October 28, 2016: James Comey Kneecaps Hillary Clinton

October 28, 2016, 10 years ago: James Comey, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, sends a letter to members of Congress, advising them that the FBI was reviewing more emails written by, and to, the Democratic Party's nominee for President, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Members of Congress revealed the information to the public within minutes.

Comey's boss, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, could have stepped in, and reminded the country that nothing in those emails revealed any criminal activity, committed by anyone, including Secretary Clinton. So could Holder's boss, President Barack Obama, leaving office the following January 20, as he was limited to 2 terms in office. But neither did, to avoid the appearance of trying to "fix" the election -- as if Comey hadn't already tried that.

And so, "the appearance of impropriety" fed into the myth of Mrs. Clinton, and of her husband, Bill Clinton, as unethical, which the Republican Party had been pushing since he began his 1st campaign for President, 25 years to the month earlier.

It may have made all the difference in the election, throwing it to the Republicans' nominee for President: A spectacularly failed businessman with no political experience, of malignant narcissism, of disgusting racism, of unacceptable misogyny, and compromised in disastrous ways. His name was Donald Trump.

Trump won 306 Electoral Votes, Clinton 232 -- although, with "faithless electors" kicking in, it turned out to be 304-227 in Trump's favor. Trump won Michigan by less than 11,000 votes, Wisconsin by less than 23,000, and Pennsylvania by less than 45,000. Had those 3 States gone the other way, presuming no faithless electors, the Electoral Vote would have been 278-260 in Clinton's favor.

To borrow a term Trump would appreciate, given his love of the Mob: Comey kneecapped Clinton.

And how did Trump thank Comey for this? By firing him. James Comey ended up as the one figure from the 2016 Presidential election who was hated by both sides -- although, in the Republicans' case, it was for what he did after it.

*

October 28, 2016 was a Friday. Game 3 of the World Series was played, the 1st World Series game played at Wrigley Field in 71 years. The Cleveland Indians beat the Chicago Cubs, 1-0. Coco Crisp singled Michael Martínez home with the game's only run in the top of the 7th inning. Josh Tomlin, Andrew Miller (winning pitcher), Bryan Shaw and Cody Allen combined on a 5-hit shutout. But the Cubs won the World Series in Game 7. 

October 28, 1956: Elvis Presley Gets the Polio Vaccine

October 28, 1956, 70 years ago: Millions of young people's fears over getting the recently-approved polio vaccine are wiped out: Their hero got it, and he got it on the biggest show on TV.

Ed Sullivan initially said he wouldn't put Elvis Presley on The Ed Sullivan Show, because of his sexually suggestive onstage moves. But after Ed's competitor, Steve Allen, brought Elvis on, and got huge ratings, Ed realized that could no longer ignore the appeal of the man already being called "The King of Rock and Roll." As the title of one of his greatest-hits albums said, Fifty Million Elvis Fans Can't Be Wrong.

Ed would end up putting Elvis on his show 3 times. It was only on the 3rd one, on January 6, 1957, that he was famously shown only from the waist up. I have a separate entry for that post.

The polio virus had been ravaging America for years, and approximately 60,000 children were infected annually. In 1955, hope arrived with the public announcement that Jonas Salk's vaccine had been declared safe for distribution to the public.

But despite the literally crippling effects of the virus, and the promising results of the vaccination, many Americans simply weren't getting vaccinated. In fact, when Elvis first appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, immunization levels among American teenagers were at an abysmal 0.6 percent.

You might think that the threats of death and paralysis would be enough to motivate people to get vaccinated. Yet, convincing people to get a vaccine is a challenging endeavor, as the 2020-21 COVID pandemic would later prove. Intuitively, it seems like it would be wise to have doctors and other health officials communicate the need to receive the vaccine. Or, failing that, we might just need to give people more information about the effectiveness of the vaccine itself.

Those aren't winning strategies today, and they weren't back in 1956. What did prove successful was Elvis getting the vaccine in front of millions. In fact, after he publicly did so, vaccination rates among American youth skyrocketed to 80 percent after just six months. Kids all over America were answering the vaccine with impressions of Elvis: "Well, uh, uh-huh!"

Contracting poliomyelitis as an adult, like Franklin Roosevelt did before becoming President, had been rare. But so many kids got it that it became known as "infantile paralysis." John F. Collins got it in 1955, just as the vaccine was first being released to the public, during a campaign for City Council in Boston. Having to use a wheelchair didn't stop him from being elected Mayor in 1959 and 1963.

Prominent Canadian politicians Paul Martin Sr. and Paul Martin Jr. got it separately, and survived it, the latter serving as Prime Minister from 2003 to 2006. His predecessor, Jean Chrétien (1993-2003), has physical challenges that suggest he may also be a polio survivor, although he has never claimed to be one, attributing them instead to Bell's palsy.

Jerome Felder, a polio survivor, wrote songs under the name Doc Pomus, including several of Elvis' hits. His song "Save the Last Dance for Me" was based on reality: He was unable to dance with his wife, Willi Burke, so he would take her to dances, and let her dance with anyone, as long as she came home with him. She always did, from their marriage in 1957 until their divorce in 1966.

