfunkle concert. "Um... July 30?" "It was July THiRTY-FIRST." Again with the cynicism, but I didn't want to hear it, even as I was putting my head in the noose. "Oh, well, I was close." "Listen," he says, "there's no point in doing these things if you guys are gonna CHEAT." "Wha... I DIDN'T CHEAT!" This shit is going out over the airwaves. "Listen do you want the tickets or not?" 'OF COURSE I WANT THE TICKETS!" (Fuck you, Bill Mazer, but hey... Mets tickets!) And that was the sorriest set of Met tickets I ever acquired. [/*:m] [*]The game I ended up seeing with those tickets was the unexpected Mets debut of Shawn Hare, which I guess puts the game in 1994. I took my friend Fabio and my friend Donna, and we baked in the spring sun of the upper deck (thanks, Bill), made puns on Shawn Hare's name, and remembered sweeter teenaged times of Mookie Wilson and his mad dash, when I was young, beautiful, and innocent of any knowledge that Gooden was an addict and Mazer was a dick. A terrible Mets team did their part by beating the hell out of the Reds. I left New York and got my life restarted a few weeks later.[/*:m][/list:o]

Frayed Knot Aug 07 2013 08:10 AM Re: The Mookie Precedent

There's some low-watt AM outlet that I stumble upon broadcasts Manhattan College basketball games. It was a station I hadn't been familiar with growing up, but I get a good signal in Rockaway, because I'm at the beach and all. I realize that the morning after a game that the host is none other than the Amazin' Bill Mazer, venerable redheaded sports reporter for Channel Five. So I make that my regular morning station. He talks a little sports, he talks a little current events, touches on showbiz, and talks a lot about Jewish affairs. Definitely works from the center left, but a sort of retiring left --- folks who were radical decades earlier but are now polite older company (Gloria Steinem) always had a genial host in Bill Mazer. That would be WEVD - which definitely worked left of center seeing as how EVD stood for ...? (answer below*) 'The Mookie Precedent' - wasn't that the hot Robert Ludlum book that summer? * Perennial Presidential hopeful for the Socialist Party Eugene V. Debs

Edgy MD Aug 07 2013 08:13 AM Re: The Mookie Precedent

WEVD sounds about right. Nice.

HahnSolo Aug 07 2013 08:40 AM Re: The Mookie Precedent

I once tried to pick up a girl in Penn Station; turned out to be Bill Mazer's niece. Was going great till I mentioned 2 things: that I was there to meet another girl's train (what was I thinking?); and that I was 17--she looked a lot younger than the 25 she turned out to be. All these years later and every time I hear Bill Mazer's name I think of her.

John Cougar Lunchbucket Aug 07 2013 09:14 AM Re: The Mookie Precedent

I don;t have a funny Bill Mazer story.

G-Fafif Aug 07 2013 12:32 PM Re: The Mookie Precedent

I called Bill Mazer's Mets postgame show on WHN late in the 1972 season to ask why Buzz Capra wasn't with the team anymore. He was sent down to the farm to get more seasoning, I was told. I thanked him. Bill told his audience he wished all his calls could be that easy.

Benjamin Grimm Aug 07 2013 12:43 PM Re: The Mookie Precedent

Wow! After praise like that, you totally should have hit on his niece!

Edgy MD Aug 07 2013 12:45 PM Re: The Mookie Precedent

So, where do I go to cast my ballot for Precedent Mookie?

G-Fafif Aug 07 2013 12:55 PM Re: The Mookie Precedent

It is the law in New York State that you turn your headlights on if you're driving in the rain. I know that because in January 1991, when Bill Mazer was doing the last months of his WFAN show, he came on to explain he learned the hard way -- ticketed (but not to see Shawn Hare) that morning. To this day, when I'm driving in the rain, I turn on those headlights and think, "Don't need a Bill Mazer situation here." That's broadcaster staying power.

Zvon Aug 07 2013 01:24 PM Re: The Mookie Precedent

Great article G and great post Edge.

MFS62 Aug 07 2013 09:29 PM Re: The Mookie Precedent

The dash for home reminded me of Willie Mays Hayes. Later

smg58 Aug 08 2013 06:34 AM Re: The Mookie Precedent

What's impressive is that it was thirty years ago in a last place season, and people remember it like it was yesterday.