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.

The Mets' Entire Existence

Yesterday, the Yankees' win over the Mets, and the San Diego Padres' win over the San Francisco Giants, eliminated the Mets from the possibility that they could make the Playoffs in the 2026 Major League Baseball season, in spite of having the biggest payroll to start the season -- the 2nd-biggest as the season approaches its conclusion.

The Mets' entire existence is based on the fact that a bunch of whiny babies couldn't accept that New York still had one Major League Baseball team left after 1957, and it was better than either of the two that left.

In 1953, the Boston Braves moved to Milwaukee. Their fans didn't give up watching baseball, they just switched to the Red Sox. In 1954, the St. Louis Browns moved to Baltimore and became the Orioles. Their fans didn't give up watching baseball, they just switched to the Cardinals. In 1955, the Philadelphia Athletics moved to Kansas City. Their fans didn't give up watching baseball, they just switched to the Phillies.

But when the Giants and the Dodgers moved after the 1957 season, their fans acted like New York was without baseball. They decided they would rather give up baseball entirely rather than root for the Yankees. Then, offered the choice of either the Yankees or a brand-new expansion team that would stink for the first few years, they chose to stink. As if that gave them any moral high ground.

It didn't. The Mets exist solely to provide an alternative to the greatest franchise in the history of sports. Their entire existence is based on immaturity and stupidity.

And, in 2000, the Yankees made Met fans pay for that choice.

Claude Lemieux, 1965-2026

For the first time, a member of one of the New Jersey Devils' Stanley Cup-winning teams has died. And he was my favorite hockey player of all time.

Claude Percy Lemieux -- sure doesn't sound like the name of a tough guy, but he was one -- was born on July 16, 1965 in Buckingham, Quebec, a city that has since been amalgamated into the larger city of Gatineau, across the Ottawa River from Ottawa, Ontario, the capital of Canada. He grew up in Mont-Laurier, Quebec, about 110 miles north of Ottawa, and 140 miles northeast of Montreal.

A right wing, he was drafted by his home-Province Montreal Canadiens in 1983, and made his NHL debut on October 13 of that year, wearing uniform Number 32 in a 4-2 loss to the Boston Bruins at the Boston Garden. In the 1985-86 season, he played only 10 regular-season games for the Canadiens, but starred in their run to the Stanley Cup, scoring 10 goals with 6 assists.

That convinced the organization to give him a better chance, and he scored 27, 31 and 29 goals in the next 3 seasons, helping Les Habitantes reach the Stanley Cup Finals again in 1989. He was also a member of the victorious Team Canada at the 1987 Canada Cup.

He tailed off a bit in 1989-90, and the Habs traded him to the Devils for Sylvain Turgeon. This turned out to be a bad trade for Montreal, as Turgeon did nothing for them, and they left him unprotected in the 1992 expansion draft. He was chosen by the Ottawa Senators, and the Canadiens won the Cup again in 1993, without him.

The Devils were a team on the rise, and soon had a strong Canadiens connection. In addition to Lemieux, they had another 1986 Cup-winner, scoring right wing Stéphane Richer; a tough left wing, Tom Chorske; goaltender Martin Brodeur, son of Denis Brodeur, team photographer for the Canadiens and the Montreal Expos; head coach Jacques Lemaire, who'd won 8 Cups as a Canadiens center; and assistant coach Larry Robinson, who'd won 6 Cups as a Canadiens defenseman.

Having switched to Number 22, Claude scored 30 goals in 1990-91, 41 in 1991-92, and 30 plus 51 assists in 1992-93. He slumped again in 1993-94, but helped the Devils reach the Eastern Conference Finals. In 1992 and 1994, they lost to their geographic rivals, the New York Rangers.

Lemieux was a fighter. He was never afraid to face an opponent, and earned the nickname "Le Pest." But he wasn't exactly the most courageous of men. The one and only time an event was held at the Boston Garden with me as a paying customer came on March 2, 1995. Bruin star Cam Neely had recently returned from an awful knee injury, and Claudie crashed him into the boards. The home crowd lost their minds, and booed vociferously. Neely started throwing punches, and Lemieux "turtled": He dropped to his knees and covered his head. The booing got worse. The referee threw Neely out of the game, and gave Claudie no penalty. The Bruin fans went from angry to frothing-at-the-mouth rage. The game was a disaster: The Bruins won, 7-2.

But Lemieux always seemed to play better against the Rangers, and against the Devils' other rivals-by-geography, the Philadelphia Flyers. Indicative of this was the strike shortened 1994-95 season. In 45 regular-season games, he scored only 6 goals. But something happened once the Playoffs began.

In the Conference Quarterfinals against the Bruins, Lemieux scored 2 goals in Game 1, and the Devils won in 5 games. In the Conference Semifinals against the Pittsburgh Penguins, he scored a goal in Game 1, but the Devils lost; but they won the next 4 games, with Lemieux scoring twice in Game 2, once in Game 3, and 2 in the clinching Game 5. It was 8 goals in 10 games.

In the Conference Finals against the Flyers, he scored in Game 3, which the Devils lost. But in Game 5 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia, with 44 seconds left and the game tied, he fired a wobbly 65-foot shot that got past Flyer goaltender Ron Hextall, and the Devils won, 3-2. He scored again in Game 6, and the Devils clinched, and reached the Stanley Cup Finals for the 1st time. It was 11 goals in 16 games.

In Game 1 of the Finals, against the Detroit Red Wings at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, he scored the go-ahead goal, what turned out to be the winning goal, early in the 3rd period. He scored again in Game 3, and the Devils swept the Wings in 4 straight. It was 13 goals in 20 games, and he was awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy as the Most Valuable Player of the Playoffs.