Bill Cullen, who, between serving as host and panelist, appeared on more TV game shows than anybody, was a polio survivor. Like Elvis in his 3rd Sullivan appearance, he was usually only shown from the waist up, because he was self-conscious about his limp. Hockey star Bill Gadsby contracted the disease in 1952, but it was during the off-season, and by the start of the next season, he had recovered, and went on to be elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame. Wilma Rudolph recovered from childhood polio to win 3 Gold Medals in sprinting at the 1960 Olympics in Rome.

In a weird coincidence, Donald Sutherland, who played Hawkeye Pierce in the film version of M*A*S*H, and Alan Alda, who played the character on TV, were both polio survivors. Alda became a close friend of violinist Itzhak Perlman, who contracted the disease at age 4, and, through his television appearances, is, as of October 28, 2022, the living celebrity most visibly affected by the nearly-eradicated disease.

Other celebrities, alive as of the abovementioned date, who survived polio as children include singers Joni Mitchell, Judy Collins, Donovan and Neil Young; actors Mia Farrow and Joe Bob Briggs, director Francis Ford Coppola and one of his Godfather actors, Gianni Russo; Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell; Olympic figure skating Gold Medalist Tenley Albright, golfer Jack Nicklaus, and Heisman Trophy winner and U.S. Army General Pete Dawkins.

The Curse of Kevin Mitchell: Now 40 Years

Kevin Mitchell, 1986

October 27, 1986, 40 years ago: The New York Mets win the World Series. I was not happy about this.

They have not done so since. I am very happy about that.

After Game 7 was pushed back a day by rain, the Boston Red Sox actually seem to be shaking off the historical, hysterical Game 6 loss. They lead the Mets, 3-0 in the bottom of the 6th inning. Bruce Hurst, with an extra day's rest, is doing just fine. The Sox have chased Ron Darling. Sid Fernandez has relieved him. The Sox are just 12 outs away from their 1st World Championship in 68 years after all.

Can they hold it? These are the pre-steroid Boston Red Sox, what do you think? The Mets tie it up in the 6th. The idiot manager John McNamara brings in Calvin Schiraldi, who choked in the 10th the night before, to pitch the 7th, and Ray Knight leads off with a home run.  he Mets make it 6-3 by the inning's end.

The Sox make it 6-5 in the top of the 8th, so there's still hope, but then Al Nipper serves one up to Darryl Strawberry, and he hits one out, and takes a leisurely stroll around the bases, allowing NBC to run about a dozen commercials.

The Mets let reliever Jesse Orosco bat for himself, and he drives in another run, and he gets the last out by striking out Marty Barrett. Mets 8, Red Sox 5. Orosco hurls his glove high into the Flushing air.

The Mets won their 1st World Championship on October 16, 1969. It took them 17 years and 11 days, but they had now won their 2nd World Championship.

Anyone then thinking that they wouldn't win their 3rd World Championship for at least another 40 years would have been asked what he was smoking.

*

But, tonight, exactly 40 years later, the Mets are still looking for that 3rd World Championship. They've won just 2 more Pennants and just 2 more World Series games since that night -- 1 in 2000, and 1 in 2015. To make matters worse, following the 1st of those Pennants, they went on to lose to the Yankees in the World Series, 1 of 5 the Yankees have won since 1986.

Indeed, since October 27, 1986, the Mets have reached the Playoffs 8 times, which is not a bad total at all. But the Yankees have done it 27 times, including 8 Pennants and 5 World Championships. As late as 1992, before the Yankees started contending again, it could be argued that the Mets were the top baseball team in New York. It has never been true again -- it wasn't even true in 2015.

World Series wins since 1986? The Yankees 5, the Boston Red Sox and the Los Angeles Dodgers 4, the San Francisco Giants 3; 2 each for the Minnesota Twins, the Toronto Blue Jays, the Florida (now Miami) Marlins, the St. Louis Cardinals, the Atlanta Braves and the Houston Astros; and 1 each for the Oakland Athletics, the Cincinnati Reds, the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Anaheim (now named Los Angeles, through they're still in Anaheim) Angels, the Chicago White Sox, the Philadelphia Phillies, the Kansas City Royals, the Chicago Cubs, the Montreal Expos/Washington Nationals, and the Texas Rangers.

This gets even more embarrassing when you look at some of the droughts that ended: The Cubs 108 years without a World Championship, the White Sox 88, the Red Sox 86, the Twins 63 (they had never won since moving from being "the old Washington Senators"), the Rangers 63 (they had never won as either the Rangers or "the new Washington Senators"), the Giants 56 (they had never won since moving from New York to San Francisco), the Astros 56 (their 1st ever), the Expos/Nats 51 (their 1st ever), the Angels 42 (their 1st ever), the Dodgers 32, the Royals 30, the Braves 28 (they had never won since moving from Milwaukee to Atlanta), the Phillies 28.

Also, the last time the Mets won a World Series, these teams did not yet exist: The Marlins, the Rays, the Diamondbacks and the Colorado Rockies. The Marlins, Rays and D-backs have matched the Mets with 2 Pennants, each; the Rox, 1.

And I'll bring up the Yankees again: They've won as many World Series since the Mets' last title as the Mets have won Pennants in their entire history. So the old "How many were you alive for?" argument doesn't work.

On the other hand, if a Mets fan followed my path (aside from choosing the Yankees, of course), and watched his 1st game on television at age 7, and that was in 1987, that would mean we now have Met fans in their late 40s who cannot remember their team winning the World Series. It would be like me with the pre-renovation Yankee Stadium, the Yankees playing at Shea, the Chris Chambliss home run, and the Mets' Pennant of 1973: They would know it happened within their lifetime, but not within their memory.

