There were a lot of nervous moments in the finale of the Mets-Padres series in San Diego. But the one that had me as nervous as any situation was when San Diego native Kevin Mitchell entered the booth and talked with Gary Cohen and Ron Darling.
Mitchell was a Met for one year (and parts of a couple others as a September call-up), but he is still a beloved figure in Mets lore. It was his hit, of course, that kept the impossible rally going during the 10th inning of Game Six of the ’86 World Series. It is a linchpin in any 1986 retelling, as it certainly is for One-Year Dynasty. (Come to think of it, that could also be the name for Mitch’s one-year Mets career before going on to be MVP.)
I got a hold of Mitch a year ago after several failed attempts due to health concerns, which left him unable to move for a time. Finally we talked at length on the phone. It was a remarkable interview, and he set a few things straight. One of them was whether he was in the locker room at Shea, naked from the waist down, making reservations to fly home to his native San Diego as the rally began and he was summoned to pinch hit against Mets prospect turned Red Sox closer Calvin Schiraldi. The story has gone around for years and he once even confirmed it for a writer. Ballplayers and their memories can be fluid. Some remember every detail like it just happened a few hours ago. Others seem to have the ability to boil their entire career into one hell of a story that occurred all in one day. I don’t get a lot of scoops, but this one felt as much like a scope for a 30-year-old event. Yet it would be knocked out of the water if he said on the air that he pinch-hit commando.
I breathed easier when Darling said, “Of course you were on the bench the whole time.” Knew it all along. So did Mitch.
Contrary to urban myth, Mitchell was in the dugout the whole time, pants on, ready to pinch-hit. Where else would he have been? “I’ll tell everybody right now: How in the hell was I able to be on deck and get a base hit? I’m a rookie. What the hell am I going to be doing in the clubhouse?” Mitchell said, denying the oft-told story that he had taken off his pants in the clubhouse in the 10th while making plane reservations for home in San Diego. “Everybody has a story to build up the hype. I’m in a World Series game. And I’m learning something, my first World Series. Mookie Wilson told me, ‘Be prepared to hit.’ . . . Why would I be making a reservation when the Mets pay for your flight to go home? As a rookie? Tell me that.”
As an aside, don’t ask him about cutting off a cat’s head—a myth started by Dwight Gooden and perpetuated even in recent years by Darryl Strawberry. Suffice to say, it’s also false. But do ask Mitchell about his at bat against his former minor league roommate, Calvin Schiraldi.
“That was true,” Mitchell said. “He would always talk about how he’d pitch me. And I took the first pitch for a strike on an inside fastball. [Footnote: It was a foul ball on a checked swing.] He always said that he’d start me off with a fastball inside and then he’d throw me a slider. And he did it. And I looked for the slider on the next pitch and got it.”
[One-Year Dynasty, Chapter 14, 2016, Lyons Press]
But then again I’ve known for 30 years that you could trust Kevin Mitchell to come up big when you needed him most. Glad to see he’s feeling a lot better than he was a year ago.
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Going to be in the Albany area on Friday May 20? Or if you weren’t planning to be there, change plans and come on up for Happy Hour on Friday, May 20, at 6 p.m. to the Low Beat. It is the Mets bastion of light in the upstate universe. I’ll be selling One-Year Dynasty and I will also have the new edition of 100 Things Mets Fans Should Know and Do Before They Die. We’ll watch the Mets game and down a couple.
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First review of One Year Dynasty goes to Lloyd Carroll. Writing for Queens publication Good Times Magazine, Carroll said, “For those who want to relive ’86 in vivid detail, check out Matt Silverman’s One-Year Dynasty (Lyons Press). Silverman, who has written many books on the Mets, gets the little details down, including how Lenny Dykstra and Roger McDowell appeared on MTV with Martha Quinn. he also gets a few of the Mets to admit the fear they had for Houston Astros pitcher Mike Scott, and some admit they would have lost Game 7 to them if they had to face him in the National League Championship Series for a third time.” And the first reviewer on amazon.com said it was “fantastic.” Well, my ego’s been soothed for a week.