The Greatest Team That Never Was

I don’t know what the New York Mets have in mind for an Old Timers game this season, but after hearing of Dwight Gooden’s latest drug bust, let’s pray it’s not a 20-year reunion of the 1986 championship team.The Mets dynasty that never was lasted for just three seasons, 1986 through 1988, producing just one more postseason appearance, in 1988, and no more championship rings. Has any team of a three-year span in baseball history had more players at their peak who looked like sure Hall of Famers and didn’t make it to Cooperstown? Let’s review.How good was Darryl Strawberry at his peak? In 1988 Strawberry was 26 and had played in 823 games with 2,885 at-bats. He had hit 188 home runs and stolen 165 bases. These were power-speed numbers equal or superior to those of the three great power hitting outfielders of the 1950s – Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, and Duke Snider – at the point in their careers when they had similar totals of games played and at-bats. (Mays, after 2,899 at-bats, had 183 homers and 161 stolen bases; Mantle, after 2,924 at-bats, had 173 homers and 43 steals, while after 3,062, Duke had 151 and 44.)Here’s the truly eye-opening part: Willie, Mickey, and the Duke all played their home games in better hitters’ parks than Darryl, and they compiled their 1950s numbers in a decade friendlier to hitters than Strawberry’s peak years in the 1980s.How good was Dwight Gooden at his peak? Think of it this way: Roger Clemens is probably the greatest starting pitcher in history. By the time Clemens was 24 in 1986, he had won 40 games; by the end of 1986, Gooden, 27 months younger than Clemens, had won 58 games. By 1988, the last time he would appear in the postseason with the Mets, Gooden had still won more games than Clemens, 91 to 78. Not until 1991 would Clemens pass up the faltering Doc, 134 wins to 132. From there through the end of his career in 2000, Gooden won just 62 more games. From 1991 until now, Clemens has won 207.I would bet that in all of modern baseball history, no team has ever fielded two greater young teammates who did not make the Hall of Fame. And Darryl and Doc were far from the Mets’ only Cooperstown candidates:Keith Hernandez. “Mex” won a batting crown and MVP award in 1979 with the Cardinals. In 1986, Hernandez was just 33, had hit over .300 seven times, and was the best fielding first baseman in the game. After 1986, he deteriorated with shocking swiftness; he had just four more seasons in the big leagues.Ron Darling – or Ron, Darling, as a gay friend of mine used to call him – the walking, breathing epitome of the scholar-athlete, a Yale University grad who looked like he was sent to the Mets from central casting. Should he have been a Hall of Famer? In 1986 he sure looked like one, going 15-6 with a 2.81 ERA and 18 consecutive scoreless innings against the Red Sox in the World Series. By the end of the 1988 season, he was a career 73-41 and still promising greatness. Was it the New York high life that took away his fastball? He retired before his 36th birthday.Sid Fernandez. Drugs took Darryl, Doc, and Mex’s Hall of Fame chances; Sid Fernandez’s best years went to an addiction of another kind. For most of his career he pitched 30-40 pounds overweight, and the strain it put on his arm and shoulder left him largely ineffective after 1992. At his best, Sid was even more unhittable than Gooden, dominating the NL with the game’s best breaking ball. Three times he held the league’s hitters to the lowest batting average in the circuit. In 15 seasons, opponents hit just .209 off him. Want a comparison? Hitters averaged .227 off Walter Johnson.From 1986-89, Fernandez was 54-29; from 1990-97, he was 45-51; and, in the words of one teammate “drawing snickers when he would appear undressed in the locker room” – probably because he spent most of his time devouring Snickers in the locker room.Joining Fernandez on the staff was Jesse Orosco, or Jesse “Is He Still Around?” Orosco. Jesse hung around long enough to become the butt of more bad jokes than any Met since Marv Throneberry.(How did they miss getting Orosco to pitch for the United States in the World Baseball Classic?) But at the end of the 1986 season, Orosco was no laughing matter. From 1979-86, he won 44 games and saved 91; from 1982-86 his ERAs were 2.72, 1.47, 2.59, 2.73, and 2.33. In 1986 he was just 28 and had already made two All-Star teams. Over the next 16 years he had an ERA under 3.00 just three times.The 1986 Mets had three other players who might and probably could have developed into candidates for the Hall. The first was Lenny “Nails” Dykstra, potentially the finest NL leadoff hitter of his time. In 1986, Dykstra hit .295 with eight home runs and 31 stolen bases in just 431 at-bats. Due to a combination of injuries and the Mets’ refusal to make a commitment to him, he was shuttled off to Philadelphia where he blossomed into a major star, hitting over .300 with power, speed, and leadership. Dykstra took the Phillies on his back to the World Series in 1993 after leading the NL in hits, walks, and runs. Seven injury-plagued seasons later, he was out of the game.The second was Kevin Mitchell, part of the amazing ’86 bench that was the Mets’ true strength. A tremendous power hitter who could play outfield and third base and also fill in at short, Mitchell was dealt to San Diego for Kevin McReynolds amid swirls of rumors that his street gang past made him a “bad influence” on certain teammates. At 27, with the San Francisco Giants, Mitchell found a home, hitting 47 home runs in 1989 and winning the MVP award. The next year, despite some injuries, he still hit 35 home runs. He was only 28, but he would have just seven more seasons in the big leagues.Finally, there was one more budding superstar who won’t factor in to most fans’ memories of 1986. If power and speed signify greatness in waiting, then Howard Johnson’s career is a mystery. Johnson saw just 88 games as Ray Knight’s backup in ’86, but from 1988-91, Johnson’s power and speed numbers looked like those of Barry Bonds: He averaged 31 home runs and 32 stolen bases per season. A terrible third baseman, HoJo could never quite find a natural defensive position. By 35 he was out of the game, unable to hit .200 in 1995 with the Cubs in one of the game’s best hitters’ parks, Wrigley Field. Go figure.In 2003, the 1986-88 Mets finally got themselves a Hall of Famer when Gary Carter was inducted. That one of the game’s five or six best catchers had to wait 11 years after his retirement to be invited to Cooperstown was a disgrace; but then, having played on the late 1980s Mets, maybe he had just been written off by many as an underachiever.Roger Kahn immortalized the Jackie Robinson Dodgers with a line, “the Boys of Summer,” from a Dylan Thomas poem. The entire line seems more appropriate to the ’86 Mets: “I have seen the boys of summer in their ruin …”Mr. Barra is the author, most recently, of “The Last Coach: A Life of Paul ‘Bear’ Bryant.”

The Greatest Team That Never Was

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