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The legends of the 1988 Mets and the heartbreak that started it all
| metirish Jul 13 2023 10:24 AM |
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Great stuff here from Vaccaro , I wasn't living here then , but must have been a great time
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| kcmets Jul 13 2023 10:43 AM Re: The legends of the 1988 Mets and the heartbreak that started it all |
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| Benjamin Grimm Jul 13 2023 11:18 AM Re: The legends of the 1988 Mets and the heartbreak that started it all |
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| kcmets Jul 13 2023 11:26 AM Re: The legends of the 1988 Mets and the heartbreak that started it all |
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| metirish Jul 13 2023 11:36 AM Re: The legends of the 1988 Mets and the heartbreak that started it all |
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| dgwphotography Jul 13 2023 12:12 PM Re: The legends of the 1988 Mets and the heartbreak that started it all |
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=metirish post_id=131567 time=1689269773 user_id=72] |
| The legends of the 1988 Mets and the heartbreak that started it all There were 54,014 people at Shea Stadium that night, Oct. 9, 1988, and they were on their feet, of course, because for five seasons that had been the preferred perspective whenever Dwight Gooden — Dr. K, to one and all — was on the mound. They were in full voice, too, given the opponent. “BEAT L.A.! “BEAT L.A.!! “BEAT L.A.!!!” This was a different breed of Mets fan, too, filling old Shea with a raging ferocity that they believed — they knew — would pierce the skin of the Dodgers. This was a generation of Mets fans that expected good things to happen. The Mets had been champions of the world two short years earlier, winning some games that had to be seen to be believed. From 1984 through 1988, they averaged 97 wins a year. And there was Doc. He was the kerosene that fueled the fans' fury. Maybe the man who strolled to the mound in the top of the ninth inning that night wasn't quite the unicorn who in 1985 had gone 24-4 with a 1.53 ERA and a 0.97 WHIP or the 19-year-old kid who had struck out 276 men, 11.4 per nine innings, as a rookie. “But he was still the freaking Doctor,” Wally Backman says. “He was still money in the bank,” Darryl Strawberry says. “We knew it. The fans knew it. Most important, the Dodgers knew it.” Gooden was still just 23 years old as he stood on the mound at 10:59 p.m. that Sunday night. His career record stood at 91-35, his lifetime ERA was a preposterous 2.62. John Shelby strode to the plate and immediately fell behind 0-and-2. The Mets led, 4-2, and were three outs from taking a 3-1 lead in the best-of-seven National League Championship Series. The fans stayed on their feet. The roar grew thunderous as they awaited a certain strike three that would surely blast a hole in the sky. “I never got strike three,” Gooden says. Shelby walked, barely checking his swing on a 3-and-2 heater. Gooden kicked the mound, angry with himself. Mike Scioscia stepped to the plate. Strong and stocky, the Dodgers catcher was not a power threat. He had three home runs that year in 452 plate appearances. He had hit 35 home runs across nine seasons and 2,837 at-bats. “He just walked Shelby,” Scioscia said to himself as he dug in. “He wants to get ahead here.” “Have to throw strike 1,” Gooden said. “Have to go with the cheese.” Gooden checked Shelby at first. He came to a halt in the stretch. “I need to start my swing early,” Scioscia thought. Gooden delivered. It wasn't just uber-confident Mets fans who expected good things to happen. It was the city behind them, and the sport. If you had told a Mets fan — or any of the 25 men wearing Mets uniforms — on Oct. 9, 1988, that within five years they were going to surrender the city to the Yankees and were going to spend the next 30 living in their shadow … “We were treated like royalty wherever we went,” Strawberry says. “We were a show, we were the show,” Keith Hernandez says. “And everybody wanted to be a part of that orbit.” Ron Darling remembers the perks that came rolling in once the Mets started winning regularly in 1984. Mostly, he remembers the crowds. “I mean, we'd go to Atlanta, which