November 1, 2015: The Mets: Blow-for-Five

Left to right: Manager Terry Collins, Matt Harvey, David Wright

November 1, 2015, 10 years ago: Game 5 of the World Series is played at Citi Field in Flushing, Queens, New York City. Curtis Granderson hits a home run in the bottom of the 1st inning, giving the New York Mets a 1-0 lead over the Kansas City Royals. The Mets make it 2-0 in the 6th, and Matt Harvey holds that lead into the top of the 9th.

But the Mets pull off a unique feat: They blow leads in every single game of a World Series. This includes Game 3, which they came back to win, anyway. Only the Mets, right?

Harvey convinces manager Terry Collins to leave him in, and he walks the leadoff hitter, Lorenzo Cain. Cliché Alert: Walks can kill you, especially the leadoff variety. Eric Hosmer doubles Cain home, and Collins now pulls Harvey for Jeurys Familia. A groundout gets Hosmer to 3rd, and a fielding blunder by the Mets (surprise, surprise) results in the tying run coming home.

Familia's 8 blown saves in a single postseason ties the record set by Robb Nen of the 2002 San Francisco Giants. Unlike Familia, Nen does have a World Series ring, with the 1997 Florida Marlins.

The game goes to the 12th inning. Royals catcher Salvador Pérez singles off Addison Reed. Royals manager Ned Yost sends Jarrod Dyson in to pinch-run for him. Christian Colón singles him home, and then Collins brings in the unrelated Bartolo Colón, and the 42-year-old corpulent proven steroid cheat melts down. It remains the worst extra-inning performance in the 119-year history of the World Series. The Royals win the game, 7-2, and win their 2nd World Series, their 1st in 30 years.

Here's the tale of woe: 

* Game 1, at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City: Mets 4, Royals 3, going to the bottom of the 9th; Royals win, 5-4 in 14 innings.

* Game 2, at Kauffman Stadium: Mets 1, Royals 0, going to the bottom of the 5th; Royals 7, Mets 1. 

* Game 3, the 1st World Series game ever played at Citi Field: Mets 2, Royals 1 after 1 inning; Royals 3, Mets 2 after 2 innings; Mets 9, Royals 3 for a final score. So they did blow the lead, but still came from behind to win.

* Game 4, at Citi Field: Mets 3, Royals 2, going to the top of the 8th; Royals 5, Mets 3.

* Game 5, at Citi Field: Mets 2, Royals 0, going to the top of the 9th: Royals 7, Mets 2 in 15 innings.

The Royals proved what the New York Yankees had proven in the regular season, what Chase Utley of the Los Angeles Dodgers proved in the National League Division Series, and what nobody else, not the other Dodgers, nor the Chicago Cubs in the NL Championship Series, seemed willing to prove: Stand up to the Mets, and they will fold. This pattern held in 2016, as the Mets reached the NL Wild Card game, but lost it.

In the 1995 Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Past Tense, Part II," partly set in the year 2024, Commander (later Captain) Benjamin Sisko, a baseball fan despite living in the 24th Century, gave his opinion that the greatest baseball team of all time was the 2015 London Kings, pointing out that it was the rookie season of Japanese-American shortstop Harmon "Buck" Bokai. This suggests that the Kings won the 2015 World Series. Another person in the scene says the greatest team ever was the 1999 Yankees.

The scene came closer to getting it right than anyone could have expected: The Yankees did go on to win the World Series in 1999, going 11-1 in the postseason, following their 114-48 regular season and 11-2 postseason of the year before; and the 2015 World Series was won by a team with a regal name. But "Royals" is not "Kings," and Kansas City is not London. (They do call themselves "The Paris of the Plains," though.)

Other Trek episodes had the Yankees beating the London Kings in the World Series in 2032, and losing to them in 2042, after which -- possibly due to World War III being fought in the show's timeline -- baseball had so badly dropped in popularity that it was stopped, a major problem I have with Star Trek.

However, despite the Yankees' real-life 2 regular-season games with the Boston Red Sox in London in 2019, and future London Series games planned, I seriously doubt that MLB will put a team in London by 2032, or even 2042. But at least the sport should remain popular well beyond then.

Another piece of science fiction, Back to the Future Part II, released in 1989, said that the Chicago Cubs won the 2015 World Series, a 4-game sweep over a Miami team not named, but with an alligator as its logo. The Cubs did reach the NLCS in 2015, but got swept by the Mets, then won the World Series the next year. But when a Miami team was created, the Florida Marlins, in 1993, it was in the NL, and it ended up embarrassing the Cubs in the 2003 NLCS.

In World Series play, the Mets are 0-5 in Game 1s, 2-3 in Game 2s, 5-0 in Game 3s, 2-3 in Game 4s, 2-3 in Game 5s, 1-1 in Game 6s, and 1-1 in Game 7s. Since October 27, 1986, when they beat the Boston Red Sox in Game 7 of the World Series, they have gone just 2-8 in World Series play, their only wins coming in Game 3s at home. And, since November 1, 2015, they have never played another World Series game.