Mets And Fans Believe Again In An Amazin’ Queens Miracle

When the New York Mets defeated baseball’s oldest team in their 163rd game of the season, they did more than garner another playoff spot. While it has been eleven years since Queens’ favorite team journeyed to the post-season, the primary tale behind these Amazing Mets is not that they dropped seven straight and were forced to come from behind to sweep their final series in front of a packed house at Shea. And it isn’t just the magic that led them past Cincinatti 5-0 to only the fifth one game playoff in baseball’s illustrious history nor the fact that they will be facing second-year power Arizona in the first series that started this Tuesday.
New York Met and city fans alike are cheering about what their team has already accomplished, and drooling over the possibilities of what the future may hold. It is the potential of the Subway series between the Yankees and Mets that have the city rocking to the tune of October baseball.
The city of New York is no stranger to the commuter World Series. There have been 13 Subway Series’ since the Yankees and Giants shared the Polo Grounds in 1921. The Bronx Bombers have won their share with 10 victories against their New York foes and 24 overall titles. However, since 1956 when Don Larson threw for sheer perfection and the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants went west, the city of New York has had to settle for being a one horse town.
Now, as we enter the final fall classic of the millennium, the city that never sleeps may be roaring for years to come.
"I think New York would go crazy," Whitestone native Holly Ahrenstein said. "It wouldn’t be safe to wear your Met or Yankee shirt out on the street. Playoff tickets would be so hard to come by. It would really be a zoo."
The Mets, like the former Brooklyn boys of summer, have taken a "Wait till Next Year" approach since their last playoff appearance in 1988. All together they have trekked to the post-season four times since their inception into the league in 1962. For the first six years of their existence, the Mets were a comical team that bumbled their way into baseball lore. They were everybody’s lovable losers. But in 1969, they made history as the youngest team to win a World Series. Led by Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman, and Series MVP Al Weis, they defeated the Baltimore Orioles, a team with three 20-game winners and 109 victories, 4-1.
The Amazins’, as they came to be known, made it back to title game in 1973, losing to Reggie Jackson and Oakland Athletics 4-3. The Mets had the lowest winning percentage of any team that ever entered the Series (.509) and it showed through their poor hitting and errant misplays. Thirteen years would pass before they would get another chance.
In 1986, the New York Metropolitans returned to center stage. While Ray Knight batted .391 and Gary Carter drove in nine runs, the Series will always be known for Bill Buckner’s infamous error that gave away the series. With two quick outs and two strikes, and Boston carrying a 5-3 lead in the bottom of the tenth, the Mets rallied for three runs, the clincher coming when Mookie Wilson’s epic at bat ended with a slow grounder that dribbled through Buckner’s legs. Beantown was crushed but the Mets were soaring.
The Mets made it back to playoffs in 1988, but lost to Los Angelos 4-3 and steadily dropped from the standings in the years following. It has been eleven years since their last post-season and thirteen since that immortal World Series victory. The Yankees have seen their share of the playoff action since the Mets came to town, but none which coincided with each other.
Twenty-year old George Pirella doubts the Mets will reach the World Series, despite their recent success. "If somehow they wind up facing each other it’s going to be real nasty. But we (the Yankees) would never lose to the Mets."
When inter-league play was introduced in 1997, the Mets and Yankees were finally able to create a rivalry. The Yankees continued their role as a dominating force taking four of the first six games in their first two matchups. While the Yankees gathered headlines and championships, the Mets stood in the shadow of their counterparts and the division-leading Atlanta Braves. But after two consecutive 88 win seasons and nothing to show for it, GM Steve Phillips paid big to make this year’s team more than just a contender.
During the off-season, the Mets gave enormous contracts to catcher Mike Piazza and pitcher Al Leiter, and added third-baseman Robin Ventura and all-time base stealer Ricky Henderson to their arsenal. But despite their now huge payroll, the Mets began the 1999 season as a huge disappointment. On June 5, after losing eight consecutive games, including two to the Yankees, Phillips fired three of Bobby Valentine’s coaches. The next day the season turned around, as the Mets defeated five-time Cy Young award winner Roger Clemens and 65 of the next 95 games they played.
The Amazins’ faced the most significant adversity they had in the decade this past week, when they dropped seven straight games and lost their four game Wild Card lead. With only three games remaining in the season, the Mets did what seemed impossible by sweeping the Pittsburgh Pirates and forcing a one-game playoff in Cincinatti.
"It’s been so long, I didn’t think it would happen," said Mike Widmaier, a Met fan from Bayside. "When the Mets came so close to blowing it, I thought that was it. But they made it, and I’m ecstatic."
The Met’s starting pitching, which has been criticized all year, was the savior in the season’s final week. A 3-2 11th inning victory on Friday was followed by Rick Reed’s three-hit shutout on Saturday night. The season came down to Orel Hershiser, the veteran who in 1988 shut the Mets down to a five-hitter in the seventh game of the National League Championship Series. The forty-year-old was clearly not as dominant as he was a decade ago, but nonetheless, held the Pirates to two hits over five-plus innings. With the score tied at one, the Mets loaded the bases in the ninth and scored on a wild pitch. While the Metropolitans had not technically reached the playoffs just yet, the full house at Shea stood on their feet clapping and tossing confetti and toilet paper for nearly half an hour. They had waited so long for this redemption.
Today the Mets are in the playoffs. Bobby Valentine and John Franco, the longest active coach and manager who had yet to reach the post-season, have gotten the monkeys off their backs. Franco, the left-hander who compiled a 13-5 record with St. John’s University and 416 saves in the major leagues, is once again a Queens hero.
Despite all of the glory and celebration that is involved with the Met’s trip to the playoffs, fans should be aware that the path to the World Series will be a long and formidable trip. A Subway series is still a major long shot, but the thought, the mere chance of such a fall classic have fans all over the city dreaming of a utopian October.