The Devils were only a 13-year-old franchise, but they had won their 1st title, and had begun to develop their own legends. And Claude Lemieux was one of them.

And yet, just before the start of the 1995-96 season, he was traded -- twice. The Devils traded him to the New York Islanders for Steve Thomas. This was a bad trade for the Devils, as Thomas did little for them. And then, before the ink was dry on the deal, the Isles traded him to the Colorado Avalanche for Wendel Clark. This was 2 bad trades for the Isles, as Lemieux literally did nothing for them, and Clark didn't do much more.

Lemieux did something for the Avs, who had been the Quebec Nordiques since 1972, but couldn't get a state-of-the-art arena, something Denver promised their owners, and got for them in 1999. He scored 39 goals with 32 assists in 1995-96, helping them to reach the Western Conference Finals against the Wings.

In Game 6, Lemieux checked Kris Draper into the boards. Draper suffered a concussion, and his nose, cheekbone and jaw were broken, leading to him having reconstructive surgery on his face and his jaw wired shut for several weeks. This incident sparked a bitter rivalry between the two teams. The NHL suspended Lemieux for 2 games, and most observers thought it wasn't enough.

The Avs won, to clinch a place in the Finals, and there was a postgame handshake. Dino Ciccarelli, a future Hall-of-Famer who was making what turned out to be his last serious run at the Cup, said, "I can't believe I shook this guy's friggin' hand after the game. That pisses me right off."

The Avs won the Cup. This made Lemieux only the 8th player to win the Cup with at least 3 different teams, following Jack Marshall, Hap Holmes, Frank Foyston, Jack Walker, Gord Pettinger, Al Arbour (yes, the Islander coach) and Larry Hillman. He has since been followed by Mike Keane, Joe Nieuwendyk and Mark Recchi, making 11. Holmes is the only player to have done it with 4 different teams.

So if you're a Red Wings fan reading this, and you still hate Claudie for what he did to Draper, I understand, and I won't tell you to get over it. But I still love the guy. Interestingly, when Budd Lynch introduced Claudie before Game 1 of the 1995 Finals, nearly a year before the unwarranted hit on Draper, Claudie still got the hell booed out of him, since he was already known as a dirty player.

Early in the 1999-2000 season, the Avs traded him, along with 2 draft picks, to the Devils for Brian Rolston and a draft pick. He played another 70 games for the Devils, scoring 17 goals, played in all 23 Playoff games, and scored 4 goals with 6 assists, to help them win another Cup.

This made him only the 5th player to win Cups in 3 different decades, following Dit Clapper, Maurice and Henri Richard, and Jean Béliveau. He has been followed by Patrick Roy, Nieuwendyk and Recchi, making 8.

For the next season, he signed with the team then known as the Phoenix Coyotes. He remained with them until the middle of the 2003 season, when he was traded to the Dallas Stars. He was released after that season, and it looked like his career was over. But he signed with Zug of Switzerland's league, and finished the season with them.

In 2005, he was named president of the minor-league Phoenix RoadRunners. In 2007, he left, and played on the Spike TV show Pros vs. Joes. His competitiveness was re-sparked, and he signed with the China Sharks of Asia League Ice Hockey. After 2 games, the Worcester Sharks of the American Hockey League signed him. After 23 games, he was promoted to the San Jose Sharks, and 6 years after his last previous NHL game, he played 18 more, at age 43, and hung up his skates.

He scored 379 goals with 407 assists, for 786 points. After his retirement, he became an NHLPA-certified player agent. He was not related to Penguins legend Mario Lemieux, but he was the brother of Jocelyn Lemieux, briefly a teammate in Montreal, who played 12 seasons in the NHL. He was married twice, with 3 sons and a daughter. One of his sons, Brendan Lemieux, played 7 seasons in the NHL, with the Rangers, the Flyers, the Winnipeg Jets, the Los Angeles Kings and the Carolina Hurricanes.

Since he was still an active player in March 1996, when the Montreal Forum closed and the Bell Centre opened, he was not among the former Canadiens stars who participated in the ceremonies. But 3 nights ago, he participated in a ceremony that has become one of the Canadiens' traditions: Before a home Playoff game, a former star will carry a lit torch to center ice. Wearing his former Number 32 jersey, Lemieux carried the torch before Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Finals at the Bell Centre. But they lost, 3-2 in overtime to the Carolina Hurricanes.

Today, May 28, 2026, Claude Lemieux was found dead by one of his sons, in the rear warehouse of a furniture store he owned in the Miami suburb of Lake Park, Florida. He was 60 years old. Local authorities determined that he died by suicide, though they have not released the method.

Given his aggressiveness, it is possible that he had been to suffer from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). Like the NFL, and soccer with its many headings of the ball, hockey has begun to face serious allegations of repeated head trauma leading players to experience memory loss, other loss of cognitive function, or other physical difficulty, including from one of Lemieux's 1995 Devils teammates, Mike Peluso.

The families of Chicago Blackhawks Hall-of-Famers Bobby Hull and Stan Mikita have also alleged that they suffered from CTE. It's also been alleged for Canadiens legend Henri Richard.

Claude Lemieux was a hero to some, a villain to others. He is now a tragedy to all.

December 12, 2000: Bush v. Gore

December 12, 2000, 25 years ago: The Supreme Court of the United States overrules the Supreme Court of the State of Florida. It is the case of Bush v. Gore.