Or, to put it another way: The youngest player on the '86 Mets was John Mitchell, a pitcher who appeared in 4 games that season, and he's 61 years old, a year younger than Dwight Gooden, who turns 62 next month. The oldest? George Foster, about to turn 78. (He was gone by the time the reached the postseason. The oldest player on the postseason roster was Ray Knight, who is about to turn 74.)

Gary Carter is dead. That's as much of a shock as the fact that Gooden, Darryl Strawberry and Lenny Dykstra are still alive, after all they've done to themselves (and others). Darryl, Doc and "Nails" -- or "Dude," as he's known to his teammates on another bunch of ne'er-do-wells, the 1993 Philadelphia Phillies -- all now seem to be repentant. Darryl and Nails, apparently, needed religion to get there.

Looking at the clips from 1986, they're in color, and they look like they could have happened yesterday. The world has changed so much since. We've had retrospectives like Jeff Pearlman's book The Bad Guys Won! ESPN has done 2 30 for 30 documentaries on the 1980s Mets: Doc & Darryl in 2016, and Once Upon a Time in Queens in 2021.

What the hell happened? Well, when something goes wrong, people like to look for scapegoats. Someone frustrated with the Red Sox' inability to win a World Series since 1918 thought he found a reason: They hadn't won since they sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees in 1919, and the phrase "The Curse of the Bambino" was born. The phrase was popularized by Boston Globe sports columnist Dan Shaughnessy, and became the title of his 1990 book about the history of that franchise.

*

December 11, 1986, a date which lives in Flushing infamy: The Mets sent Kevin Mitchell, Shawn Abner, Stan Jefferson, Kevin Armstrong and Kevin Brown (no, not that Kevin Brown, though he did also pitch for the Padres later) to Mitchell's hometown, San Diego, for Kevin McReynolds, Gene Walter and Adam Ging. Forget everyone else, if you hadn't already: The keys to this trade were Mitchell and McReynolds.

McReynolds was a good player, but he was not a member of the glorious '86 team that went all the way. When the Mets didn't go all the way again, he became a scapegoat, and got the hell booed out of him. Fair? Of course not.

But it wouldn't have mattered so much if Mitchell hadn't panned out. And, as far as his hometown Padres were concerned, he didn't: On July 5, 1987, not even at the All-Star Break of his 1st season with them, he was batting just .245 in 62 games, so they sent him, and pitchers Dave Dravecky and Craig Lefferts, up the coast to the San Francisco Giants, getting back 3rd baseman Chris Brown, reliever Mark Davis (both of whom became All-Stars but never helped the team into the Playoffs) and 2 guys you don't need to remember. So Mitchell-for-McReynolds didn't help the Mets or the Padres.

These two Mitchell trades, however, helped the Giants tremendously. Before the trade, they had been in San Francisco for 29 years and had reached the postseason exactly twice, the last time, 16 years earlier. In 1987, the Giants won the NL West, as Mitchell responded to the change of scenery by hitting .306 with 15 homers and 44 RBIs in just 69 games for them.

In 1988, Mitchell tailed off a little, and the Giants tailed off a lot. But in 1989, he hit 47 home runs, had 125 RBIs, put up a sick OPS+ of 192, and made one of the great catches of all time, a running barehanded catch in St. Louis -- off the bat of defensive "Wizard" Ozzie Smith, no less -- that almost sent him barreling into the stands. Not since the salad days of Willie Mays had the Giants seen that kind of outfield defense.

He won the NL's Most Valuable Player award, and helped the Giants win only their 2nd Pennant in 35 years, while the Mets finished 2nd in the NL East for the 5th of 6 times in a span of 8 years – the others being the '86 crown and the '88 Division title. (Funny, but nobody ever talks about how bad trading Mitchell away was for the Padres.)

Problems with his weight and other disciplinary issues led to Mitchell being traded several times. But he did help the Cincinnati Reds into 1st place in the NL Central Division when the Strike of '94 hit, and still had an OPS+ of 138 as late as 1996.

But he played his last big-league game in 1998 at age 36, and after bouncing around the independent minors, including stints in New Jersey with the Newark Bears and the Atlantic City Surf, he called it a career. Sort of: He went back to his native San Diego, playing in an "adult baseball league" (no, no porn stars involved – that I know of), and won a title with his team in 2009.

At 64, he is now an instructor for youth baseball teams, and recently recovered from a nasty neck injury that put him in the hospital for a month. By the time he returned to Shea for the celebration of the 30th Anniversary of the title in the Summer of 2016, he was walking on his own again, and hoping to go back to his passion for motorcycles. He belongs to a motorcycle club (not a "biker gang" -- he calls it "Just a bunch of old guys having fun") called the Hood Beasts.

Mitchell in 2016, at the title team's

30th Anniversary reunion at Citi Field.

He attended the 40th Anniversary reunion this year,

but I couldn't find a picture of it.

Mitchell had an adolescence connected to gangs in San Diego. He has been arrested for assault twice since his last major league game, although on neither occasion did the case go to trial. He was once listed as a tax delinquent to the tune of over $5 million. And then there's the shocking story that Dwight Gooden told, in his first memoir, of an act of animal cruelty -- a story which Doc, in a later memoir, admitted that he made up, and Mitchell has called "wildly untrue."

