Dipping Into The Archives Vol. 16
1987
The 1987 Mets season provided a classic example of Year After Hangover Syndrome. By now it’s fairly common to see teams that had made deep postseason runs experience hurdles the following season, often due to that extra month of games robbing players of necessary recovery time before the grind starts up again in the spring. Of course, if that extended playoff run ends with a championship, it’s all worth it. And to be fair, not all of the injuries the 1987 pitching staff suffered can be blamed on heavier than normal workloads the previous season. Ron Darling’s year ended in September due to a thumb injury he suffered while fielding a bunt. And Dwight Gooden’s absence for the first two months was not because of injury, but because of a suspension after testing positive for cocaine. But overall the team’s unsuccessful attempt to follow up with a repeat title was largely due to an epidemic of injuries to the starting rotation. The likes of John Mitchell and Don Schulze started multiple games that year. Even John Candelaria came aboard in September for a few starts. How many of you even remember that Candelaria was briefly a Met?
One of the toughest decisions a front office needs to make is how long to stick with the core of a championship club. GMs often say that it’s better to break up a team one year too early than one year too late, so that theory means that difficult decisions need to be made. The 1987 Mets made some culling from the back portion of the roster; it’s not as if there was an uproar over Randy Niemann’s departure. But this season already saw some significant changes made to the club.
There was some time in the 30 For 30 episode on this team focused on the team’s cutting ties with Ray Knight. On balance, it was a justifiable move. For all of his postseason heroics, it’s also true that he had hit poorly in 1985, and although he bounced back to have a solid ‘86, he was also 34 years old and his departure freed up more playing time for Howard Johnson, who responded with a 30-30 season. In addition, he had a poor season with the Orioles in ‘87, so it’s obvious that his decline phase was in full effect and that the time was right. The Mets could have still handled things better; it felt a little cold and Knight was estranged from the organization for many years. They could have certainly treated the World Series MVP a little better, particularly one who so perfectly epitomized the clubhouse culture that had made this such a special team. That’s particularly important when one considers that the major trade acquisition made this offseason was for a player whose personality and general vibe always appeared so diametrically opposed to what had become the Mets Way.
The team’s primary offseason acquisition (it wouldn’t be until 1988 that we all realized how good David Cone was) was Kevin McReynolds. Now, he was a solid player - an above average middle of the lineup hitter, a decent base runner, an exceptional defensive left fielder. On the surface he sounds like exactly the type of younger player you would want to inject into a lineup. But… man, did he not fit with this team. Who knows how driven he actually was, but that laconic, laid back personality of his did not square up with the rest of the roster. Worse, among the players traded for him was Kevin Mitchell. One of the stated reasons for his departure was that the front office alleged he was a bad influence on Gooden and Strawberry. OK, but he also had a vital role on the ‘86 club as the chief jack of all trades, even serving as a backup shortstop. It’s worth questioning how much playing team he would have gotten on the ‘87 club, and to be fair the Padres gave up on him themselves after only one year, but being that he won the MVP award in 1989 with the Giants, it sure looks like he would have forced his way into earning more at bats as a Met. As for McReynolds, he spent several productive seasons at Shea, but the fanbase never warmed up to him and he never developed an affinity for New York. When people point to the explanations for the slow demise of the championship squad, he is one of the first reasons that comes up. A bit unfair, as he was a good player, but there’s a reason that few fans have warm fuzzy feelings when they remember the guy.
A side effect of McReynolds’ presence is that it brought back the struggle to find sufficient playing time for both Mookie Wilson and Lenny Dykstra. I should also note that looking through this yearbook brought up something that I had forgotten; Mookie used to sport shades while hitting in day games. I’m not sure if this photo does it justice, but he looked so damn cool.
Off the field an important development in local media took place, as WFAN signed on for the first time. Sports talk radio existed long before ‘FAN, but this was the first station to go all-sports 24/7. This harmed the perception of the club, specifically that of Davey Johnson. Over the next few years there was a swarm of callers with some form of the “If I managed the team they would have won 5 titles” arguments. Which is a shame, I never realized there was so much untapped managerial talent in the New York area. That constant criticism helped create a negative image of Johnson as a guy who just happened to be managing a talented team, not realizing that his leadership was a chief reason why that club was as successful as it was. The irony is that this feeling took root in 1987, as this season arguably produced his finest managerial work. To keep a club this ravaged by pitching injuries in the hunt all season took a lot of skill. Additional kudos should go to one of the unsung heroes of this season. Terry Leach filled in well, both starting and relieving where needed, contributing 11 victories to the cause.
A couple of notes concerning the Mets 1987 broadcast crew. First, who did Gary Thorne piss off enough that they chose THIS photo to use? Additionally, this photo spread was only devoted to the game callers, but in ‘87 Howie Rose made his debut as a Mets reporter for WFAN. It would still be a few years until he began doing play-by-play, however, so it would be some time before he would begin to put in in the books (or have his photo appear in the yearbook.)
In addition to Kevin McReynolds, Gregg Jefferies is the player most often cited when the dissolution of the ‘86 team is brought up. I can discuss him further in future years, as he only made a few pinch hitting appearances in ‘87. His real MLB debut was yet to come, but I find this photo striking. He was often accused of selfishness; it seems fitting that he’s out of uniform in this picture.
As mentioned, 1987 did not go as well as the previous season did, but there were a few individual accomplishments. Howard Johnson reached stardom, and Darryl Strawberry joined him in the 30-30 club. Despite the myriad of issues the team had, they remained solidly in second place all season, but were never able to seriously threaten St. Louis. They would have a much better 1988. I’ll end this look into the 1987 yearbook with perhaps the greatest cultural contribution the ‘86 team made; and I’m not talking about the Let’s Go Mets Go video. It is of course the introduction of the rally caps!