In the Presidential election of November 7, the Democratic nominee for President of the United States, the then Vice President of the United States, Albert Arnold Gore Jr., got more popular votes than the Republican nominee, the Governor of Texas, George Walker Bush: Gore 50,999,897, Bush 50,456,002, a margin of 543,895 votes. Ralph Nader, famous as a consumer advocate since the 1960s, ran as the nominee of the Green Party. He got 2,882,955 votes. Gore got 48.4 percent of the popular vote; Bush, 47.9 percent, Nader, 2.7 percent.

Bush's brother, Governor John Ellis "Jeb" Bush of Florida, saw how close the vote was in his State, and tampered with the voting process, and that one State held everything up for 5 weeks. The best attempt at a recount, in downtown Miami, was interrupted on November 22 by what became known as the Brooks Brothers Riot. As a result, there were votes that were never counted. I don't mean they weren't recounted, I mean they were never counted, not even once.

On December 8, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that all 61,000 "undervotes" had to be counted. Had that happened, Gore surely would have won. The Bush campaign immediately appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. SCOTUS ruled on December 12:

* Four Justices ruled that the recount had to go forward: John Paul Stevens, appointed by Republican President Gerald Ford; David Souter, appointed by Republican President George H.W. Bush, the current Republican nominee's father; Ruth Bader Ginsburg, appointed by the current President, Democrat Bill Clinton; and Stephen Breyer, also appointed by Clinton.

* Five Justices ruled that the recount had to stop immediately, all of them appointed by Republican Presidents: William Rehnquist, appointed by Richard Nixon, and promoted to Chief Justice by Ronald Reagan; Sandra Day O'Connor, appointed by Reagan; Antonin Scalia, appointed by Reagan; Anthony Kennedy, appointed by Reagan; and Clarence Thomas, appointed by the elder George Bush.

It was pretty easily guessed that all 4 Justices who voted to keep the recount going would do so; and that 3 Justices known for being archconservatives -- Rehnquist, Scalia and Thomas -- would vote to stop it.

The question marks were 2 moderates, both known as "swing votes": O'Connor and Kennedy. If either of them had voted to keep the recount going, it would have been kept going, and Gore would have won. Instead, both voted to stop it.

And so, in an election where over 104 million votes had been accepted as counted, only two votes ended up mattering: Those of O'Connor and Kennedy.

It may have been the ghastliest decision in the Court's history, aside from the 1857 decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford, that said that black people weren't citizens (a decision remedied by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution). It also marked perhaps the 1st time in the nation's history that political conservatives overruled a case based in part on a State's rights.

It may have been surpassed as the ghastliest decision in the Court's history by Trump v. United States in 2024, when the Court ruled that Presidents have immunity from criminal prosecution.

Gore conceded the election the next day, forever doomed to be "the 42nd 1/2 President of the United States" -- a President-elect, but never a President. On January 6, 2001, in his role as the outgoing Vice President, Gore properly read the Electoral Votes, including the 25 of the State of Florida. Whether those votes were properly arrived at is another matter. Congress then certified the Electoral Votes.

On that January 6, no Democrats stormed the U.S. Capitol Building in an attempt to stop that process.

Twenty years later, of course, when it was Republicans who didn't like the result, they did storm the Capitol, and attempt to stop the process. They only delayed the inevitable.

Rehnquist died in office in 2005. O'Connor retired right before that. Souter retired in 2009. Stevens retired in 2010, and died in 2019. Scalia died in office in 2016. Kennedy retired in 2018. Ginsburg died in office in 2020. Breyer retired in 2022. O'Connor died in 2023. Souter died in 2025. As of December 12, 2025, Kennedy, Thomas and Breyer are still alive; while Thomas is the only 1 of the 9 who is still on the Court.

Bush's 2 terms in office were an unmitigated disaster, both domestically (especially economically) and internationally. Had Gore been allowed to accept his victory, he would have governed completely differently, and most Americans, including the conservatives, would have been better off.

November 22, 2000: The Brooks Brothers Riot

November 22, 2000, 25 years ago: An election that began to be stolen on Election Day itself, November 7, takes a big step closer to being stolen, with "The Brooks Brothers Riot."

The Republican nominee for President, Governor George W. Bush of Texas, lost the national popular vote to the Democratic nominee, Vice President Al Gore. But he appeared to have won enough Statewide popular votes to win 271 Electoral Votes to Gore's 269.

In dispute was the State of Florida, where Bush was originally certified to have won by 1,784 votes. It's important to note that the Governor of Florida was his brother, John Ellis "Jeb" Bush. Through his Secretary of State -- and, it was rumored, his mistress -- Katharine Harris, Jeb had the Florida vote fixed for his brother, including the deletion of the names of 55,000 people, nearly all black men, from the voter rolls.

In other words, if those 55,000 people were permitted to vote, even if less than half of them ended up voting at all, there was no way Gore wouldn't have gotten enough of those 55,000 votes to offset a 1,784-vote lead for "Dubya."

A clause in Florida's State Constitution mandated that, since the election was so close, a Statewide recount had to be done. The recount for Dade County, including the City of Miami, was done at the Stephen P. Clark Government Center, at 111 Northwest 1st Street in downtown Miami. (Clark was Mayor of Miami from 1967 to 1972, and again from 1993 to 1996.)

The Stephen P. Clark Government Center

The recount began, but Representative John E. Sweeney, then a freshman Congressman from New York's Capital Region, including the State capital of Albany, told an aide to "Shut it down." And so dozens of people, many of them wearing sharp suits typical of Republican staffers at the time -- hence the name of the demonstration, as Brooks Brothers is a popular store chain with them -- found their way into the building, and pounded on the doors of the room where the recount was being done, making it unsafe for the counters.