It seems silly to suggest that he was angry about being traded by the Mets so soon after winning the Series, certainly not so angry that he would place a "curse" on them. After all, he went to his hometown, the team he grew up rooting for. They soon traded him, but that worked out really well for him. Perhaps not in terms of team success, but, in terms of fame and fortune, getting away from the Mets was the best thing that could have happened to him.

Still, the fact remains that the Mets won a World Series, and were expected to win more; then, just 45 days after they won said Series, they traded Mitchell away, and they haven't won one since.

Are the Mets cursed? Or have they just been hit with a 4-decade-long combination of good competition and their own incompetence -- on the field, in the dugout, and in the boardroom?

Other teams have waited longer. Some, a lot longer. Some of those teams have had bizarre moments and crashes-and-burns that suggest being cursed. Some haven't, and have just... not... gotten it done.

The Mets?

* 1987: They finished 3 games behind the St. Louis Cardinals in the National League Eastern Division. Only 2 Divisions then, and no Wild Card Playoff berths.

* 1988: They won the NL East title, and led the NL Championship Series against the Dodgers, 2-1 and led Game 4, 4-2 in the 9th inning. They were 3 outs away from being up 3-1 with Game 5 at home. But Gooden gave up a home run to Mike Scioscia, not exactly a big boomer. They lost the game, 5-4 in 12 innings, and lost the series in Game 7.

* 1989: They finished 6 games behind the Chicago Cubs.

* 1990: They finished 4 games behind the Pittsburgh Pirates.

* 1993: The Year of Living Dangerously. A bunch of delinquents, threatening reporters, throwing bleach on people, setting off firecrackers that injured people. And being awful on the field, despite having one of the biggest payrolls in baseball. A 5-game winning streak to close the season, and they still ended up 59-103, their worst season since 1965.

* 1995, 1996 and 1997: These were supposed to be the years that started "Generation K": Three good young starting pitchers that would anchor the team for a decade. Instead, Jason Isringhausen, Bill Pulsipher and Paul Wilson all sustained crippling arm injuries. Only Isringhausen amounted to anything, and that was as a reliever, after they traded him away.

* 1998: They needed to win 1 of their last 5 games to win the only NL Wild Card berth then available. They won none of them, and were out.

* 1999: They had a great run, to and into the NLCS against the Atlanta Braves. They had their chances to win Game 6 and send it to a Game 7, but they blew it.

* 2000: They won the Pennant, but lost the World Series -- to the Yankees. All 5 games ended up being close, but they choked in Games 1 and 5, and let the team their fans hate the most clinch the title at Shea Stadium, with 25,000 fans chanting, "Thank you, George!" as Steinbrenner came onto the field. A humiliation from which the only recovery will be to beat the Yankees in a World Series.

* 2001: They finished 6 games behind the Braves, and 11 out of the Wild Card. In the end, that Mike Piazza home run meant nothing as far as the Playoff race was concerned.

* 2002: An injury-riddled season ended their brief run of not-much-glory.

* 2006: They won the Division, which they did not do in either 1999 or 2000 (they were Wild Cards both times), and were tied 1-1 going into the 9th of NLCS Game 7 against the Cardinals. But Yadier Molina hit a home ran, and with the tying and winning runs on base, Carlos Beltrán took a called 3rd strike to end the season.

* 2007: They led the Division by 7 games with 17 to play, and missed the Playoffs completely, including losing 6 of their last 7, and that including a 1st-inning meltdown in the last game. It was the team that should have always been their geographic rivals, the Philadelphia Phillies, that won the Division.

* 2008: They led the Division by 3 1/2 games with 17 to play, and missed the Playoffs completely, including losing the last game at Shea Stadium. Again, the Phillies won the NL East, and went on to win the World Series. Then came a down period, thanks to team owner Fred Wilpon having invested a lot of his money with fraudster Bernie Madoff.

* 2015: They won the Pennant, and weren't seriously challenged all season long. But when they got to the World Series against the Kansas City Royals, they did something never done before, nor since: They blew leads in 5 games in a single World Series, including the 1 game they ended up winning, anyway.

* 2016: I'm not sure this counts as either a "choke" or "curse material," but it's still bad. They played the San Francisco Giants in the Wild Card round, and it was 0-0 after 8 innings, but the Giants scored 3 in the 9th to win it.

* 2019: They fell 3 games short of the NL's 5th (and, at the time, last) Playoff slot.

* 2020: Even in a season shortened by COVID restrictions, with expanded Playoffs, they finished 5 games out of the NL's 6th and last Playoffs slot.

* 2021: They were in 1st place from May 8 to August 5, and they were no worse than 2 1/2 games out from Opening Day on April 5 to August 16. Then they crashed, finishing 11 1/2 games out of the Division, and 13 out of the 5th and last NL Playoff slot.

* 2022: They had home-field advantage for all 3 games of the NL Wild Card Series against the Padres, but lost the deciding Game 3, then complained that Padres pitcher Joe Musgrove was cheating. The umpires checked him, and determined that he wasn't.

* 2024: They were the NL's 6th and last seed, but they got all the way to the NLCS, against the Dodgers. They won Games 2 and 5, but got clobbered in Games 1, 3, 4 and 6.

