Hey remember when Frank Viola won 20 games with the Mets? What? He did? Apparently so!
What if I told you that not only did Viola win 20, but Gooden – still on his way to the Hall of Fame and still only age 25- won 19 games! I’ll give you Cone, Sid and the ghost of Ron Darling to fill out the rotation….you gotta be feeling pretty good right? The Mets seem to agree based on the cover.
Well Davey got fired because…I dunno…WFAN or something….and Buddy took over. These would be the dying days (well ’91) of Buddy Harrelson, the Second Most Popular All Time Met and things wouldn’t be the same for Bud in Queens ever again.
The Dynasty was over. The Captains gone, replaced by Dave Magadan and Mackey Sasser. Strawberry is still here but he can’t wait to leave.
91 wins. In the rear view mirror it doesn’t look too bad but at the time kinda disappointing as we’re all looking for that second ring to validate 1986.
The Pirates won 95 games and the NL East, led by Barry Bonds and this guy Bobby Bonilla who seems really good at baseball even if I don’t know how to pronounce his name yet, struggling to say it like Vanilla or making an ñ sound on the N for some reason that makes no sense to me 30 years later. The Pirates also had a 3B named Backman who hit .292.
91 Games would not make the playoffs as we are still in the silver age of baseball (1969-1994) and not letting also rans in the playoffs. The Mets also still had the technology to reproduce the NY in the ball logo, a tech secret lost to time.