was lucky to draw 10,000, and when we were in town every New Yorker who worked for Coca-Cola would come to the game,” he says. “It was a little like Ringling Brothers when we came to town. A little Globetrotterish. We had to start changing hotels so the security would be up to snuff.” By 1988, there wasn't a restaurant or a bar or a play or a concert that was unavailable to the Mets. They all lived on the happy side of life's velvet rope. The core of the 1986 team was mostly intact, and they'd all endured a humbling 1987 when every starting pitcher spent time on the disabled list and they wound up fruitlessly chasing the Cardinals to the end. But 1988 dawned with a fresh set of possibilities. “We were good, and we knew we were good,” says Davey Johnson, the manager. “In '86, I'd said something that got a lot of traction about how we wouldn't just win, we'd dominate. I didn't have to do that in '88. The players already knew how good we were.” The Mets beat the Expos in Montreal on Opening Day, 10-6, slugging six home runs, and the game almost seemed to stand still in the top of the seventh when Strawberry — who'd already homered once — obliterated a pitch thrown by Randy St. Claire and the ball struck a bank of lights just below the roof, some 180 feet above the field. “How far might that have gone if it hadn't hit the roof?” David Cone still wonders. “Straw would do things that seemed inhuman sometimes,” adds Bobby Ojeda. “Hit that one pretty good,” Strawberry remembers, laughing. It vaulted the Mets to an early season storming of the National League that mirrored what they'd done in 1986. By May 22, they were 30-11 — the same record they'd had after 41 games two years earlier. By July 3, their lead in the NL East was 7 ½ games. And while they couldn't maintain the .667 pace of 1986, in some ways they were even more frightening. “In '86, we wanted to destroy people every single day,” Darling says. “In '88, it felt like we were just a well-oiled machine, and we just knew how to win.” Says Hernandez, who was in his fifth full year as a Met and his second as the franchise's first on-field captain: “Our offense was beyond belief. It was just ridiculous how good we were. And every day teams had to try to outscore us knowing we had Doc, Ronnie, Bobby O, Sid [Fernandez] and Coney — with Randy Myers waiting to close. A complete team.” The offense generated a .721 team OPS (tops in the National League) even though the pitchers usually got at least three hacks a game. The starters went 77-44 with a 2.91 ERA. Myers became a lights-out closer, saving 26 games. Two Mets, Strawberry and Kevin McReynolds, became legit MVP candidates; Cone spent much of the year dueling Orel Hershiser for the Cy Young. It seemed a complete joyride. “But even when things were rolling,” Hernandez says, “you could feel something was just … off. Just a little bit off.” Despite the winning, 1988 was the most difficult season of Hernandez's career. He was off to a fine start, hitting .295 and on pace for 105 RBIs on June 6 when he made a foolish decision. Leading off first base at Busch Stadium, Hernandez decided to try to go first-to-third on a single to center by Strawberry. “Against any other team, no way I do that,” Hernandez admits. “But it was St. Louis. And it was Willie McGee, a good friend of mine who I knew I could run against. It was stupid.” Hernandez face-planted between second and third. He was taken out of the game. Afterward, he announced it was just a cramp in his hamstring. Strawberry crowed, “Of course it is. You don't run fast enough to tear a hammy.” But Hernandez, always prone to premonitions, had a troubling one. The next day, the Mets took a cautious step and put him on the 15-day disabled list, and across all 15 days Hernandez felt like he wanted to crawl into a hole. “I didn't know what to do,” Hernandez says. “My whole life was playing baseball. My whole life was definitely not watching baseball. I hated every second of it.” And it got worse. Two days after he returned, Hernandez singled off the Cubs' Greg Maddux at Wrigley Field, and two steps out of the box, he felt a pop and pain “from the back of my leg to my butt.” This time, the hammy was fully pulled. This time, the DL stay was 43 days, 38 games. And something else. “It was the beginning of the end,” Hernandez says. “Of my season. And my