* And losses to teams they considered rivals in 1987 (Cardinals), 1989 (Cubs), 1998 and 1999 (Braves), 2000 (Yankees), 2001 (Braves again), 2006 (Cardinals again), and 2007 and 2008 (Phillies both times).

Depending on how you want to define it, that's at least 15, and possibly as many as 23, out of 40 seasons with possible "Curse Material."

And they can't even blame the Wilpons and their insufficient spending anymore: Steve Cohen has spent more than the Steinbrenners ever have, and it hasn't worked. Bobby Bonilla, meet Juan Soto.

And now, it's been a full 40 years. Even the ancient Israelites reached the Promised Land after 40 years. Not the Mets.

True, other Major League Baseball teams have waited longer. The Cubs went 108 years between titles. The other Chicago team, the White Sox, 88 years. The Red Sox, 86 years. The Cleveland Indians/Guardians, 78 years and counting. The Milwaukee Brewers, never in their 57 seasons, although they can end that drought tonight, or at least this week. The Seattle Mariners, never in their 50 seasons. The Pirates, 48 years and counting. The Baltimore Orioles, 43 years and counting. The Detroit Tigers, 42 years and counting.

The Brooklyn Dodgers, before moving to Los Angeles, had the World Series available to them for 52 years before they finally won one; the St. Louis Browns became the Orioles, and had to wait 63 years; the Phillies won their 1st World Championship in their 98 season, the 77th with the title "The World Series" available.

The baseball version of the New York Giants moved to San Francisco, and waited 56 years to do it. The Philadelphia Athletics moved to Kansas City, and then to Oakland, and took 42 years to win another; now, in Sacramento, with Las Vegas on the horizon, they are on a 37-year drought.

The problem is, those teams don't play in the same metropolitan area as, and in the shadow of, a team with far more success. The Cubs and the White Sox have never been especially successful, the former at least not since 1945, and the latter since 1919. The Giants and the A's took turns being better, but neither held a clear edge until the A's moved out of Oakland.

The Mets are doing what they do in the same City, in the same metropolitan area, in front of the same available people, as the Yankees, and remain in their shadow.

Other New York Tri-State Area teams have gone longer without winning a World Championship: The Islanders, 43 years and counting; the Nets, 50 since their ABA title, and never in the NBA; the Knicks, just ended at 53; the Rangers, 54, and now 1 in 86, so Howie Rose was right: This one has lasted a lifetime; and the Jets, 57 years and counting. In addition, the MetroStars/Red Bulls are in their 31st season, and have never won an MLS Cup.

In the 40 years since the Mets' last World Series win, the Yankees have won 5 World Series, the Giants have won 4 Super Bowls, the Devils have won 3 Stanley Cups, the Rangers have won 1, the Knicks have won an NBA Championship, the Liberty have won a WNBA Championship, and New York City FC have won an MLS Cup, and the women's soccer team now known as Gotham FC has won its league 4 times.

After the Mets' disaster in Game 2 of the 2015 World Series, I wrote on Facebook, "On October 27, 2036, when (God willing, I'll still be around for it) I do my 50th Anniversary blog post for the Curse of Kevin Mitchell, you can bet a World Series share that this game will be mentioned."

I'm still here. So is the Curse of Kevin Mitchell. Just 10 years to go.

13 years to match the Knicks' drought. 14 years to match the Rangers' drought.

Think about this: A child born on June 15, 1994, the day after the Rangers won the Cup, who decided when old enough to root for the Mets, the Jets, the Nets and the Islanders would, in 32 years, have seen his 4 teams reach only 4 Finals, and lose them all.

While one born the same day, who decide when old enough to root for the Yankees, the Giants, the Knicks and the Devils would in 32 years, have seen his teams reach 18 Finals, winning 11 of them.

The Curse of Kevin Mitchell? Do you believe?

Met fans like to use the old line of 1965-74 relief pitcher Tug McGraw: YA GOTTA BELIEVE!

I'd rather believe in the curse on the Mets than believe in the Mets themselves.

October 27, 1986: The Mets Win the World Series

October 27, 1986, 40 years ago: The New York Mets win the World Series. I was not happy about this.

They have not done so since. I am very happy about that.

After escaping from the nether regions of the National League with a 2nd-place finish in the Eastern Division in 1984, and nearly winning the Division in 1985, Met fans began to treat the winning of the 1986 World Series as inevitable: They bragged to Yankee fans that the would win the '86 Series, even before the '85 Pennants were decided.

The Mets, celebrating their 25th season with an anniversary patch, began the 1986 regular season 2-3, then rattled off an 11-game winning streak to the end of April, lost 1, then won another 7 in a row. So they went 17-1 from April 18 to May 10, at which point they already led the NL East by 5 games over the Montreal Expos. Already, anybody who couldn't stand the Mets was sick of the commercials used to drum up ticket sales, with the "Baseball Like It Oughta Be" and "We got the teamwork to make the dream work" songs.

A 10-1 run from June 6 to 16 put them up by 11 1/2 games over the Expos. Around this time, I was at the Woodbridge Center Mall in Woodbridge, Middlesex County, New Jersey, and The Sports Corner, a store that sold sports memorabilia, and also served as a Ticketron outlet (Ticketmaster bought them out in 1991). One of the items they were selling was a T-shirt that read, "New York Mets, 1986 World Series Champions." The World Series was still 4 months away.