They got what they wanted. Bush's lead got down to 537 votes, when a local court ordered that the recount be stopped. In other words, some votes were never counted, not even once. The State Supreme Court ruled that the recount had to resume.

But on December 12, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the recount had to stop. And so, Bush's 537-vote win in Florida was certified by the State of Florida, and later by Congress.

Strange: For decades, conservatives -- first in the Democratic Party, then in the 1960s they began to shift to the Republican Party -- were in favor of States' rights over civil rights. But when States' rights and civil rights came together in Florida in 2000, the conservatives wanted the State of Florida to have no rights.

Did Democratic protestors try to stop Congress from certifying this apparently stolen election, as Republican ones tried 20 years later? No. Every Democratic demonstration, including outside Bush's Inauguration as the 43rd President of the United States on January 20, 2001, was peaceful.

But the Republicans have now tried this sort of thing twice in the 21st Century. Indeed, the Brooks Brothers Riot has been called a "dress rehearsal" for the Capitol Insurrection of January 6, 2021.

Many of the Miami demonstrators later took jobs in the Bush Administration. One of them was Roger Stone, a self-described "GOP Hitman," with a history of Republican dirty tricks going back to his work for Richard Nixon's Committee for the Re-Election of the President, the group behind the Watergate burglary of 1972.

Nobody was ever charged with a crime in connection with the Brooks Brothers Riot -- not with election fraud, not with property damage, not with assault, not even with trespassing, of which they were all guilty.

*

November 22, 2000 was a Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving. As was tradition in my family, I spent Thanksgiving weekend at my grandmother's house, including the Thursday night with my parents and sister, and we sat transfixed at the TV, watching not football games -- the Detroit Lions beat the New England Patriots 34-9 at the Silverdome in suburban Pontiac, Michigan; while the Dallas Cowboys lost to the Minnesota Vikings, 27-15 at Texas Stadium in suburban Irving, Texas -- but footage of the Brooks Brothers Riot, on a seemingly endless loop, as talking heads on CNN and MSNBC tried to make sense of the most blatant election theft in American history.

Other Presidential elections have had accusations of fraud. But this was on television. Even the alleged theft of Illinois' votes by Mayor Richard J. Daley of Chicago in 1960 -- the overturning of which wouldn't have swung the election from John F. Kennedy to Nixon anyway -- wasn't caught by TV or film cameras. The Brooks Brothers Riot was, and the news networks were all too happy to show it over and over again, refusing to say that it was wrong.

The fact that Al Gore's rightly-won Presidency was being assassinated on November 22, the anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, seemed not to have occurred to most people. Certainly, I didn't think of it at the time. With the chaos of the election, the JFK anniversary may have been mentioned less than on any November 22 since 1963. 

November 7, 2000: No One Is Elected President

November 7, 2000, 25 years ago: Election Day. The Democratic Party's nominee for President, Vice President of the United States, Albert Arnold Gore Jr., gets more votes than the Republican Party's nominee, the Governor of Texas, George Walker Bush: Gore 51.0 million, Bush 50.4 million. Gore gets 48.4 percent of the popular vote, Bush 47.9 percent.

Ralph Nader, famous as a consumer advocate since the 1960s, runs as the nominee of the Green Party. He gets 2.9 million votes, or 2.7 percent.

Bush's brother, Governor John E. "Jeb" Bush of Florida, sees how close the vote is in his State, and tampers with the voting process, and that one State holds everything up for 5 weeks.

The following Sunday, November 12, among the guests on NBC's Meet the Press is William Safire, longtime political columnist for The New York Times; before that, a speechwriter for President Richard Nixon. Host Tim Russert asks him, "What do we have here, Bill?" And Safire says, "We have a tie."

For all intents and purposes, he was correct. Both Bush and Gore had a base that thought their man would make a good President. Both of them had party regulars who might not have been happy that the party as a whole nominated the candidate that it did, but would vote for that party's nominee anyway, because that's what they always did. And then there were people who weren't members of either party, and didn't especially like either one, but decided one was worse, and voted for the other one.

It would have been so simple for Gore to win. All he had to do was ask the outgoing President, Bill Clinton, to do one rally for him in downtown Miami. It would, literally, have made all the difference in the world, because, in spite of his personal mistakes, Clinton was a very successful President, and still popular nationwide -- more so than Gore or Bush.

But Gore was terrified that Clinton's personal scandal, which led to his impeachment by a Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives, and then his acquittal by a Republican-controlled U.S. Senate, would attach itself to him. So, in his speech at the Democratic Convention at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, he tried to run on the Clinton economic record without the Clinton personal-conduct record, and said, "I stand here today as my own man."

Bush couldn't say that. Well, he could, but, like so many other things he said, it would have been a lie. The son of a President, he was a dimwitted hothead who had faked his way through life. Every time he failed -- in keeping out of military service, in business, and in a 1978 run for Congress -- his father's friends bailed him out.

But Texas evangelicals got him nominated for that State's Governor, an office where the only real requirement is make it easier for businessmen to make money. He got elected in 1994 and 1998. Jeb, considered the smart, level-headed one in the family -- often compared to Michael Corleone, to George's Sonny and father George's Don Vito -- lost in his 1st race for Governor, also in 1994, but won in 1998.