career.” Hernandez, then 34 years old, wasn't the only suffering Mets star. Gary Carter, for four years Hernandez's wingman, was also experiencing the agonizing clues an aging player's body sends him. On May 16 in San Diego, Carter hit the 299th home run of his career. He was off to a nice start at age 34: eight homers and a .284 batting average. His teammates eagerly awaited homer No. 300. And waited. And waited. And waited. On Aug. 11, he was still stuck on 299. Some 87 days, 64 games and 246 plate appearances had passed before Carter finally hit No. 300 that day against the Cubs' Al Nipper. “Gary was a gamer, every day, every game,” Cone says. “But one thing was apparent: The guys who'd been our cornerstone, him and Keith, were getting older.” And the Mets cooled off. From July 4 through July 27, they went 8-11 and the upstart Pirates of Barry Bonds and Bobby Bonilla won 12 of 13 at one stretch to creep within two games of the Mets, setting up a vital four-game series at Shea beginning July 29. “Maybe we should've been worried,” Cone says. “But my recollection is we weren't.” The Mets beat the Pirates in the first three games, and more than 200,000 people came out for the four-game set, all of them expecting — and mostly getting — good things. That kicked off a wonderful two-month stretch drive during which the Mets rolled, led by three kids and one veteran who felt like a kid every time he took the mound. Kevin Elster, the 23-year-old shortstop, hit an eighth-inning home run for the only run in the Mets' 1-0 win over the Pirates in the first game of the series. That made a winner of Ojeda, who tossed a three-hit shutout. Ojeda had been a cornerstone Met in 1986, 18-5, winner of one game in the NLCS and one in the World Series. In 1987, he suffered an elbow injury early in the season, and in those days, elbow injuries were viewed as professional death sentences. “I really thought my career was over,” Ojeda says. “There was nobody who could tell me with certainty that I could come back from that. Who could really know?” Yet Ojeda might have been better in 1988, despite a 10-13 record, than he'd been in 1986. In nine of his 13 losses, the Mets scored two or fewer runs. “We were hot the whole year except once every five days,” he says with a laugh. But it was Cone who was the biggest surprise of 1988 and one of the two examples much of baseball referenced — often with exasperation — of just how much of a juggernaut those Mets appeared to be, on the field and in the front office. Cone had been acquired for Ed Hearn from Kansas City after the 1986 season, a transaction that barely caused a stir. He'd been a nice surprise in 1987, despite spending time on the DL with a broken finger. He started 1988 in the bullpen, but on May 3, he joined the rotation, and he was brilliant. He finished 20-3 with a 2.22 ERA, inspiring thousands of Mets fans to wear coneheads at Shea. On a staff of stars, he fit right in. “I may have appeared cool and calm,” Cone says, “but I was terrified.” “He didn't seem scared to me,” Ojeda says. “From Day 1, he believed he belonged.” Then there was Gregg Jefferies. If Cone represented general manager Frank Cashen and his lieutenants being wonderful poker players in trading for talent, Jefferies proved the Mets' scouting staff was just as adept, as young players — Lenny Dykstra, Dave Magadan, Strawberry, Kevin Mitchell — kept getting called up from Tidewater and hitting line drives. Mets rookie infielders Kevin Elster, Keith Miller and Gregg Jefferies at spring training in 1988. Kevin Elster, Keith Miller and Gregg Jefferies (left to right) horse around at Mets spring training before the 1988 season. Bettmann Archive Jefferies was the Mets' first draft pick after they started winning and were no longer picking in the top 3. They got him at No. 20 in 1985, and immediately he became one of the sport's top prospects, hitting .343 in Kingsport, .354 at Lynchburg, .367 at Jackson. On Aug. 28, 1988, he was called up, and had five hits in his first nine at-bats that season (he had gone 3-for-6 in six late-season games in 1987). After 56 plate appearances in 1988, he was hitting .462. He never spent a day lower than .320 on the way to .321 with 16 extra-base hits in 29 games. “I've seen a lot of kids through the years,” Johnson says. “I've never seen one more ready to hit big league