By Brian Joura October 30, 2020
There was an ESPN piece published today ranking every World
Series. It’s posted in The Garden, if you haven’t seen it yet.
Anyway, it’s a reminder that the Mets are 2-3 in five trips to the Series. If
we asked a poll question about which was the best World Series, my guess is
that it would split along age lines. Those 60 and older would vote for 1969 and
those younger would choose 1986. But the flip side isn’t so cut and dried. And
let’s expand it to include some playoff defeats. Here are our contenders:
1973 World Series – Rusty
Staub playing heroically – and terrifically – with an injured
shoulder, Willie
Mays pleading with the umpire over a blown call, the Mets having a 3-2
lead in the series only to have the manager panic and pitch guys on short rest
in the final two games. They really should have won.
1988 NLCS – Darryl
Strawberry‘s 165 OPS+, David
Cone going 20-3, an NLCS matchup against a Dodgers squad that they
went 10-1 against during the regular season, leaving Doc Gooden in for the 9th
inning in Game 4, Sid
Fernandez throwing beachballs in Game 5. They really should have won.
1999 NLCS – The best defensive infield ever, the
season-ending sweep to force a tie for the Wild Card, Al
Leiter‘s two-hit shutout in Game 163, Todd
Pratt‘s walkoff HR in the NLDS, losing the first three games of the series
only to battle back, John
Olerud‘s two-run single off John
Rocker, Robin
Ventura‘s grand slam single, falling behind by five runs in the first
inning of Game 6 but coming back to force extra innings. Maybe they shouldn’t
have won but it was such a fun group and a memorable series.
3 comments:
2015. Why? Because it is the most recent memory of that loss, and the Mets had the superior team.
Tom, I have to disagree with you that they had the superior team.
In my opinion, the Royals had almost a perfect baseball team that October. They combined enough hitting with a lot of speed, good defense, did not strike out much, and pitched well with a particularly strong bullpen. That is the recipe for good baseball. The Mets should have learned a lesson from that whipping, but I'm not sure they did.
BTW . my vote was the 1973 World Series loss. Up three games to two with Seaver on regular rest if game 7 was necessary and they pitched him on short rest in game 6 and Matlack on short rest in game 7. They had a rested George Stone who went 12-3 that year to pitch in game 6 and did not do it. The offense didn't do much in either of the two final games (3 runs combined), but I blame that one on the pitching set-up. Painful.
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