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                1986: THE BAD GUYS WON?

         Nowadays when you hear about the 1986 Mets, you hear that they were brash and
cocky and scrappy and badly behaved.  They liked to drink and party together.  I guess
they made a mess on a plane once or something.   And players on other teams are
supposed to have hated their New York swagger and so they threw baseballs at their
heads and that led to fights and so you get the adjective “brawling” to go with all the
others.  

        I have to be honest.  I don’t remember 1986 like this at all.  Sure, I knew about
the beanballs and the fights.  But I hated it when other teams threw at the Mets
because of the stupid rule that baseball players are supposed to keep a lid on their
exuberance.  The 1986 Mets were exuberant.  They had reason to be.  The Mets were so
far out in front that they had to play like that in order to stay involved.   I resented
other teams for resenting this so much.  

        Maybe they were brash.  I’ve read that players on other teams didn’t like Gary
Carter.  I loved the way Carter played.  I loved his open-faced, puppy dog pleasure in
how good he was.  But I could see how this could get on people’s nerves.  Dykstra was
brash.  He had the whole “Nails” thing, the Pete Rose thing, which, frankly, turned me
off.  He was brash.

        But fans get into the hype they like and they ignore the hype they don’t like.  
The brash, brawling, boozer, and bruiser stuff wasn’t on my screen.  What I remember
about the ‘86 Mets is that they were so unbelievably good.

        They were insanely good.  I had never seen a better baseball team.  As a Mets
fan I found it hard to get used to the idea that the Mets were actually this good.  The
1969 team had been unexpectedly good.  The 1973 team managed to win a pennant and
almost win a World Series without even being particularly good.  But the 1986 team
was great.  They were in a class with the 1927 Yankees and the 1975 Reds.  They won
108 games.  They won almost as many games as the 1962 Mets lost.   

        They didn’t lack anything. They had five first-rate starting pitchers.  What more
do you need?  You don’t need anything more.  But they had more.  Dykstra and
Backman, the twin midget wrestlers at the top of the order, would get on base, and
then there were five guys who could drive them in.  There was always enough offense.  
If the 1986 Mets had ever fallen behind, they would have always been able to come
back.  

        They hummed.  After they got on top, no one came anywhere near them.  They
played well at home and they played well on the road.  They played well at the
beginning of the season, in the middle, and at the end.   The pitching was great, the
hitting was great, the defense was great.  They were a feast of competence and
consistency.  The baseball universe was in a once-in-a-lifetime harmony.  You just
heard music.

        And they looked so good.  I guess a team that looked like these guys could have
won 60 games instead of 108.  But it doesn’t seem possible.  It’s not that they were all
handsome.  It’s more that each of them looked like himself, and each looked like a
winner in some way.  Not in any way you’d expect.  They didn’t blend into a mass of big
chests and broad smiles.  Each player was completely distinct.  And each of them was
unusual.   

        There was Gooden and Strawberry (oh the tears and despair to think of it).  They
were so young and so movingly gifted.  They were both tall, handsome men with the
faces of boys.  But they were strange.  They had none of the transparency of youth.  
You watched them at rest and you couldn’t tell if they were calm or melancholy.  You
watched them fidget and you couldn’t tell if they were excited or restless.   Who knows
what they were?  Who knows what they were thinking?

        It meant a lot to me that Mookie was still on the ’86 team.  I loved how Mookie
played.  I loved how fast he was, how sweet and kind and good he seemed.  I was sad
that he spent so much of the season injured or on the bench.  I was so happy that the
most important moment of 1986 restored him to the prominence I wanted for him.

        Keith Hernandez was the center of the team.  You could tell why everyone
followed him, and not anyone else.  He looked like he knew what he was doing, as he
stroked his line drives, as he kept the infield and the pitcher focused, as he played first
base as no one had ever played it, as if it was a position that required intelligence and
total alertness and perfect reflexes.  But Keith’s magnificence was not a sunny thing.  
It seemed haunted, somber, and intense.  And this affected how you looked at Gary
Carter.  You were relieved and slightly put off by Gary’s happy hustle.  Carter was the
greater athlete.  He, and not Keith, is in the Hall of Fame.  Carter could do a lot and
was proud of what he could do.  Keith looked as if he had been pressed into action.  He
looked as if he had to give something up to be this good.  He had to concentrate very
hard.  He had none of Carter’s uncomplicated delight.  He looked as if he was afraid
that if he didn’t hold things together, everything would spin out of control.  

        Our pitching staff didn’t look like anybody else’s pitching staff.  Pitchers are
often awkward and geeky.  Not these guys.  Each of them had his own version of
pitcher’s cool.  Darling seemed almost fictional, with his name, his Yalie self-
possession, and his exotic, handsome face.  Ojeda came across as a deeply ironic
suburban dad.  Fernandez was thick and bull-like, and he threw and breathed fire and
smoke.  The pair of closers, McDowell and Orosco, were like an act.  You couldn’t have
made them up.  Each was just a laid back guy from California, but one looked like a
cowboy and the other looked like an Indian.  They were perfect when you needed them
and they were clowns offstage.  

        The ’86 team also had its wild cards:  imperfect and inconsistent players with
either too much or too little hair and maybe too much personality.  You couldn’t ever
know how much Ray Knight had left, or whether Hojo or Kevin Mitchell would ever
amount to anything.  These three guys were funny-looking and wacko and they were
alternately brilliant and awful.  But they were the guys in the boiler room.  They kept
things moving, and they came through when you didn’t expect it.  They were part of
the flawless team, but they kept it from feeling flawless.

        Boy did I love the 1986 Mets.  I loved how they were a great show, without ever
being Hollywood.  I loved how their concentration never wavered, and how they stuck
by each other.  I loved how they stayed in the groove and never let up.  I loved how
after one of the best seasons by any team ever, they almost lost the playoffs, but didn’
t.  I loved how they came close to losing the World Series, but didn’t.  I loved the way
that teetering on the brink of failure made them feel more like a Mets team, like
improbable heroes, when in fact there was nothing improbable about anything they
achieved.  I doubt I will ever see a Mets team as good as this.  I’m sure I’ll never see a
Mets team that looks as good as this.  They weren’t the “bad guys” who won.  They
were good guys.  And they won because they were so good, even if they almost lost
because, however good they were, they were still the Mets.    


©Dana Brand 2006