pitching than Jefferies.” Cone fit in immediately. Jefferies was a harder match, and some Mets have conceded to making his transition less than easy. But in 2020, Jefferies told The Post's Joel Sherman: “They made me into a man. They don't need my stamp of approval. I appreciate the tough love. It made me tougher and a better player.” The Mets were rolling again. They wrapped up the East on Sept. 22, finished 100-60 and 15 games ahead of second-place Pittsburgh. They ran through the tape, finishing out the regular season 18-4. But Hernandez — who hit just .247 after returning Aug. 5 — felt another premonition. “A bad feeling,” he says. “I can't explain it. I just didn't feel great heading into the playoffs.” The Dodgers had been a fun story all year. They'd gone 73-89 the year before, but then signed Kirk Gibson as a free agent. They have dined out for 35 years on the notion they were a ragtag team that got hot and a little lucky, but in truth they won 94 games, cruised through the NL West seven games clear of the Reds and had both the MVP (Gibson) and the Cy Young winner (Hershiser). Gibson's stats were modest (.290, 25 HR, 76 RBI), but he was the soul of the Dodgers and won the MVP award mainly because Strawberry (.269, 39 HR, 101 RBI) and McReynolds (.288, 27 HR, 99 RBI) split the Mets vote. Hershiser went 23-8 with a 2.26 ERA and finished the season with 59 straight scoreless innings, still a record. “We have all heard we took the Dodgers lightly,” Darling says. “We did not take them lightly. We knew how good they were.” But Hernandez had that nagging discomfort. “Look, we beat them 10 out of 11 during the regular year, and I don't care who you are, that's magnified when you start fresh in the playoffs, no matter how much respect you show an opponent,” he says. “And in those years, there was no home-field [advantage] for best record [divisions alternated annually in the LCS, as did leagues in the World Series, a practice that didn't end until the wild card was invented]. We had to play four games in L.A., including Game 7. Lots of things concerned me.” And something had actually already gone wrong. Ojeda's feel-good season came to a halting end on Sept. 21 when, while trimming a honeysuckle bush at his house, he severed the tip of the middle finger of his pitching hand. He recovered, but he called having to watch the rest of that season “the most heartbreaking time in my career.” Still, the manager wasn't worried. “I knew who had the better team,” Johnson says, “and it wasn't the Dodgers.” Still, we'll go back to the shared mindset between team and fan base that existed in 1988: Good things always happened to — and for — the Mets. So while Hershiser mowed down the Mets for eight shutout innings in Game 1 at Dodger Stadium, the Mets did as they always seemed to do when necessary. Strawberry doubled in a run, chasing Hershiser, and Carter dropped a two-out, two-run double off Jay Howell in front of Shelby in the ninth. “I've been in clubhouses after teams won the World Series,” Ojeda says. “I've never seen a happier clubhouse than after Game 1.” “We just beat the unbeatable pitcher,” Strawberry says. “We were bulletproof.” As the Mets celebrated, Cone dictated his daily guest column to a newspaper reporter. Cone, famously, wanted to be a sportswriter growing up in Kansas City. Now he was actually doing it. Baseball players have been “writing” columns since the first World Series in 1903. Mostly their observations are harmless and mundane. Mostly. “Hershiser was lucky,” Cone told his ghost writer. “Doc was good.” And that was just the appetizer. Here was the hammer: “Seeing Howell and his curveball reminded us of a high school pitcher.” Thirty-five years later, Cone still winces at his words. “Not my finest hour,” he says. Mets outfielder Lenny Dykstra lets out an excited yell after getting a hit in Game 5 of the 1988 NLCS. Lenny Dykstra is fired up after a hit in Game 5 of the 1988 NLCS. ASSOCIATED PRESS Ojeda: “I played for the Dodgers later on and I played for Tommy Lasorda, and he was the best motivator I've ever been around. I don't know exactly how he used it, but he used it.” Cone faced the Dodgers the next day. He was blasted for five runs in two innings and the Mets lost, 6-3. “The Dodgers were all over him, worse than any team I've ever seen get after a player — and I don't blame