The media gave Bush the benefit of every doubt, and Gore the doubt of every benefit. Case in point: The 1st debate, on October 3, at the Boston campus of the University of Massachusetts. Bush, as he usually did, made himself look like he was not smart enough to be President. Gore was caught on camera sighing over some of Bush's dumb answers. The reaction of most of the American media was not that Bush was too dumb to be President, but that Gore was too rude to be President.

This was the problem: Bush, a known recovering alcoholic, was seen as "the kind of guy you'd like to have a beer with," while Gore was "stiff," "uptight," and "a know-it-all." As comedian Bill Maher put it, "God forbid, the President of the United States should be smarter than we are." But Maher also addressed Gore's image: "People like what he stands for. They just don't like him." And people did like Bush, even if they thought he was dumb.

And enough people didn't like Gore to throw Florida into doubt. Jeb Bush's Secretary of State, in charge of running elections, was Katherine Harris: Young (33 in 2000), attractive, every bit as committed to the conservative movement as the Bush brothers were, and, it was rumored at the time, Jeb's mistress. He put her in charge of ensuring that "Dubya" won in Florida.

Court-ordered recounts were undertaken, and "the Brooks Brothers Riot" in downtown Miami the day before Thanksgiving stopped the one in Dade County. When the U.S. Supreme Court finally ruled on December 12 that the recounts must stop, and Bush be accepted as the winner, it was the ghastliest decision in the Court's history, aside from the Dred Scott decision that said black people weren't citizens (a decision remedied by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution).

Nader, appealing to leftists who felt betrayed by Gore and President Bill Clinton over the last 8 years, won 97,488 votes in Florida. Bush's final lead in Florida was 537 votes. But Nader's voters wanted their "pure" candidate, and the result was the most un-Nader-like (and the most un-Gore-like) Administration anyone could have imagined.

Needless to say, New York's 2 major tabloid newspapers had differing opinions. The Daily News cared about journalism, and their headline was "TOO CLOSE." The Post cared about promoting the conservative candidate, and their headline was "BUSH WINS!"

The election of sitting First Lady Hillary Clinton to be a U.S. Senator from New York was almost unnoticed outside that State. More attention was paid in Missouri, where Governor Mel Carnahan was killed in a plane crash, too close to the election to be replaced on the ballot, and still won the election for Senator over the incumbent, former Governor John Ashcroft. His widow, Jean Carnahan, was appointed to replace him. Bush appointed Ashcroft to be his Attorney General.

Indeed, in connection with the Democratic nominee for President getting the most popular votes, the Democrats gained 4 seats in the Senate, forging a 50-50 tie, which went 51-49 in their favor the following June, when Jim Jeffords of Vermont switched to become an Independent caucusing with the Democrats. The Democrats only gained 1 seat in the House, not nearly enough to take control.

October 26, 2000: Yankees Have Scoreboard for All Time

Note: I wrote this on the 20th Anniversary. Today is the 25th Anniversary, and I'm posting it again, with some updates. It's my blog. I can do that.

Has it really been 25 years since the Subway Series?

Remember: It's not a "Subway Series" unless it's a World Series. Nobody ever called regular-season games between the New York Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers a "Subway Series."

There had been exhibition games between the Yankees and the Mets from the Mets' 1962 debut onward. There had been preseason games, and the midseason "Mayor's Trophy" games. But they didn't count. Met fans thought they did. They didn't. In 1997, Interleague Play began, and the New York media called it a "Subway Series," but who was kidding who?

The 1985 season was the 1st time the Yankees and the Mets both stayed in their Divisional races until the last week of the regular season. The 1999 season was the 1st time that both made the Playoffs. Lots of people in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut were sure that was going to be it. The Yankees held up their end of the bargain. The Mets didn't hold theirs up.

Now, after 39 years of hoping, wishing, praying for a chance to beat the Yankees in a World Series, Met fans finally had that chance. And they were sure they were going to win it.

After all, Al Leiter was going to start Games 1 and 5, and Mike Hampton was going to start Games 2 and 6. And, as everybody knows, "The Yankees can't hit lefthanded pitching. Especially in the postseason." I guess Met fans, the Flushing Heathen, hadn't noticed how the Yankees beat all pitchers, left and right alike, in winning the Series in 1996, '98 and '99, and winning another Pennant to put them in this Series.

Still, Met fans always wanted this chance. In the immortal words of Leonard Nimoy -- who, being a Bostonian, probably knew just how illogical baseball can be -- "You may find that having is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as wanting."

*

October 21, 2000: Game 1 of the 1st Subway Series since 1956 is played at the original Yankee Stadium. Billy Joel, who was the first singer to sell out the Stadium, and later played the last concert at Shea, sang the National Anthem. Don Larsen threw out the ceremonial first ball to Yogi Berra, evoking memories of that 1956 Series, when the Yankees beat the Brooklyn Dodgers, including Larsen's perfect game in Game 5, and Yogi's 2 homers in Game 7.

Game 1 of the 2000 World Series came on the 25th Anniversary of the Carlton Fisk Game, and on the 20th Anniversary of the Philadelphia Phillies' 1st World Series win. It turns out to be, quite possibly, the greatest game I've ever seen. At the least, it was the most nerve-wracking game I've ever seen.

(Note: I realize I'm going back and forth between using present tense and past tense. As I've already alluded to, baseball is often illogical, and so is writing.)

Leiter outpitches Andy Pettitte, but 4 baserunning blunders by the Mets leave the score 3-2 in the Mets' favor entering the bottom of the 9th. Still, to be able to take Game 1 at Yankee Stadium would be a huge boost to the Mets.

