Carter, the Mets' star catcher during their 1986 World Series victory, was an early childhood hero of mine. My father writes to report that when we played baseball in the driveway at home, he would pretend to throw off his catcher's mask and catch foul balls, which I liked. Another favorite family story is how I impressed my pediatrician in the fall of 1986 by reciting the Mets' roster at the age of three.
The Mets, perhaps more so than any other team of the past 25 years, had an astonishing amount of unfulfilled promise. They won 108 games in '86, another 100 in '88 but lost the NLCS in seven games to the Dodgers, and by '91 had fallen off the baseball earth. Carter was the only player from those teams inducted into the Hall of Fame -- as a Montreal Expo, where he began his career and had many great seasons, though the cap a player wears in the Hall is determined by its voters, not the player. Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry had the most infamous implosions, but Lenny Dykstra wasn't very far behind, though he didn't have the same potential as the first two. Keith Hernandez was also on the team, as were many players who had at least several good seasons in their careers -- Ron Darling, Rick Aguilera, Howard Johnson and Kevin McReynolds. The team just totally fell apart, partly out of expectations, partly out of ego.
Perhaps this year's Brewers will faintly echo those Mets: After becoming a big success story and reaching last year's playoffs, their big power hitter, Prince Fielder, left for the gargantuan contract given to him by the Tigers (a likely mistake considering Fielder's body), and their biggest star and franchise face, Ryan Braun, has been suspended for 50 games for failing a drug test. That's a tough turn of events, particularly in a small market.
No comments:
Post a Comment