them at all,” Hernandez says. “Before the game, I remember asking Bobby O, ‘How's he doing?' And Bobby said, ‘I think he's OK.' But I knew he'd never faced anything like that, and I've regretted for 35 years not saying something about it.” And yet … And yet. These were the 1980s-era Mets. Game 2 was a terrible loss? Game 3 was an even more satisfying win. Back at Shea on a rainy Saturday, the Mets overcame deficits of 3-1, and 4-3 in the eighth, beginning the rally against Howell who, after two batters, was thrown out of the game when the umpires discovered pine tar on his mitt. “And you wonder why we were so confident?” Backman says, chuckling. A day later, Strawberry and McReynolds clocked back-to-back rockets off John Tudor to give the Mets a 3-2 lead in the fourth, Carter added an RBI triple in the sixth and, despite leaving an army of runners in scoring position, the Mets were three outs away from a 3-1 series lead. Gooden took the mound at 10:59. Shelby drew ball four at 11:05. At 11:06, Scioscia kicked the dirt out of his spikes, and he prepared to swing early at a Doc Gooden fastball. In truth, you might trace the origin of Mets fans' angst to 13 months earlier, Sept. 11, 1987, when Terry Pendleton hit a two-out, two-run, game-tying, ninth-inning home run off Roger McDowell that stunned Shea Stadium and forestalled what look like an inevitable Mets push past the Cardinals after they had spent most of the summer in quicksand. “That one still stings,” says Hernandez. Still, the Mets bounced back in 1988. They and the Athletics were the clear-cut class of the sport. A few hours before Game 4 of Mets-Dodgers, the A's had polished off a four-game sweep of the Red Sox in the ALCS. Some years later, Darling finished his career in Oakland, and a few of the players on that team had a message for him. “We really wanted to play you guys,” they said, and Darling realized the two-fold message that sent. Yes, it would be nice for the two powers to face each other. But it was also clear: The A's wanted no part of whatever mojo was brewing with the Dodgers. That mojo bled all over Shea Stadium when Scioscia's guess at a first-pitch fastball proved prescient. He sent it sailing over the right-field wall to tie the game at 4-4. And up and down the Mets, the feeling was the same. “Oh [bleep],” Backman recalls. “Uh-oh,” Ojeda says. “A sinking feeling in my stomach,” Cone says. “In '86, a gust of wind grabs that ball,” Strawberry says, “and brings it back to me. But this wasn't '86.” Gooden: “As soon as he hits it, I'm just mad at myself. At the home run, sure. But if I finish off Shelby, that only puts us down a run.” Across the years, a few Mets have revised history, including Dykstra, who in 2006 told The Post's Brian Costello that he blames Johnson because Myers was rested and ready in the bullpen. But most of them remain of the same belief as Johnson. “I have the best pitcher in the world on my side, and he's got a three-hitter going,” Johnson says. “If I pull him, I might not get to manage Game 5, and whoever fired me would have been right.” Says Darling: “It was 1988, not 2023. You give Doc the ball and tell him to close it out.” He didn't close it out. “We had the chance to be thought of as one of the best teams of all time. Instead we're looked at as a team that had one of the best seasons of all time. There's a big, big difference.” Mets pitcher Ron Darling “Easily my lowest moment as a player,” Gooden says. “Easily. I feel if I do my job there, we go up 3-1, we beat them the next day. And then Oakland comes to town that weekend and we're playing another World Series. I didn't do my job. It hurts.” Years later, Gooden and Scioscia spoke about that at-bat at length when both men took part in a clinic at Yankee Stadium. Scioscia admitted he guessed fastball and swung early. “If I didn't,” he said, “I might as well have just turned and walked back to the dugout.” Gibson hit a home run in the top of the 12th. The Mets loaded the bases with one out in the bottom half, but old friend Jesse Orosco got Strawberry to pop up. Then Lasorda stunned everyone by bringing in Hershiser, and McReynolds nearly dunked the game-winner in front of Shelby, but Shelby caught it. Dwight Gooden sits in a distraught Mets dugout during Game 4 of the 1988 NLCS. The despair was evident in the Mets dugout as Game 4, the 