The Sunday Memory Drawer - The Kid

This week, I was coming up empty.  Through a myriad of lousy excuses, my memory meter was closing in on "E."  Usually, something spurs me along for a Sunday piece.

Remembering something Grandma did?  Nothing was coming easy.

An old school photograph?  Damn, I already wrote that.

A bad date?  Way too many to put down and that's not very interesting anyway.

And then I heard that Gary Carter died.

Cue the flood.  My mind suddenly working overtime.  Conjuring one memory after another about the legendary Met.  Sure, he was only with the club for five years.  But, it wasn't the quantity but the quality.

Gary Carter was pure baseball class.  And he was a part of one of the most lasting memories of my life---the 1986 World Series.

I thought about how consumed I was with the New York Mets in the mid 1980s.  This were my very first baseball fans as an adult.  I didn't need to clear it with the folks when I wanted to go out to Shea Stadium.  I just went.  I was working, but my schedule and really my whole life was planned around the Mets.  Between my Saturday plan tickets and the weekday evening games I enjoyed with my pal, the Bibster, on his seats, I literally had two home addresses.  Yonkers and Flushing.

There had been many years of baseball drought at Shea Stadium.  Seasons of absolute shame.  And denial whenever somebody asked you this question.

"You root for the Mets, right?"

Ummm, er, well.....

My head resting sadlessly on my chest was the only answer you needed.

Suddenly, glimmers of hope.  They landed some pitcher named Darling in a trade.  Wasn't that the family name in "Peter Pan?"  Nevertheless, he was supposed to be a star. 

Oh, yeah, and there's this big kid in the minors.  He's supposed to be Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron all rolled up in one.  Strawberry something or other.  When they called him up to the majors and he was to start his first game on a warm May Friday night in 1983, my dad and I were so intrigued that we simply drove out to Shea and bought game day tickets.  Maybe this was the start of something to see.

Then, in 1984, some string bean named Dwight and he seemed to strike out every hitter he faced.  All of a sudden, my mother was interested in baseball and the Mets.  Sure, she was enticed by announcer Tim McCarver and his good looks, but this pitching phenom also dragged her into regular viewing on WWOR Channel 9.

The Mets that season were actually in a pennant race and I had to look up the expression in a dictionary so I could remember what it was.  They didn't make the playoffs mainly because they needed one more bat.  And, oh, yeah, a better catcher.

On December 10, the Mets traded for both.  And, oh, yeah, it was the same person.  Gary Carter, the long time catcher of the Montreal Expos, now belonged to us.

And we thought nothing could stop the Mets now. 

I will never forget New Years Eve several weeks later.  This would be the very best year-end celebration of my life.   Dancing to the oldies at Shout in Manhattan.  As midnight approached, my friend and fellow Met fan Glenn and I started to randomly toast to things.   I yelled out.

"And here's to Gary Carter who will bring us to the World Series next year!!"

The guy hadn't even squatted down at Shea Stadium and we were already lining up for a tickertape parade down Broadway. 

Opening Day in the frozen tundra of Shea the very following April did nothing to chill those expectations.  Especially when I shivered and cheered at the same time when Gary's debut appearance as a Met culminated in his walk-off tenth inning home run.


Yeah, nothing was gonna stop our Mets this season.

Except, well, the St. Louis Cardinals did.

We'd have to wait a little longer.  

But it was amazing to watch the transformation aided and abetted by this curly-headed catcher named Carter from Culver City, California.    His boyish energy and team spirit made Met fans feel that the corner would be turned sooner than later. 

My mother loved Dwight Gooden.  My dad fancied Keith Hernandez.  Me?  Gary Carter was suddenly my favorite New York Met.

And I was not alone.  There's my good friend and then work colleague Patti.    A fellow Met fan.  And a Gary Carter devotee.

To say the least.

Beyond the baseball prowess,  I guess there was a hormone thing going on as well.  She absolutely adored Gary.  She'd refer to him by his first name as if he lived next door and frequently borrowed cups of sugar.  While certainly not stalker material, Patti and her friends liked to go watch the Mets play in Florida spring training.  And, oh, by the way, have her picture taken with her favorite Met.

This photo became Patti's badge of honor.  She had it framed on her desk.  She used it as the cover of a customized Christmas card.  I remember vividly her boss standing in her cubicle and sizing up the photo above.  He shook his head.

"I'm really worried about this girl."