A note regarding the entries for the next 2 weeks. I don’t have either the 1988 or 1989 yearbooks, but both of those seasons are worthy of deep dives, so I’ll still look at each of these seasons. I just won’t have the yearbooks to use as templates.
The Latest In Conference Realignment Shenanigans
Remember the days when Jon & Kate Plus 8 was a big hit, and so many questioned what the hell a show like that was doing on The Learning Channel? As others pointed out, the network had long since rebranded into simply TLC. It wasn’t even an acronym at that point, it was simply 3 letters strung together that meant nothing. It wasn’t alone among cable networks in that regard. Music has become only a minor portion of MTV programming, A&E shows much more entertainment than art, and there isn’t very much specifically British programming shown on BBC America. I could go on, but you get my point.
By now that’s the same tactic that should be used with the names of college conferences. It’s more than just the Big 10 and Big 12 conferences both containing significantly more members than their names would indicate. We’ve reached peak absurdity with the Atlantic Coast Conference’s decision to add Cal, Stanford, and SMU to their ranks. Just go with it and refer to it as the ACC as a default. The official conference name has so meaning anymore. Ignore the fact that student athletes will spend more time in airports and hotels than they will in classrooms. And how about at this potential solution to the issue of travel time and travel costs in regard to the non-revenue sports? It has been suggested that games between schools on opposite coasts meet in the middle and play their games in Dallas. Utterly ridiculous. The model for college sports is broken, and not even all the king’s horses can put this one back together. The search for the filthy lucre of football money has ruined a good thing.
Ugh
A huge welcome change in recent years has been society’s increasing tendency to no longer overlook domestic violence from public figures. The major sports leagues all have vigorous DV policies in place, and they have enough leeway to severely punish players if internal investigations show that suspensions are warranted, regardless of whether or not criminal charges are filed. We’ve come a long way from an era in which this old article from The Onion nails it because it’s not far removed from reality.
The core question is how to treat athletes after they have completed their suspensions. If one chooses to forever condemn a player with domestic violence charges in their past, that’s certainly a reasonable feeling. But under specific conditions I do feel that a second chance is warranted. First, I want to see genuine remorse, ideally if someone clearly speaks from the heart and is not simply reading something that a PR team wrote up for him. Second, he must fully understand that this is his only chance at redemption. It can never, never happen again.
That’s why yesterday’s news about Julio Urias was so disheartening. With one instance of DV already in his past, he clearly did not learn his lesson. What this means for the Dodgers’ pennant drive or for his own pending free agency is insignificant. Obviously no conclusions should be drawn until the league completes its investigation but his history creates a disturbing pattern. Violence against women can never be acceptable. We’ve come so far, but we clearly still have a long way to go.
While You Weren’t Watching
The 1962 Mets’ place in history survives another year. The Royals have 43 victories and A’s have 42, which means that unless Oakland loses every remaining game this season (they’re bad, but not THAT bad) they will not match the Mets dubious mark of 120 losses in a season. Lost in all the attention that Oakland gained early in the year for their ineptitude is the fact that Kansas City has been just as terrible. In fact, as hard as it is to believe, they only lead Oakland by a half game in the overall standings. The race to the bottom between the two bears watching in a looking at a car accident kind of way.
In addition, this has stealthy snuck up on us as well. Luis Arraez had flirted with a .400 batting average for much of the first half of the year. No one believed that he would actually hit .400 for the season, but as Arraez’s average has dropped Freddie Freeman’s has steadily risen. As unimaginable as this might have seemed as recently as July, Arraez is in slight danger of losing the batting title to Freeman. Arraez has just started another hot streak so he has once again put some distance between the two, but there was a point last week in which Freeman had gotten within fewer than a dozen percentage points of the lead. With the understanding that batting average is not as meaningful a measure of hitting skill as other stats are, it’s still cool to see this race develop. It would be remarkable if Freeman pulls it off.
Ron Does It Again
In retrospect one of the most consequential political moments in recent years took place in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy back in 2012. President Obama toured New Jersey and pledged federal aid to the state. As part of the photo op portion of the presidential visit, Chris Christie was shown doing such apparently unforgivable acts as shaking the President’s hand and the two warmly patting each other’s backs. Which is what adults do. Regardless of political differences both sides should come together and assist each other in times of crisis. But there was political blowback, it seems that Christie’s critics felt he must have caught Obama Cooties by being seen in public with the man, let alone touching him.
We continue to see the ramifications of that to this day. It goes beyond Dear Leader’s constant threats to withhold aid from blue states - not to overplay the equivalency game, but can you imagine the reaction if Joe Biden would turn his back on a red state following a natural disaster? But that’s a moot point, because regardless of one’s feelings toward President Biden, he is a decent man and understands that we’re all in this together. But of course Ron DeSantis did not pass up an opportunity to act like a complete dick.
He refused to meet with Biden as the President visited Florida following Hurricane Idalia. It’s certainly worth noting that Senator Rick Scott went out of his way to praise Biden and the federal response when the two met with first responders. But even that bit of decency was asking too much of DeSantis. What a small, petty man. It was also really awful to see how poorly the New York Times framed the story as that publication continues to both sides itself to death. Just look at that headline. It reads as if to imply that it’s Biden’s fault, not DeSantis’ that the two chief executives did not meet.
Closing Time
Hope everyone had an enjoyable long weekend and that you all safely escaped Burning Man. Thanks for reading and we’ll be back again tomorrow.