Come the All-Star Break on July 13, they were 13 1/2 in front of the Expos. Pitcher Dwight Gooden, catcher Gary Carter, 1st baseman Keith Hernandez and right fielder Darryl Strawberry were all voted in as starters for the National League in the All-Star Game at the Astrodome in Houston. Pitcher Sid Fernandez was selected as a reserve. But the game turned out to be a minor embarrassment for the Mets: Lou Whitaker of the Detroit Tigers hit a home run off Gooden, and the American League won, 3-2.

By August 23, the Mets were 20 games ahead of the Philadelphia Phillies. On September 6, I had been invited to attend a game at Shea Stadium, my 1st live National League game. The Mets trailed the San Diego Padres, 3-2 going into the bottom of the 8th, but Carter hit his 2nd home run of the game, and the Mets won, 4-3. They led the Phillies by 20 1/2.

"The inevitable" began to take shape on September 17. The Mets beat the Chicago Cubs 4-2 at Shea, and clinched the Division title with 17 games to go. It was their 1st postseason berth in 13 years. Gooden went the distance for the win. The fans rushed the field, and one was already in fair territory before the final out reached Hernandez's 1st baseman's mitt. The field was ripped to shreds, and the Mets had a day game scheduled for just 16 hours later. Somehow, the grounds crew got the field in playable shape, not that a forfeit would have mattered.

After what the British would call "pitch invasions" at Met clinchers in 1969, 1973, and this night, and Yankee clinchers in 1976, 1977, 1978 and 1981, Mayor Ed Koch, invoking the City's ownership of both ballclubs' stadiums, ordered mounted police to come on the field and surround the field at each clincher, and announced that punishments for charging the field would be more severe.

The Mets needed a walkoff home run from Lenny Dykstra to win Game 3 of the NL Championship Series. They led the series, 3 games to 2, but the 2 losses were to Mike Scott, an ex-Met who found success with the split-fingered fastball, and they had to avoid facing him in Game 7 in the Astrodome. So Game 6 was a death struggle, going back and forth for 16 innings before the Mets finally won it to take the Pennant. It was on the road, so fans charging the field was not an issue.

The World Series was against the Boston Red Sox. There were 3 men in uniform who had been in uniform for the Mets' previous World Series win, in 1969: Manager Davey Johnson had been the 2nd baseman for the Baltimore Orioles, and had made the last out; '69 shortstop Bud Harrelson was now the Mets' 3rd base coach; and former Met ace Tom Seaver was playing out the string with the Red Sox, unable to pitch in this Series due to injury, but got a huge ovation when introduced before Game 1.

The Red Sox stunned the Mets in the 1st 2 games of the World Series, leading the New York Daily News to reference Boston's nickname of "Beantown" with the headline "BEANS!" The Mets won Games 3 and 4 in Fenway Park, but lost Game 5 there. So they had to win Games 6 and 7 at Shea to win. Game 6 was an epic, with the Red Sox taking a 5-3 lead in the top of the 10th inning. With 2 outs in the bottom of the 10th, a message on the Shea scoreboard congratulated the Sox. Sox pitcher Bruce Hurst was named the Series' Most Valuable Player. Then came the comeback/collapse of all time, and the Mets won, 6-5.

Game 7 was pushed back a day by rain. In its place, NBC aired the baseball-themed movie The Natural, as part of its usual NBC Sunday Night Movie show. Despite airing on a Monday night, when another New York team, the Giants, were playing on ABC Monday Night Football at the same time, this game got more TV viewers than any Major League Baseball game ever: 60 million people. (The Giants beat the team then known as the Washington Redskins, 27-20 at Giants Stadium.)

The Red Sox actually seemed to be shaking off the historical, hysterical Game 6 loss. They led the Mets, 3-0 in the bottom of the 6th inning. Hurst, with an extra day's rest, was doing just fine. The Sox chased Ron Darling. Sid Fernandez relieved him. The Sox were just 12 outs away from their 1st World Championship in 68 years after all.

But these were the pre-steroid Boston Red Sox, and they couldn't hold it. The Mets tied it up in the 6th. Manager John McNamara brought in Calvin Schiraldi, who choked in the 10th the night before, to pitch the 7th, and Ray Knight led off with a home run. The Mets made it 6-3 by the inning's end.

The Sox made it 6-5 in the top of the 8th, so there was still hope. But Al Nipper served one up to Strawberry, and he hit it out, and took a leisurely stroll around the bases. NBC could have run a commercial.

The Mets let reliever Jesse Orosco bat for himself, and he drove in another run, and he got the last out by striking out Marty Barrett. Mets 8, Red Sox 5. Orosco hurled his glove high into the Flushing air.

The bullpen gate was opened, and mounted policemen came onto the field. The fans stayed in the stands. They had obeyed the Mayor. No New York clincher since has seen a pitch invasion. So I guess we should thank Koch for that.

The Mets had won their 1st World Championship on October 16, 1969. It took them 17 years and 11 days, but they had now won their 2nd World Championship. Anyone then thinking that they wouldn't win their 3rd World Championship for at least another 40 years would have been asked what he was smoking.

But, tonight, exactly 40 years later, the Mets are still looking for that 3rd World Championship. They've won just 2 more Pennants and just 2 more World Series games since that night -- 1 in 2000, and 1 in 2015. To make matters worse, following the 1st of those Pennants, they went on to lose to the Yankees in the World Series, 1 of 5 the Yankees have won since 1986.