Yeah, but none of it was creepy.  A baseball fan's gotta do what a baseball fan's gotta do.

In 1986, the New York Mets and Gary Carter would not be denied.  A juggernaut of a season that led us to the promised land of late night October baseball.  Still, as good as that team was, it would not be easy.  In Game 6 of the World Series against the Boston Red Sox...

Well, here's what I wrote here a few months back.  Two outs.  The bottom of the tenth.  One strike away from another depressing winter.  Down in the left field Loge, I had a single thought in my mind as Gary Carter strode to the plate with his bat.

"Please don't let Gary Carter make the last out."

That worked somehow.

I carried it over, although I didn't have the same affinity for Kevin Mitchell as I did for Carter.

"Please don't let Kevin Mitchell make the last out."

And that worked, too. I didn't mess with a good thing.

"Please don't let Ray Knight make the last out. Please don't let Ray Knight make the last out. PLEASE DON'T LET RAY KNIGHT MAKE THE LAST OUT."

I sounded like one of those lunatics in Bellevue. Slumped over in a fetal position and reciting over and over the lyrics to "A Spoonful of Sugar."

Knight also did not make the last out.

Okay, now I was on a mission. Despite the fact there were 56,000 people (and countless others at home) around me with the same goal, I became convinced that I was single handedly spearheading this miraculous comeback. I couldn't go off the standard operating procedure now. Plus I was worried about my high school best friend Danny who was over in the Loge around third base. What must he be thinking? His very favorite New York Met was at the plate to hit next.

"PLEASE DON'T LET MOOKIE WILSON MAKE THE LAST OUT. PLEASE DON'T LET MOOKIE WILSON MAKE THE LAST OUT. PLEASE DON'T LET MOOKIE WILSON MAKE THE LAST OUT. PLEASE DON'T LET MOOKIE WILSON MAKE THE LAST OUT. PLEASE DON'T LET MOOKIE WILSON MAKE THE LAST OUT. PLEASE DON'T LET MOOKIE WILSON MAKE THE LAST OUT. PLEASE DON'T LET MOOKIE WILSON MAKE THE LAST OUT. PLEASE DON'T LET MOOKIE WILSON MAKE THE LAST OUT."

To this very day, nobody really made the last out that night.

I was numb for the first few moments after the game. The human body is not equipped to handle two wildly diverse emotions in the same ten minute period. When my mind finally "woke up," I immediately had to share this emotion with a good friend...and a Met fan. I didn't realize that my buddy Danny on the other end of the loge had the same sensation. From the right field corner, I scampered down to the loge corridor and started running toward his end. He did the same. We converged around Section 1 behind home plate.

And two grown men hugged for about five minutes.

I look back on that evening and postseason and I remember now what the Mets did for me in October 0f 1986. The month before, I had broken off a relationship. Well, I broke it off. She essentially dumped me. Not that this was the great love of my life. But, still, the residual aches of a guy with inner turmoil and self-doubt had lingered.

The pain all dulled and virtually erased by the New York Mets. Yes, it all evaporated in almost a blink of the eye.

"Behind the bag, it gets through Buckner..."

Keep in mind that none of these emotions ever happen unless Gary Carter gets that single to left field.  In one single stroke of the bat, he made it all possible.

Cue the tickertape.  And my most memorable moment as a baseball fan.

There would be other days and nights and years with Gary Carter on the Mets.  I remember a freezing Sunday night of playoff baseball against, gasp, the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1988.  In the Mezzanine section behind home plate, I heard Patti screaming for her Gary several rows back.  I was too busy screaming at Met manager Davey Johnson to take out a tiring Dwight Gooden in the ninth inning.  Somebody's gonna hit a bomb off him and tie the score.

Exactly.

He didn't, they didn't, and we definitely didn't.

In reality, Gary Carter was only part of Mets lore for five years.  But, for that one moment in time on October 25, 1986, I will always remember...and never forget.

When Gary passed away last Thursday, I posted the news on Facebook, citing that he still hasn't made the last out in that game.

Three thousand miles away, Patti was on a commuter bus and learning the news from me.  And she responded.

"While my heart is broken, it seems more appropriate that I found this out from you.'

And that's the legacy of one Gary Carter.  A simple guy who simply could swing a bat and catch a ball.  And also could bring together a team, a city, and a dream.  Something that I will share with friends like Patti the rest of my life.

Dinner last night:   Kung Pao Beef from First Szechwan Wok.