Manager Bobby Valentine brings in his closer. Unfortunately for him, it's Armando Benítez. Paul O’Neill fouls off pitch after pitch, and finally draws the most clutch walk in baseball history. The Yankees bring him around to score on DH Chuck Knoblauch's sacrifice fly, and the game goes into extra innings.

It goes to the bottom of the 12th, and to 1:04 AM. With 1 out, Tino Martinez singles off Turk Wendell. Jorge Posada doubles, but Tino doesn't run well, and has to hold at 3rd. O'Neill is walked again, this time intentionally, to set up the double play. Luis Sojo pops up. And a Met castoff, José Vizcaino, playing 2nd base because Knoblauch is not fielding well, singles home the winning run.

José Vizcaino

Yankees 4, Mets 3. Essentially, the World Series that Met fans had waited their whole lives for has been decided in Game 1. Had the Mets won this game, the Series would have been very, very different.

Maybe the Yankees would have been shaken by the events of Game 1, and instead of just holding the Mets off in Game 2, 6-5, they would have fully blown that lead. The Mets won Game 3, and their idiot fans would have been thinking sweep.

Would the Yankees still have won Game 4? It was pretty shaky in the 5th inning. Would they still have won Game 5? It was tied in the 9th. Would they have won a Game 6? Would they have completed the ultimate comeback in Game 7, 4 years before the Red Sox did it to them?

*

October 22, 2000: Game 2 is one of the most bizarre contests in baseball history. It begins with Robert Merrill, the Brooklyn-born singer for the Metropolitan Opera Company whose recording of "The Star-Spangled Banner" had been the one the Yankees had used since 1967, singing it in person. (He died in 2004.) 

In the top of the 1st, with 2 out and a man on, Mike Piazza bats for the Mets against Roger Clemens of the Yankees. Piazza had hit some long home runs off Clemens, and in July, in an Interleague game also at Yankee Stadium, Clemens had nailed Piazza on the helmet with a fastball, giving him a concussion.

This time, Piazza hits a foul ball, and breaks his bat. The barrel of the bat comes back to Clemens, and... he throws the jagged-edged bat barrel across the 1st-base foul line. Right in Piazza's path, and Piazza almost steps into it.

We may never know what was going on in the head of the Rocket, but what's going on in the head of Piazza is rage. He thinks Clemens was throwing the sharp object at him. Piazza moves toward Clemens, and both benches empty. For one of the few times in his career, there's an on-field controversy with Clemens on the field, and Clemens is not the most insane man involved.

The umpires restore order, and Clemens finishes the at-bat by getting Piazza to ground to 2nd. He pitches 8 strong innings, and the Yankees pound Mike Hampton, and take a 6-0 lead into the 9th.

But the bullpen can't hold it, and the Mets come to within 6-5, including home runs by Piazza (the 1st-ever World Series homer for the alleged "greatest-hitting catcher ever") and Jay Payton, before Joe Torre has enough and brings in the Hammer of God, Mariano Rivera, to slam the door and keep it 6-5. The Yankees take a 2-games-to-0 lead in the Series, which now heads across town to Shea.

Clemens will be fined $50,000 for his what-the-hell moment. But Met fans have never gotten this into their thick skulls: Clemens was not throwing the bat at Piazza. If there's one thing that Roger Clemens made perfectly clear many times in his playing career, it's this: If he wants to throw something at someone with the intention of hitting him, that person will get hit. If he wanted to throw the bat at

Piazza, that bat would have hit Piazza.

And now, the question needs to be asked: Which of these men was on steroids, warping their perceptions of what was happening? Was it Clemens? Was it Piazza? Was it both? Until either man, or both men, decide to change their stories, we may never know for sure.

As it turned out, both men played their last game in 2007, meaning that both became eligible for the Baseball Hall of Fame in the election of January 2013. Piazza was elected in 2016. Clemens is still waiting. That did, however, avoid what would have been the most awkward induction ceremony in the Hall's history.

*

October 24, 2000: The World Series moves to Shea Stadium for Game 3. NSYNC sing the National Anthem. The Mets defeat the Yankees‚ 4-2‚ behind the pitching of Rick Reed and their bullpen. Benny Agbayani's 8th inning double is the key hit for the Mets as they cut the Yankees Series lead to 2-games-to-1.

Orlando "El Duque" Hernández strikes out 12, a Series record for a Yankee pitcher, but loses a postseason game for the 1st time after 8 wins. John Franco, the senior Met, is the winning pitcher.

Benítez, having blown Game 1, saves Game 3.

The loss ends the Yankees' record streak of 14 consecutive wins in World Series action. This would be the last World Series game won by the Mets until Game 3 in 2015.

*

October 25, 2000: Bobby Valentine chooses Bobby Jones as the Mets' Game 4 starter, and he's not especially good. However, the Yankees will have to choose between an aging and struggling David Cone, a struggling Denny Neagle, and Andy Pettitte on 3 days' rest.

This bodes well for the Mets, and if they win this one, then the Series is tied, and they've really got momentum. In Game 5, also at Shea, Al Leiter can outpitch Pettitte as he did in Game 1, and maybe this time the bullpen won't blow it; after all, after blowing the save in Game 1, Armando Benítez got it in Game 3.

Then the Mets only have to win 1 of 2 at Yankee Stadium to win the Subway Series, and reclaim New York from the Yankees. The Yanks will start Roger Clemens in Game 6, and after the bat-throwing incident in Game 2, the Mets will be loaded for bear, and Mike Hampton can't possibly have as bad a start in Game 6 as he had in Game 2, right? And if it still goes to Game 7, it'll be Rick Reed against Orlando Hernández again, and Reed showed in Game 3 he could outpitch "El Duque."