1988 NLCS and an entire era slipped away. “And the rest,” Darling says, “is just a blur.” The Dodgers smoked Fernandez the next day, and then both teams flew 3,000 miles to play Game 6 in L.A. the next night. Cone — who'd already partially redeemed himself by getting the last three outs of Game 3 — earned back much of his reputation with a gutsy five-hitter as the Mets won Game 6, 5-1. “In some ways, the most important start of my career,” Cone says. “I had to prove that making one bad decision wasn't going to ruin me.” But the Dodgers had Hershiser ready for Game 7, and they took a quick 1-0 lead in the first inning before the walls caved in, top of the second. Darling still laments not being his sharpest that night, but Hernandez insists it was all on him. With two on and no outs, Alfredo Griffin bunted. It was a bad bunt, an easy pop-up, and the runners had already taken off. “All I have to do is catch the ball and we have a triple play and all the momentum you could ask for,” Hernandez says. “But I froze like a Little Leaguer, didn't catch the ball, they have the bases loaded, and next thing you know it's 6-0.” It ended 6-0. Darling remembers being in such a fog that when he boarded the team bus he walked right past his family, sitting in front. Strawberry remembers the flight home from Los Angeles “lasting about 15 hours.” Cone says it was either the worst or second-worst flight he has ever taken, in addition to the trip home from Seattle after the 1995 ALDS loss with the Yankees. “It felt like we'd lost more than just a ballgame,” Cone says. What do you remember from the Mets' 1988 season? Post a comment. They had, of course. Within five years, the Mets — who in 1988 seemed to have an endless supply of talent ready to replace their aging stars — lost 103 games. They've been back to the playoffs just six times since. The players on that team had certainly lost something: As much as they're treated like a royal family whenever the 1986 champs visit Citi Field, there's no telling what the bond between fan and team would be now if they'd won even one more title in that era. “We had the chance to be thought of as one of the best teams of all time,” Darling says. “Instead we're looked at as a team that had one of the best seasons of all time. There's a big, big difference.” But Mets fans have lost something, too. In 1988, if you had told them that in 35 years they would be called “long-suffering,” or that a list of heart-wrenching indignities would someday seemingly reach to the sky … well, they remember. Back in the day, they were as cocky as the players were. “Maybe,” Ojeda says, “that's why we get along so well, all these years later.” All these years later, 35 years later, Mets and Mets fans alike can agree on this: The championship the Mets left on the table in 1988 taunts them still. Probably will, forever. |
| metirish Jul 13 2023 12:13 PM Re: The legends of the 1988 Mets and the heartbreak that started it all |
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| G-Fafif Jul 13 2023 12:32 PM Re: The legends of the 1988 Mets and the heartbreak that started it all |
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| Benjamin Grimm Jul 13 2023 12:33 PM Re: The legends of the 1988 Mets and the heartbreak that started it all |
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| Fman99 Jul 14 2023 02:32 AM Re: The legends of the 1988 Mets and the heartbreak that started it all |
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| whippoorwill Jul 14 2023 11:03 AM Re: The legends of the 1988 Mets and the heartbreak that started it all |
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| kcmets Jul 14 2023 11:19 AM Re: The legends of the 1988 Mets and the heartbreak that started it all |
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| stevejrogers Jul 14 2023 11:32 AM Re: The legends of the 1988 Mets and the heartbreak that started it all |
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=whippoorwill post_id=131638 time=1689354224 user_id=79] |
| Edgy MD Jul 14 2023 12:17 PM Re: The legends of the 1988 Mets and the heartbreak that started it all |
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| whippoorwill Jul 14 2023 03:58 PM Re: The legends of the 1988 Mets and the heartbreak that started it all |
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