Can it really be 25 years?

25 years is a long time. A quarter of a century. Two and a half decades. 25 years ago today, I was still single (although the clock was ticking--I was getting married at the end of August), Ronald Reagan was president, Bruce Springsteen was riding high with "Born in the USA," there was no Internet, no cell phones, no Ipods, none of that stuff that we seem to take for granted these days. I can only speculate how much gas was back then, but it was probably not much more than a dollar a gallon, if that. MTV was big, and other TV channels broadcast music videos on Friday and Saturday nights. People would watch them for hours at a time. I know I did.

I passed the Bar exam that year, and got married, and was Best Man at my brother's wedding in New York. It was a glorious year for many reasons. But the biggest reason may just have been the New York Mets.

The Mets were created in 1962, filling a National League void in New York that was created by the departures of the Dodgers and Giants a few years earlier. I was brought up a Met fan, I can recall going to games when I was just a little kid, rooting for guys like Ron Hunt and Jim Hickman. Then came the glory years, the creation of a great young pitching staff, anchored by future Hall of Famer Tom Seaver and Jerry Koosman, and that wonderful year of 1969 when the Miracle Mets won the World Series. It was great to be a Mets fan, and New York was a Mets town, as hard as that may be to believe today.

Then came the decline. One by one, the beloved stars from the 69 team were either traded, released, or retired. There was one more brief bit of glory, when the 73 team broke out of a very weak NL East, somehow beat the Big Red Machine in the LCS, and went on to the World Series, where they lost to the great Oakland A's dynasty of the early 70's. It was all downhill from there.

By the end of the 70's, the Mets were below mediocre. They sucked in every aspect, pitching, hitting, defense, and most importantly, the front office. New ownership came in the early 80's, and they brought in Frank Cashen to run the front office. He brought a new attitude and a pedigree from the Baltimore Orioles organization. His first task was to re-build the farm teams. It took some time, but talent started to emerge from the minors. Some of these talented youngsters were used to bring in some solid veteran help, others stayed. The turning point came in the off-season of 83-84, when the front office convinced Keith Hernandez, the former MVP and leader of the Cardinals, to stay with the team. They traded for a young starting pitcher named Ron Darling and brought up a youngster from the minors named Dwight Gooden. And they had the 1983 National League Rookie of the Year starting in right field, Darryl Strawberry. Former MVP George Foster was still on the team, and after battling injuries and lethargy in 83, he seemed ready to bounce back with a strong year. Hubie Brooks was a budding star in the infield, and there was fan favorite Mookie Wilson. Things finally looked optimistic for the Mets.

The 1984 Mets were one of the surprise success stories of the National League. They led the division for the first four months of the season, and held on to give the Cubs a run for their money. Too many Cubs had career seasons that year and they were too much for the Mets to overcome, but the Mets finally learned what it was like to win and experienced being in a real pennant race. Dwight Gooden was absolutely phenomenal, pitching far better than his 17-9 record would indicate, and became the second consecutive Met to win the NL Rookie of the Year award. Hernandez finished second to Ryne Sandberg for MVP, and might have had his best all-around season of his career. The front office made a couple of major additons in the off-season, trading five players (including Hubie Brooks) for All-Star catcher Gary Carter and landing former star of the Reds and Astros, Ray Knight. There were big expectations for the 1985 season.

If you look back at that season, it's hard to put together why the Mets didn't win the division. They barely lost out to the St. Louis Cardinals. Whitey Herzog, the Cards manager, was probably worth a couple of wins simply by out-foxing other managers (like Mets manager Davey Johnson), guys like Tommy Herr, Willie McGee, and Jack Clark had career years, and the Mets had some key injuries that limited the effectiveness of Carter, Knight and George Foster. Dwight Gooden put together one of the best years any pitcher has ever had, going 24-4 with an ERA of just over one and a half runs. He was as thoroughly dominant as any pitcher has ever been, and he probably should have won the MVP award, to go with the Cy Young that he did win (the first Met since Seaver to win that award). But it still wasn't enough. Back then there were only two divisions in each league, and no wild card. Once again, the Mets missed out on the postseason.