October 26, 1996: The Yankees' Return to Glory

October 26, 1996, 30 years ago: New York Yankees 3, Atlanta Braves 2, clinching the Yankees' 23rd World Championship, their 1st in 18 years, at the original Yankee Stadium. The Yanks scored all 3 runs in the bottom of the 3rd, including a triple off Greg Maddux by catcher Joe Girardi.

Now that Girardi has come and gone as the Yankee manager, it's easy to forget what kind of a player he was. He was a good defensive catcher, Maddux won more games than any pitcher alive through the 2022 season, 355, including more games in the 1990s than any other pitcher, 176. Girardi hitting a triple off Maddux in a World Series game was really unexpected. It wasn't quite the U.S. college kids beating the "amateur" hockey players in their 30s put up by the Soviet Union in the 1980 Olympics, nor was it quite Buster Douglas knocking out Mike Tyson in 1990. But it was a shock. A beautiful shock.

When Mariano Rivera, then the "bridge" reliever, was on the mound in the 8th, Fox announcer Tim McCarver said, "There's not a lot of secret as to what you're gonna get from Mariano Rivera: A lot of high gas." It would be the next year, when Mo succeeded John Wetteland as the closer, that he developed the cut fastball that made him the greatest relief pitcher of all time.

When Mo got a strikeout to end the 8th, McCarver and Joe Buck wisely didn't say a word, and let the roar of the crowd be what took them to commercial. Those cheers seemed to contain not a word, but they spoke volumes. Some who were there said that the old Yankee Stadium actually shook at that moment.

An inning later, Wetteland, who became the 1st reliever ever to save all 4 of his team's wins in a World Series (and remains the only one) and was named MVP, got Mark Lemke to pop up to 3rd base, and Charlie Hayes caught it. As John Sterling said on WABC (the Yankees' radio station at the time), "Hayes... makes the catch! Yankees win! Theeeeeeee Yankees win!" He didn't start adding "Ballgame over!" until the next year, and didn't start adding "(name of series) over!" until the next.

Derek Jeter was the last active player from the 1996 Yankees, playing until 2014.

Also on that Saturday, Rutgers beat Temple, 28-17 at the new Rutgers Stadium in Piscataway, New Jersey. In their season opener, Rutgers beat Villanova at home. In games that were against teams in Philadelphia's "Big 5," RU were 2-0. In all other games, they were 0-9.

And Princeton lost to Harvard, 24-0 at Palmer Stadium. Opened in 1914, Palmer Stadium hosted its final game on November 23, and Princeton lost to Dartmouth, 24-0. The stadium was then demolished, and Powers Field at Princeton Stadium opened in 1998.

In 1997, Princeton played a "home game" at Giants Stadium, and another on the campus of The College of New Jersey -- ironically, using the original name of Princeton University. That school, in Ewing, had previously been known as Trenton State College. Otherwise, the Tigers played all official away games.

The New Jersey Devils beat the Tampa Bay Lightning, 4-1 at the Ice Palace (now the Benchmark International Arena) in Tampa. The Devils got goals from Bobby Carpenter, Randy McKay, Dave Andreychuk and Bill Guerin.

Also, Arsenal beat Leeds United, 3-0 at Highbury in North London.  

October 26, 1951: Joe Louis' Last Stand

October 26, 1951, 75 years ago: Desperate for money to pay a mounting tax bill, Joe Louis, who stood as Heavyweight Champion of the World longer than anyone (12 years, 1937-49) and defended the title more than anyone (25 times), climbs into the ring at the old Madison Square Garden for a purse of $300,000 – about $3.8 million in today's money.

He fights Rocky Marciano, then a rising contender who comes into the fight at 37-0. He idolized Louis: telling the press, "This is the last guy I want to fight." It had nothing to do with his own ability, or whatever Louis had left.

It is a mismatch: Marciano is 28, is in superb shape, and has a sledgehammer for a right hand; Louis is 37, struggles with his weight, and his arms and legs, once the fastest in the fight game despite his being a heavyweight, have terribly slowed. Marciano actually knocks Louis out of the ring in the 8th round. Ruby Goldstein, maybe the best referee in the business and himself a former lightweight contender, wisely stopped the fight at that point.

Marciano went back to his dressing room, and cried over what he had done to his greatest hero, and even went over to see him, and said, "I'm sorry, Joe." Sugar Ray Robinson, then Middleweight Champion, was in Louis' dressing room to console him, and was also crying.

Eleven months later, Marciano knocked Jersey Joe Walcott out to become the Heavyweight Champion. He held the title for 3 years, then retired undefeated at 49-0. Louis, still needing money, humiliated himself as a professional wrestler, and not a very good one.

Both men's lives ended badly: Marciano's in a plane crash in Iowa in 1969, just before his 46th birthday; Louis' in a wheelchair, unable to pay his medical bills, with Frank Sinatra hosting a benefit concert for him in Las Vegas in 1978, which kept Louis afloat until he finally passed away in 1981, at 67.

As a Sergeant in the U.S. Army in World War II, he was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery, on the order of President Ronald Reagan, and with Sinatra delivering the eulogy. Marciano was interred in a crypt at Forest Lawn Memorial Cemetery in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

*

October 26, 1951 was a Friday. William "Bootsy" Collins, bass guitarist for George Clinton's P-Funk Empire, was born on that day. 

