NEW YORK -- Forty years later, Roger McDowell still remembers the football helmets.
McDowell had pitched the seventh and eighth innings of 1986 World Series Game 6, allowing the go-ahead run. His work for the day complete, McDowell retired to equipment manager Charlie Samuels’ office, where the helmets of various NFL teams lined the walls. McDowell drank “some cocktails and some beers” and watched one of the most dominant seasons in Major League history begin to slip away.
McDowell was in that office when the Red Sox took a two-run lead in the 10th, and when Wally Backman and Keith Hernandez went down consecutively to open the bottom of the inning.
“Two outs, nobody on,” McDowell said. “I thought it was over. I thought it was done.”
It was not done, of course, which is why McDowell found himself back in Queens on Saturday, donning an 80s-style racing stripe uniform to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Mets’ last World Series championship. Nearly all of them came out, from Lenny to Mookie to Doc and Darryl, Keith and Ron and the family of Gary Carter. With gusto, they celebrated their achievement one more time, knowing that a decade from now, some of them may not be present to do it again.
“It’s been 40 years, and every year I hear a different story,” outfielder Mookie Wilson said. “And it’s great, because it just shows how important that moment was.”
Over the decades, Wilson has heard tales of women giving labor as the World Series reached its climax, of grown men weeping, of countless folks who will never forget where they were when the 1986 Mets won it all. Stories will always follow that team, from shenanigans on the team plane after the National League Championship Series -- “that will stay there,” McDowell quipped -- to the meandering tale of Jesse Orosco’s glove, which he flung skyward upon recording the final out, to a pair of memorable brawls -- one on the field in Cincinnati, the other off it in Houston.
To this day, Wilson’s children and grandchildren ask him about those times, their curiosity piquing as they watch videos of the 1986 Mets.
“I don’t think any of us could have ever predicted or imagined that one instance in time in baseball history would bring that much joy to people and create a lasting memory,” Wilson said. “There’s no one story I can tell that overshadows the rest.”
Most of them are grayer now, their hairlines pushed back, their waistlines expanded. Without Carter and manager Davey Johnson, they will never quite be what they were.
Yet 40 years later, their accomplishments still resonate. Three hours before Saturday’s ceremony, hundreds of fans filed into a Citi Field luxury club to hear McDowell, Backman, Howard Johnson and Bobby Ojeda swap stories about that summer and fall. In a room behind them, Wilson sat in uniform, chatting up a security guard. Orosco was at another table, talking with Kevin Mitchell. Hernandez and Lee Mazzilli shared a laugh.
From time to time, members of the 1986 Mets reunite for various appearances, whether at Citi Field or around the New York area. Hernandez and Darling are here all the time, working as broadcasters. Strawberry serves as a special instructor most every spring. Gooden, Wilson and Johnson pop in and out.
But reunions like this are rare, when the vast majority of the 1986 Mets come together, ringing the infield dirt to bask in the adulation of their fans all over again.
“We had a special team,” Wilson said. “The personalities were so different. The culture was so different. And it’s unusual to find that many different personalities come together and play in harmony. That’s not to say we didn’t have our own little disagreements. … But we found a way to win. And I think that’s the common thread right there. We all wanted to win, and we depended on each other, and it showed on and off the ballfield.
“I think that’s what made this team so special. We were more than just a team. We were literally family. I know that’s an old cliché, but that team, it was so true and it is so evident, even to this very day.”