But in 1986, the Mets were not to be denied. They made a couple of more additions, pitcher Bobby Ojeda from the Red Sox, Howard Johnson from the Tigers, and Kevin Mitchell from their farm system. Lenny Dykstra had been brought up in 85, and now platooned in center field with Mookie Wilson. George Foster eventually lost the left field job to a platoon of Mitchell and Danny Heep. Strawberry anchored right field, Hernandez owned first base and Carter was the starting catcher. Second base was a platoon of Wally Backman and Tim Teufel, shortstop was won by steady Rafael Santana, and third base was supposed to be a platoon of Knight and Johnson. But when the season started and Knight started to hit like Willie Mays reincarnated, he ended up being the every day third baseman.

The pitching staff was unbeatable. Dwight Gooden, the best pitcher in baseball the previous two years, was only the second best on the staff in 86. Ojeda proved to be almost unbeatable. Darling was steady and Rick Aguilera made a solid fifth starter. The best starter in the rotation, though, was young Sid Fernandez. The chubby Hawaiian who had shown glimpses of greatness in 84 and 85 was simply the best starting pitcher in the league the first half of the season. Jesse Orosco and Roger McDowell anchored the bullpen, and the Mets simply took off from the first week of the season. They were unstoppable.

They won big and they won small. They came back in the ninth inning and they dominated from the beginning. At the end of April, they came into Busch Stadium to play the defending champion Cardinals for a four game set. Howard Johnson tied the score in the first game with a three-run homer in the ninth inning and the Mets went on to win that game. They won the next three to sweep the four game set. The Cardinals were shell-shocked, and never recovered. They spiraled down and never did challenge the Mets again. Indeed, no one challenged the Mets in the division. On this date, 25 years ago, the Mets were firmly ensconced in first place with a double digit lead.

On Friday night, July 11th, we were at Shea Stadium to see the Mets play the Atlanta Braves. We were celebrating my brother's bachelor party. The Mets were celebrating their dominance over a mediocre team (yes, the Braves sucked back then, as hard as that may be to believe). Gary Carter hit a three-run homer in the first inning. He came up in the second with the bases loaded and hit a grand slam. Strawberry was the next batter, and when he was plunked by the pitcher, David Palmer, he charged the mound, igniting a brawl on the field. We went nuts watching from the upper deck. The Mets ended up winning the game, and cemented their reputation as a bunch of tough, brawling, arrogant sob's who were not going to take any crap from anyone. They cruised to the NL East crown.

In the LCS, they played the tough Houston Astros. Former Met Mike Scott had become a split-fingered pitching master and won the Cy Young award that year. He was almost as dominant as Gooden had been the year before. Another former Met, the ageless Nolan Ryan, had enjoyed a career renaissance that season with the Astros. The Houston lineup was formidable and they were not afraid of the Mets.

That year's LCS was truly classic. The Mets came back to win a game on a walk-off home run by Lenny Dykstra, Scott was unbeatable for the Astros in winning two games, Gooden and Ryan matched up in a classic 2-1 pitching gem in game five which the Mets won in ten innings, and the teams then played one of the greatest games in the history of baseball in game six. Sixteen innings after it started, with the tying and winning runs on base, Jesse Orosco struck out the last Houston batter after Hernandez had threatened to fight Carter if he called for Orosco to throw another ineffective fastball, and the Mets managed to avoid Mike Scott in game seven, and move on to the World Series.

They faced the Boston Red Sox in the Series, a team loaded with stars like Jim Rice, Wade Boggs, Dwight Evans, Dave Henderson and Bill Buckner, a pitching staff anchored by young ace Roger Clemens and Bruce Hurst, and a fan base starving for a championship. After losing the first two games at home, things did not look good for the Mets. But they rallied to win games 3 and 4 in Boston, before losing game 5. They came home to New York, down three games to two.

