NOT SO AMAZIN'
The moments the Mets’ fortunate luck went south
IDON’T believe that most Mets fans believe they are cursed. I don’t believe that most Mets fans believe they have a pox on their houses, that somewhere in the mystical universe there are goblins and gremlins forever plotting to make the act of watching a baseball season — an unfiltered pleasure for many — so difficult for them.
I do believe Mets fans consider themselves grossly unlucky, and that part of the DNA of following the Mets is to be constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop. That one isn’t only fair, it’s also probably 100 percent true. At least. And here’s the funny thing: That is so different from the way things used to be. Seriously, here at The Post, we still refer to the Mets as “Amazin’s” in our headlines, the same kind of secondary nickname we happily distribute the Bombers, Big Blue, the Johnnies and Gang Green. So where did it all go wrong? I think I have pinpointed the moment. Now, it’s important to remember the Mets spent almost every second of their first 25 years virtually free of any trace of heartbreak.
The early editions were so bad you never expected anything other than Marv Throneberry forgetting to step on bases, or the famous (and totally true) “Yo la tengo!” story, when center fielder Richie Ashburn kept running into shortstop Elio Chacon because neither man shared a language, so the first time Ashburn could he used the Spanish term for “I got it!” — and was promptly run over by left fielder Frank Thomas.
From there, of course, starting with 1969, the Mets weren’t just spared the regular miseries of many baseball fans, they were the beneficiaries of some … well, hard-to-explain luck. There was that first title, of course, a six-month baseball fairy tale.
There was the ’73 NL pennant winners, sitting in last place on Aug. 31 and arriving at both first place and .500 on the same night a few weeks later, highlighted by the “ball-on-thewall” play against the Pirates that moved Tom Seaver to say, “Gil Hodges is alive and well and sitting on the left-field fence at Shea.”
Thirteen years later they parlayed a wonderful team and some more remarkable good fortune in October to a second championship.
And even in between, when the Mets spent most of the late ’ 70s and early ’80s playing horrific ball, it was hard to blame the goblins for any of it. They were awful, and had teams filled with awful players, and were awful at the top. There was nothing cursed about M. Donald Grant trading Seaver, it was simply an idiotic decision made by a terrible boss. Then came April 1, 1987. I certainly remember where I was when I heard the news that Dwight Gooden had tested positive for cocaine: putting the newspaper to bed up at college. Jim Hendrick (we called him “The Wellsville Flash”) came storming into the newsroom and said, “Gooden tests positive! Coke! Holy cow, man!”
Hendrick was also a Yankees fan. It was April 1. You can’t fool me that easy.
Then I turned on the radio. And it was no ruse.
And look, there are still ways to refute the notion the Mets are even all that unlucky by the heartbreaking standards of sports. They have been to two World Series in the 31 years since, more than most teams. They’ve been to the playoffs some. They haven’t been the Cleveland Browns.
It’s just that, suddenly, the notion that the Amazin’ Mets, the Miracle Mets, would always find a way to have fate smile upon them … well it seemed to die that day. That September, Terry Pendleton would hit his home run against Roger McDowell. A year later, Mike Scioscia would hit his against Gooden. In 2015, Jeurys Familia would try to quick-pitch Alex Gordon. Somewhere along the way any time a Met sneezed you expected them to be put on the 60-day DL a few hours later.
Somewhere along the way, the other shoe started to drop. And drop again. And drop some more. And keep dropping, an Imelda Marcos of baseball suffering. Amazin’s? Now that sounds like it’s supposed to be ironic. And lately it has been. But it wasn’t born that way.