October 25, 1986: The Bill Buckner Game

October 25, 1986, 40 years ago: Dave Henderson steps to the plate at 11:59 PM, and hits a home run off Rick Aguilera, to give the Boston Red Sox a 4-3 lead over the New York Mets in the top of the 10th inning of Game 6 of the World Series.

By the time he crosses the plate, it's 12:00 midnight, October 26. The Red Sox will extend their lead to 5-3 before their half of the inning is over. All they need now is 3 more outs in the bottom of the 10th.

They get the 1st 2. You know the rest. But do you really remember? Red Sox pitcher Calvin Schiraldi, an ex-Met, allows a single to Gary Carter. Then he allows a single to Kevin Mitchell. Carter to 2nd. Then he allows a single to Ray Knight. Carter scores, Mitchell to 2nd, 5-4 Red Sox. Then Sox manager John McNamara pulls Schiraldi, and calls on Bob Stanley, once a very good reliever, but by this point in his career a lost cause.

Stanley faces William Hayward "Mookie" Wilson, and gets to 2 strikes. There were 13 separate pitches that could have ended this game in victory and a 1st World Championship in 68 years for the Red Sox. The 13th of these almost hits Mookie in the ankle. He jumps out of the way, and it rolls to the backstop. Wild pitch. Mitchell scores, Knight to 2nd, 5-5 tie.

For the Mets and their fans, Christmas had come 2 months early: The Red Sox had given them the game. They had royally blown it. According to Dan Shaughnessy, the Boston Globe columnist, in his book The Curse of the Bambino, somebody later calculated that the odds of the Red Sox blowing a 2-run, 2-out, 2-strike lead at that point were 320-1.

Three hundred and twenty to one. Think about that for a moment: A baseball regular season lasts 162 games. So if you had those conditions every single game -- 2 outs, 2 strikes on the batter, and you're up by 2 runs in the bottom of the 9th inning, or later -- the odds are that you would win every single game in a season, and nearly every single game in a 2nd season, up to Game 158 of that 2nd season, before you would lose one.

Another source said that the Mets' chances of winning the World Series were:

* 5 percent when the bottom of the 10th began;
* 0.8 percent when they were down to their last strike
* 2 percent after Carter's single;
* 5 percent after Mitchell's single;
* 11 percent after Knight singled home Carter;
* and 35 percent after Stanley's wild pitch tied the game.

In other words, even after the lead was fully blown and the game was tied, there was still a better than 2-to-1 chance that the Red Sox would win the World Series.

Well, some teams have meltdowns that last 2 months, like the 1978 Red Sox, the 1969 Cubs, and the 1995 California Angels. Some teams have meltdowns that last 1 month, like the 2011 Red Sox, the 2007 Mets and the 1951 Dodgers. Some teams have meltdowns that last 2 weeks, like the 1964 Philadelphia Phillies. Some teams have meltdowns that last 1 week, like the 1987 Toronto Blue Jays. Some teams have meltdowns that last less than a week, like the 2004 and 2012 Yankees. The 1986 Red Sox had a meltdown that lasted 10 minutes.

You'll notice that there's a name I haven't mentioned yet: That of Red Sox 1st baseman Bill Buckner. The Red Sox had already blown a lead that is the closest any team, in any of the 4 major league sports, had ever been to winning a World Championship without actually getting it. Even the Bayern Munich soccer team that allowed goals in the 91st minute to Teddy Sheringham and in the 93rd to Ole Gunnar Solskjær to blow the 1999 UEFA Champions League Final didn't come that close to winning before losing.

The Sox had blown what should have been an insurmountable lead, and Bill Buckner had absolutely nothing to do with it.

Then Stanley threw Mookie another pitch. It was, as Los Angeles Dodger broadcaster Vin Scully, leading the broadcast team for NBC, described, a "little roller up along first." It remains the most famous defensive miscue in the history of sports, over Fred Snodgrass' 1912 "$30,000 Muff," over Mickey Owen's 1941 passed ball, over any missed tackle in football, over any goalie's mistake in hockey or soccer, over any hockey or soccer player's own goal.

Buckner had injuries on both legs, and, as Yogi Berra might have said, even when he could run, he couldn't run. He was not going to beat Mookie to the bag, and Stanley hadn't run over to 1st to cover the base and take a throw. Mookie would have made it to 1st, and the bases would have been loaded. Granted, the next batter was light-hitting shortstop Rafael Santana, but, at that point, no one would have bet against the Mets. Scully was right: "If one picture is worth a thousand words, we have seen about a million words tonight!"

In spite of how much many Yankee Fans already hated them, it would take the Nomar/Pedro/Papi Era, 1998 to the present, for the Red Sox to truly become The Scum. But, retroactively, they deserved The Buckner Game.

In 1975, the Red Sox won a World Series Game 6 that was a game for the ages. But for 36 years now, you can say the words "Game Six" in New England, or to a New Englander wherever he might be, and, instead of bringing a smile to his face, you would bring him to say, "Which one?"

At least now, with his death in 2019, Buckner will never have to face any more questions about it.

In 2010, the MLB Network listed this game at 3rd on their list of MLB's 20 Greatest Games -- limited in scope, due to the availability of surviving videotape, to 1975 onward.