As the clock struck midnight on New Year's eve, we now in the second half of the 2020's. Seems hard to believe. It feels like just yesterday the decade started off with all of us wearing masks and social distancing.
2026 also marks the 40th anniversary of the last Met team to win a World Series, but 20 years ago, that drought was nearly cut in half.
The 2006 Mets were, for every fan that didn't live through 1986, the closest they got to it. True, the 2015 Mets won a pennant and went further, but dominating the season for 162 games, that title belongs to the '06 squad.
It's arguably the great Met team to never win a World Series, and for Millennial Met fans like myself, they still hold a special place in my heart, and will forever plague my mind with "what if's. We all know the story, the team went 97-65, lapped the competition by the summer and clinched their first NL East title in nearly 20 years, with almost three weeks to spare in the season. They breezed through the Dodgers in the NLDS, and fell victim to the Cardinals in the NLCS, and two eventual Hall of Famers, who were just getting their careers started, and thus ended the Mets dream 2006 season.
There were no parades after the season. The only reminder of that season at Citi Field is a banner "2006 NL East Champions". There'll be no reunion of that team this summer, no special anniversary patches, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't remember that team for all it was.
Looking up and down the lineup, it might be the greatest Met offense ever assembled. Jose Reyes and Paul Lo Duca made the best table setters for the big part of the order in Carlos Beltran, Carlos Delgado, and David Wright. Even the backend of the lineup was stacked. Jose Valentin had a renaissance year, Endy Chavez, Cliff Floyd, Shawn Green. This offense ran deep.
They won in dramatic fashion too. 39 come from behind wins, 11 walk off wins, and went 9-5 in extra inning games. After the Braves won the division 14 straight times coming into '06, the Mets bullied their way to the top, going 11-7 against their Southern rivals. The had a 10-game division lead by June, and kept the foot on the gas all summer long going 16-9 in July and 19-9 in August.
In mid-August of that season, the Mets had a 20th anniversary reunion for the 1986 team. At the time, the 2006 Mets were 74-48, with a 16 game lead in the division. Everyone had a feeling of deja vu. There were so many iconic moments that season too. Carlos Beltran's walk-off in the 16th inning against the Phillies. His walk-off home run against the Cardinals in August. Paul Lo Duca tagging out two Dodger runners at the plate in the game one of the NLDS.
We didn't know it at the time, but those would be the last playoff games ever played at Shea, and the fans nearly made it collapse during that run in October. Ultimately, the Met pitching staff couldn't stay healthy, their usually reliable bullpen showed cracks, and their juggernaut offense came out flat, especially in that infamous game seven.
The most memorable moment from that season is a memory every Met fan would like to forget. But, it's still worth noting what this team accomplished. As Carlos Beltran seems likely to make it into Hall of Fame later this year, his legacy as a Met will come up again. Odds are, he'll go into the HOF in a Mets hat, one of just two other players representing the Mets in Cooperstown.
It's been 20 years since Adam Wainwright threw one of the filthiest curveballs to end the 2006 NLCS, and it's time for us to acknowledge that Carlos Beltran is arguably one of the greatest Met players of all time. One pitch shouldn't define his seven year career in orange and blue.
5 comments:
I clearly remember watching that game in my unfinished basement with my 9 year old son. It was so demoralizing & unfortunately, a sign of times to come in ‘07 & ‘08. They were sure fun to watch throughout 2006 though!
I started Mack's Mets the year before. It was solely focused on the Mets minor league players
I stopped being a fan as soon as I became a sports reporter for Morris Publishing
As my Editor said on day one, fans are for bloggers... reporters are neutral
I also was a fan since 1962 and celebrated this team twice between 62-2005 so losing is what I accept from this team
If only Jim Duquette hadn't traded Scott Kazmir....
People forget 1986….three chances to flop…
1) down 3-0 in the 9th to Bob Knepper…a loss would have forced a game 7 against Mike Scott, who was better than Gooden in 1986
2) game 6 of the WS - the GETS BY BUCKNER miracle
3) game 7, trailing 3-0 going into the 7th(?) inning.
They used up all of their Lucky Charms that year…FORTY YEARS AGO!
I was at game 7 as a 20 year old and missed the freaking Endy Chavez catch because I had to pee. Most Mets fan thing ever.
The 06 team's offense was sick. LoDuca had a great year in the 2 hole, Reyes and Wright were ascendant, Beltran was in his prime and Delgado still and a few good seasons in the tanks. Even down lineup people like Jose Valentin had good years.
To think of what this team could have done if the Mets had pulled off the rumored Roy Oswalt trade, if Duaner Sanchez hadn't been in that care accident of if Kazmir hadn't been traded away.
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