Here’s an excerpt from my book Send The Beer Guy. Grab an e-copy for $2.99, you’ll get through it this weekend no problem.
Game 6.
There aren’t too many games where you can say one or two words and get a Mets fan to know what you meant.
Most of the examples are awful. Pendleton. Scioscia.
Some are happier. Todd Pratt. Piazza.
Then there is Game 6. The greatest baseball game ever played.
It’s the last game I clearly remember watching with my father. I don’t really remember watching Game 7 but Game 6 I sure do.
We set up in the living room. He took the couch, and I took the love seat. We had a decent size TV, nothing crazy, and nothing like you have today. Maybe 27 inches, something like that. Color of course. Mono. No cable, we were watching off an antenna.
In the other room I had my VCR recording the game. In the days before DVD sets you needed to keep these things for yourself. I had grandiose dreams of how often I would dust off these VHS tapes. I think they would get popped in every 7 years or so, usually just Game 6, but once the DVD set came out they were resigned to sitting on the shelf in my closet where they remain to this day.
My buddy Jim and I had this ongoing thing we did in hockey season. Every year when either the Rangers or Islanders were eliminated from playoff contention, one of us would call the other THE SECOND it happened to mock them. It took some art on the timing since you had to dial six of the seven digits of the phone number so that it would ring THE SECOND it happened. It was no fun to call a minute later.
I sweated out the bottom of the 8th but the Mets tied it up. In the top of the 10th I still had hope after Dave Henderson homered. The Mets always came back, and I was semi-confident they could scratch out a run in the bottom.
But then the Red Sox got that second run.
I said good night to my father and headed off into my room to watch the bottom of the inning. I sat on the edge of my bed with my chin in my hands. I knew the phone was going to ring.
Backman flies out.
Hernandez flies out and heads off to have a couple of beers. (I like to imagine a buzzed Keith Hernandez having to play defense in the 11th inning.)
Here comes the call.
Carter keeps it alive.
Mitchell keeps it alive.
This is torture.
Ray Knight gets the Mets to within one. Any time I watch this inning on DVD I can’t believe it is real. I still get the pit in my stomach and I still expect the Mets to lose.
Mookie steps in.
Wild pitch! Holy shit it‚ it’s tied! I’m not moving! I’m staying right here on the edge of my bed.
A little roller up along first…..
At school on Monday Jim tells me he had 446-724 dialed and ready to go. He never got to punch in that last number.
