Congratulations Red Sox

Mets Blog reminds us Note: Anniversary of the Buckner Ball.

It’s a good recap and reminds you just how close the Mets were to not winning in 1986.  Buckner makes that out and we head to another inning and who knows what happens.  It’s romantic to think Buckner steps on first and the Sox win but the game was already tied.

I often say “if only we had blogs then…” but I would have loved ripping the Mets over the “Congratulations Red Sox” story.  That really did happen, I had friends who were at the game tell me about it the next day.   I wonder if there’s a photo of it somewhere.

Here’s a recap from Boston written in 2004.

They led the Series, 3 games to 2. They were in New York and took a 5-3 lead into the bottom of the 10th. The first two Mets went out on harmless fly balls. The message board operator at Shea Stadium hit a button and “CONGRATULATIONS BOSTON RED SOX” flashed on the scoreboard.

Across Red Sox Nation, fans held champagne bottles. Some made the mistake of popping corks. Parents took sleeping babies from cribs and held the infants up in front of the television so they’d be able to tell them later they’d witnessed history.

My friend Jim the Yankees fan was going to call me to torture me once the Mets made the final out.   I was dreading the call and waiting for the phone to ring.  At school on Monday he told me he had my entire number dialed except the last digit and that my phone would have rang one second after the Mets loss.

In the middle of the night I woke up laughing at the thought that Jerry Manuel should start wearing #3 like how Girardi chose #27.  Come on Jerry, do it.

One Reply to “Congratulations Red Sox”

  1. I saw the title of the post and laughed. If I hear or see it in the TV broadcast on the DVD, I'll get it for you. I love watching HBO's documentary "Curse of the Bambino" when it gets to this part (and the updated version with the '04 ALCS). Something about that gets me. the story you tell of the phone call from the Yankee fan was in there too under a different guise. quite a day it was 23 years ago.

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