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.
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