So, at this point, if you're a Met fan, you don't have a lot of reason to be confident of ultimate victory. But your position is quite defensible, your team is hardly in deep trouble following the Game 3 win, and, as the one man who has ever managed both these teams to Pennants, Yogi Berra, has said, "It ain't over 'til it's over." This World Series is far from over, and if you're a Met fan, at this point, you do have some reason to be optimistic.

Sheryl Crow sings the National Anthem, Game 4 begins, and that reason lasts all of one pitch. The 1st pitch of the game is from Jones to Derek Jeter, who knocks it over the left-field fence for a home run. The kind of hit that, once he was named team Captain in 2003, earned him the nickname "Captain Clutch."

Neagle struggles in the 5th, and manager Joe Torre plays a huge hunch, bringing Cone, once a superb Met starter, out of the bullpen to face the dangerous Mike Piazza with the bases loaded. I have to admit, I was sure he was going to either walk a run home, or serve up a gopher ball for a grand slam.

Instead, Cone gets Piazza to pop up, ending the threat. Cone never throws another postseason pitch, and he never throws another pitch for the Yankees. But he got the job done. (Dwight Gooden, back with the Yankees, had appeared in the ALCS, but was left off the World Series roster, and got a nice hand at Shea went introduced. He then retired.)

David Cone

The Yankees hang on to win the game, 3-2, and take a 3 games to 1 lead in the Series. They can wrap it up tomorrow night. Met fans, who began the day feeling like it was still possible, are no longer using Tug McGraw’s old rallying cry of "Ya Gotta Believe!" Now, they're using another familiar rallying cry, that of "Yankees Suck!"

But all is not good news in Yankeeland. Darryl Strawberry, who was introduced to stardom and drug as a Met, and has been one of George Steinbrenner's reclamation projects, is arrested and jailed, after leaving a treatment center following a weekend drug binge.

*

October 26, 2000, 20 years ago: The Euro, the currency of the European Union, which had started, on January 1, 1999, at $1.10 in comparison to the American dollar, drops to 83 cents. This remains its all-time low. Its all-time high is $1.60, achieved on July 15, 2008.

More importantly for me, on this day, Game 5 of the World Series is played at Shea Stadium. Marc Anthony, a New Yorker of Puerto Rican descent and a Met fan, sang the National Anthem. Jeter and Bernie Williams homer off Al Leiter. Pettitte and Leiter give it their all. The game is tied 2-2 in the top of the 9th. Two outs. Posada on 2nd, Scott Brosius on 1st. Not great speed on the basepaths. 

Luis Sojo, playing 2nd base because Knoblauch's fielding difficulties limited him to DH status, is coming up to bat. Leiter had thrown 141 pitches. A number that would not have caused Catfish Hunter and Tom Seaver to flinch, but by the standards of the 1990s and 2000s, a lot.

Met Manager Bobby Valentine's choices are not good:

* A: Stick with an exhausted Leiter. He would be pitching on brains, courage and fumes, and pray that he gets the out that sends it to the bottom of the 9th still tied.

* B: Put in Armando Benítez. He led the National League in saves that year and saved Game 3, but also blew Game 1 for Leiter, and also blew a Division Series game against the Giants (which the Mets ended up winning anyway), and had previously messed up 2 ALCS games against the Yankees for the Orioles (including the Jeffrey Maier Game). Or...

* C: Put in John Franco. He was the winning pitcher in Game 3, and also pitched well in Game 4, but would be pitching for the 3rd day in a row. And he was 39: There was a reason Valentine had taken the closer's job from Franco and given it to Benítez.

Valentine decided a tired Leiter was better than an aging, potentially tired Franco or an inconsistent, unreliable Benítez. Although I frequently accused Valentine of overmanaging, and sometimes outright stupidity, I can't fault him for this choice. If he had put in the very popular New York native Franco and lost anyway, he might have gotten away with it. But if he had put in the already suspicious Benítez and he blew yet another game, Valentine would have been run out of Flushing on the Long Island Railroad.

Leiter throws his 142nd pitch to Sojo. He knocks it up the middle. A Met fan once told me that Rey

Ordóñez would have stopped this grounder. This Met fan was a fool: Ordóñez would not have gotten it. Mike Bordick was the shortstop that night, and he was a good shortstop, and he couldn't quite get it.

Base hit for Sojo. Posada comes around 3rd. Center fielder Jay Payton's throw... never makes it to Mike Piazza at the plate, instead hitting Posada in the back and getting away, toward the backstop. This enables not only Posada to score the tiebreaking run, but also Brosius to score an insurance run as well. Yankees 4, Mets 2.

Bottom of the 9th. Two out. The Mets get a man on. Piazza comes up to the plate. If you're a Met fan, this is the man you want up: The best offensive player the Mets have ever had (cough-steroids-cough), one of the best fastball hitters of his time, power hitter against power pitcher, Mariano Rivera.

But if you're a Yankee Fan, there’s no one you'd rather have on the mound, and there's no one you’d rather get as the final out. It was similar to the final matchup of the 1978 Boston Tie Party, with Carl Yastrzemski, one of the greatest fastball hitters ever, and the most beloved player in his franchise's history (remember, Sox fans didn't always love Ted Williams), coming up to try to save his club against one of the fastest and most fearsome pitchers ever, Rich "Goose" Gossage.

Yaz popped up to end that game in victory for the Yankees; 22 years later, Piazza gets considerably better wood on his pitch, and hits one deep to straightaway center field.

