I have spoken at great length during these past six years about my trials and tribulations as a New York Mets fan. It’s not easy to root for a baseball team that has turned losing into an art form since the 2006 season’s heartbreaking conclusion. In fact, in my adult life it’s hardly ever been “fun” to be a Mets fan. There was the 1999 and 2000 seasons, then some lean years, then the sting of 2006. Before that, well, things were pretty bad. To make matters worse, I don’t even remember the joy of 1986 because I was just three years old at the time. I’ve never seen my favorite sports team win a championship. I remember three of the four Super Bowls the Giants have won during my lifetime…but I’ve never seen the Mets hoist a championship banner.
As a child things were different. Every season was cause for optimism, no matter how bad the team really was. No matter what names filled out the roster (Dick Schofield, anyone?) there was always your favorite player (Dwight Goodon) to provide a glimmer of hope.
I started rooting for the Mets when I was three or four years old. As hard as my father tried to raise me a Yankees fan, he couldn’t have counted on the most insignificant, improbable factor — that my favorite color was orange — to shape my adolescent mind. I liked orange, so I rooted for the Mets. It was that easy. When I saw my first games in ’87 and ’88, my favorite player was the team’s curly-haired, jovial catcher, Gary Carter. Who could forget his role in my favorite childhood video, Think Big!?
Carter passed away yesterday afternoon at the age of 57. Mets fans began hearing rumbling about his health as far back as May 2011, when it was publicized that he was diagnosed with four brain tumors. Although he underwent chemotherapy and other treatments, in January doctors found several new tumors on his brain.
When I heard the news I tuned into whatever NY/NJ radio stations I could find to hear fan and media reactions. Carter’s former teammate Keith Hernandez choked up on SNY. ESPN ran a series of articles about The Kid. Tonight the Empire State Building is blue and orange in his honor.
Perhaps the most important moment of Carter’s Hall-Of-Fame career came as a member of the Mets during the 1986 World Series. No, it wasn’t his home run in game four with his team already down two-games-to-one. It was his two-out single in the 10th inning of Game 6 — with his team trailing by two runs — which started the rally that would inevitably lead to one of the most memorable plays in baseball history.
As was first published in Jeff Pearlman’s epic tome The Bad Guys Won, and was yesterday recounted in an article for ESPN by Tim Kurkjian, Carter was a fierce competitor: “”Kid never swore, never. He’d say ‘Gosh darn’ and ‘Jeez.’ Because of his religious beliefs, he never swore — and that was rare on that team,” Darling said. “But when he got to first base in the 10th inning, the late Bill Robinson, who was our first-base coach, told me that Kid told him, ‘There’s no way I’m making the last f—— out.’ That’s the competitor he was.”
Rest in Peace, Kid.
1986 New York Mets – Get Metsmerized [MP3]
