Who would have thought we’d be here? The 2015 Mets put together an 11-game win streak! It’s the fifth time the Mets have reached 11 straight victories. And each time has been a surprise. I think even the 1927 Yankees might have been surprised by an 11-game win streak, especially since their longest win streak during their 110-win, 60-HR, 4-game sweep season was 9. But 11 has come at interesting times for the Mets in the past, and almost all of them came early in the years 1969, 1972, 1986, and 1990. Some transformed the season, some merely helped prop them into contention.
The 1969 Mets had never had a winning season, and believe it or not, had only once even been over .500—a lofty 2-1 in the first week of 1966. Early in the ’69 season it looked like 2-1 was the closest the Mets would get to a winning mark, but in mid-May they touched .500, and when queried about the greatness of the moment, Tom Seaver shot back, “What’s .500?” As the beat writers shook their heads at the arrogance of this kid who didn’t know where his team came from, it seemed the baseball gods agreed as the Mets dropped their next five, including their first ever game with the expansion San Diego Padres. Then the baseball gods revealed what they had in store for the 1969 Mets. The Mets won the next 11 in a row, all of them against the West Coast teams that had long filled Shea and stuck the Mets with loss after loss. Of the 11, only the last win—a 9-4 win over the Giants, was by more than three runs. Two of the wins were 1-0 games decided in extra innings. Even after the winning streak ended and the Mets dropped two straight, they won 9 of 12. Though the Cubs had a big lead, the Mets had more magic up their sleeve, ending with a stream of ticker tape down Lower Broadway that October.
Gil Hodges, who had guided that Mets team to its unlikely 1969 world championship, died suddenly in spring training 1972. Yogi Berra was installed as manager, the front office heartlessly calling a press conference the afternoon of the funeral to announce Berra as manager and Rusty Staub as right fielder, a deal Hodges had pushed for. The Mets players were sad and also angry at the callous way the team handled the situation, so of course they went out and had what stood as the best start in the team’s first 24 seasons of existence. The Mets were already 14-7 and in first place when Jerry Grote singled home Cleon Jones in the bottom of the ninth for a 2-1 victory over the Giants on May 12, the same week the Mets acquired Willie Mays. The next thing you knew the Mets had an 11-game win streak and a six-game lead. That’s where the good times ended. On June 1 the Mets were 30-11 and five games in front. From that point on they went 53-62 as everybody got hurt and the team regressed to the mean. Though there would be magic in 1973, the ’72 season turned out to be a dead end.
The 1986 Mets started the year 2-3 and didn’t look good doing it, the exact same point where the 2015 edition came in. Unlike the 2015 team, however, the ’86 Mets wsere expected to contend for a title. A week and a half into the season, the ’86 Mets had more rainouts than wins when they took on the Phillies on Friday, April 18. They won that game and then swept the series. On Monday the Mets rallied for two in the ninth against the Pirates and they swept the series. The Mets went into St. Louis, where their dreams of a division title had been crushed the previous fall, and were down by two runs in the ninth when Howard Johnson crushed a game-tying home run off Todd Worrell. When the Mets won the next inning, it was the first game—regular-season game, mind you—the Cardinals had lost when leading in the ninth since 1984. The Mets swept the four-game series. They won the first two games in Atlanta before the Braves ended the streak at 11. The Mets had a five-game lead after 16 games. They would fulfill the prophesy of Davey Johnson: Dominate.
I didn’t have much in the way of recall for the 1990 streak until I looked it up. It turned out to be the only one of these streaks prior to 2015 where I saw any of it in person. And even that is open to interpretation. It was in June and I was at the sixth game in the streak, though it looked enough like a loss where my buddies ands I left early to see the end of the Buick Classic golf tournament in Rye. It was a horrendous decision because the Mets won while we were stuck in the Shea parking lot getting out, and the finish of the Buick Classic was about as exciting as a pro making a two-foot putt. I wasn’t living in the area and was visiting, yet I was still plenty angry they’d fired Davey Johnson on top of trading all the guys who had made 1986 a year to remember (and not just because of an April win streak). The 1990 winning streak helped keep the Mets in the divisional race until the final week, when the Pirates finally finished them off. The streak was the high point of the Bud Harrelson regime.
So here we are at 11. In baseball these things change frequently, so I am getting this up on the site. If the streak keeps going, I’ll keep writing. If the Mets crash through the ceiling and into the land of dozen, stay tuned. If not, then look back on this when things might not be going as well. It is a long season. Even the ’86 Mets had a losing road trip, that is “a” as in one. In the meantime, try comedian Jim Breuer for pertinent Mets updates. Besides the streak, that’s the best thing I’ve seen all season.
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An thanks to Gelf Magazine and Le Poisson Rouge for having me to Varsity Letters. It was pretty fun dashing for the train with the Mets game blasting the radio call over my phone. Still saw a lot of Yankees garb in the big city, including some worn by the family of Ed Lucas, who was the nightcap on our doubleheader—or more accurately, I was opening up for him. Great man, great stories, and a great-sounding book, Seeing Home. I plan on experiencing it in the audio version. And Ed—and his son Chris—have turned me around on my attitude about the late Phil Rizzuto, who was instrumental in helping him forge a career in baseball despite not being able to see. “Holy cow, Messer, you’re making me sound like a hero!” God bless you, Scooter. And Ed Lucas.