For a moment, many of us, including myself -- and, years later, on the YES Network broadcast of a Yanks-Mets regular-season game, the entire announcing team of Michael Kay, Paul O'Neill and David Cone -- think, "Uh-oh!" Translation, at least in my case: "No! Tie game! The Mets will go on to win it, and take the next 2 in The Bronx, and the Yanks will have choked it away!"

Because we had grown up with the Mets as the team that won and the Yanks as the team that fell short. We had the arrogance of Yankee Fans of old, but deep down, in places we don't like to talk about at parties, we had the fears that came so easily to fans of the team then known as the Cleveland Indians, the pre-2004 Red Sox, the pre-2007 Phillies, the pre-2016 Cubs -- and the post-2006 Mets.

But Piazza had juuuust gotten under it. The ball has too much height and not enough distance. As the clock strikes 12:00 Midnight, Bernie stands on the warning track, settles under it, makes the easy catch, and it's over.

As Yankee broadcaster John Sterling said: "Ballgame over! World Series over! Yankees win! Theeeeeeee Yankees win!"

Jeter becomes the 1st player ever to be named Most Valuable Player of the All-Star Game and the World Series in the same season. Still, he would never be named MVP of a regular season. At the site of his 1st game as a manager, 23 years earlier, Torre is picked up by his grateful players, and carried off the field.

There were 25,000 people at Shea chanting "Let's Go Yankees!" and "We're Number 1!" Eventually, the owner came out to talk to the press, and he and the announcers couldn't talk, because the Yankee Fans were so loud, chanting "Thank you, George!" Imagine that, thousands of people saluting George Steinbrenner at Shea Stadium.

I loved it. October 26, 2000 – actually, the final out came just before Midnight, so it was really October 27 that we celebrated – remains my favorite moment as a sports fan.

For the 1st time, the Mets had the chance -- their first, their best, maybe their last -- to beat the Yankees in a Subway Series, and to irrevocably "take over New York." And while they had their chances and fought hard, in the end, the better team won.

The Yankees have beaten the Mets in a World Series. The other way around has never happened. And it never will. Never, never, never. Or, in the words of Flushing's own Fran Drescher, "It begins with an N and ends with an A: Nev-a." 

This was the 26th World Championship. And for those of us who grew up as Yankee Fans during the Mets' "glory" years of 1984 to 1990, the Dynasty That Never Was -- or, as Michael Wilbon of The Washington Post and ESPN's Pardon the Interruption would say, a Dynasty of One -- and had to deal with the unearned arrogance of the Flushing Heathen, the filthy bastards, delusional that their 2 titles outweighed our 22 (until 1996; now 27), damn fools to believe that the 1986 Mets could have beaten the Yankees of 1927, 1938, 1941, 1953, 1961 and 1978, and eventually even the 1998 juggernaut... for us, this was the greatest, sweetest moment of them all.

We beat the Mets. And it wasn't close. All 5 games were close, so it wasn't domination. But winning in 5 games is definitive, beyond any question. And we clinched at their place, on their field, at the William A. Shea International Airport, at the Flushing Toilet.

This was the 13th World Series game played at Shea. An unlucky 13th. It was also the last, which no one (not even a wiseass Yankee Fan like me) could have predicted at the time.

To the Flushing Heathen: I'd tell you to go to Hell, but you're already Met fans. So, instead, you and your 2 long-ago rings can kiss my Pinstriped ass. Or you can kiss my 27 rings, 7 of which came since your '69 title and 5 of which came after you got lucky in '86. Yes, you got lucky that the Red Sox had their choke of chokes against you in Game 6.

Sure, the Yankees have had luck. But they have earned all their victories. That's why every Yankee Fan can, on occasion, say the words of Yankee legend Lou Gehrig: "Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the Earth."

After all, we could have had worse luck, and it would have been all our own fault.

We could have chosen to be Met fans. We chose Yankees. We chose greatness.

No matter how bad the 2004 ALCS was, losing the 2000 World Series to the Mets would have been 10 times worse.

As we saw in 2015, we don't have to live around very many Red Sox fans with their cheated-for arrogance, but we do have to live around Met fans with their unearned arrogance.

How arrogant are Met fans? Some insist that 2000 and the other World Series the Yankees have won since 1978 don't count, because they used steroids; therefore, the count since 1986 is 1 to 0, and the count since 1962 is 2-2. These fans are idiots: We have more evidence against the 2000 Mets (Piazza) than we do against the 1996-2009 Yankees. So if 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2009 don't count for the Yankees, then 2000 doesn't count for the Mets, either.

For the moment, the count remains 27 to 2, and 5 to 0 since 1986.

I once saw a Met fan with a cap that had the 2000 World Series logo on the side, but razored off, with some of the stitching still visible. That's how much it bothers them. It should bother them: It basically erased their team's reason to exist.

As we've seen, the Yankees are (depending on your point of view: again, or still) the better team now. And let us not pretend that any Met World Series win -- be it 1969, 1986, or any future win -- is better than all of the Yankees' World Series wins.

Most of all, winning the 2000 World Series means that, as Paul Louis, a Yankee Fan and a Facebook Friend who was my age -- but, sadly, passed away during the latter stages of the COVID pandemic in 2021 -- said then, "The Yankees have scoreboard over the Mets for all time."

For all time.

Since then, the Yankees and the Mets have both reached the postseason in 2006, 2015, 2022 and 2024. But a Subway Series hasn't happened again.

The Yankees still have scoreboard over the Mets. For all time.