Game 6 has now become legend and a part of baseball folklore. Everyone remembers the Bill Buckner play, but what has been forgotten is all the drama leading up to that play. The Red Sox had men on all night long, and Clemens looked unbeatable. They failed to score inning after inning, with Jim Rice being thrown out at the plate by Mookie Wilson in one of those innings. The Mets managed to scratch across a couple of runs, but the Sox were leading by a run entering the bottom of the eighth. The Mets managed to load the bases, but after Howard Johnson struck out with a foul ball on a bunt attempt (??!!) and Gary Carter hitting a sacrifice fly, the team could only score one run and tie the game. Both teams loaded the bases in their half of the ninth, but neither team scored.

The tenth inning began with Rick Aguilera taking the mound for the Mets. He promptly gave up a home run to Dave Henderson. Henderson had sucked the life out of the California Angels in the ALCS when he had homered with two out in the bottom of the 9th of game 5, tying the score and allowing the Sox to win the game and eventually win the Series in seven games, breaking the hearts of Angels fans everywhere. Now, here he was again, hitting a big home run which just might bring the Red Sox their first World Championship in decades. To make matters worse, the Sox scratched out another run and entered the bottom of the 10th, leading 5-3.

Personally, I'll never forget the sequence of events in that half inning. Backman led off by flying out. Hernandez followed with a long fly out to Henderson at the warning track. Carter came up next and singled. Legend has it that he told first base coach Bill Robinson that there was "no way I was going to make the last fucking out in the World Series." Mitchell came up next and singled to left, moving Carter to second. According to legend, he told Robinson the same thing as Carter did. Next up was Ray Knight. He managed to get his bat on the ball on an off-speed pitch away, and hit it into right-center. Carter came all the way around to score and Mitchell was on third. Shea Stadium was going crazy. Again, legend has it that he told Bill Robinson that he, too, was not going to make the last fucking out in the World Series.

Next up was Mookie Wilson. He quickly got two strikes on him, and then began staying alive by fouling off ball after ball. Then a pitch hit the dirt in front of catcher Rich Gedman, and skipped to the backstop. Mookie fell out of the way and frantically signalled for Mitchell to score. Mitchell skipped home, Knight went to second, and Shea Stadium went ballistic. Mookie hit the next pitch to first base, a slow dribbler to Buckner, and we all know what happened next. The ball dribbled into the outfield behind Buckner, Knight raced all the way home, and a legend was born. It was amazing.

After that, game seven was an anti-climax. Oh sure, it was a great game and the Sox had the lead early. But they were done. They knew it, we knew it, and most importantly, the Mets knew it. Knight and Strawberry hit big home runs, Fernandez pitched three crucial dominant innings in relief, and the Mets were World Champions.

Can it really be 25 years since all that happened? That Met team, so loaded with talent, never did win another championship, and only made the postseason one more time. Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry, seemingly headed to Hall of Fame caliber careers, fell to the temptations of drugs and alcohol. They were both eventually traded, did time in prison, and never fulfilled anywhere close to their expectations. Carter and Hernandez started to decline and although they were instrumental in leading the Mets to the postseason in 1988, the championship of 86 was clearly the apex of their careers, and their last hurrah. Kevin Mitchell went on to an MVP season with the Giants, and Dykstra and McDowell enjoyed a championship with the Phillies. As the team was broken up, the Mets once more went into decline. They haven't won a championship since, although there have been some good years. There's also been a lot of heartbreak, and chokes, and it's clear that New York is now a Yankees town. The Mets are an afterthought.

Ah, but it wasn't always like that. 25 years ago, the Mets owned New York. They were the toast of the town, the beast of the National League, and the champions of baseball. It was exciting and thrilling, and will never be forgotten. Hard to beleive it's been a quarter century.