Loved this era of blue jerseys the Mets wore (1982-84). Only on the road and only occasionally. Was very odd how it seemed totally random when they would wear the blues. In 1985 they went to just plain grey uni's on the road and always white at home.
29:15, the high point of the Mets 84 season. They beat the Cubs 2-1 to take a then 4 1/2 game lead for the division & have the best record in the NL. From there the bottom fell out, they would lose the next 3 games at Shea & then the next weekend got swept 4 straight at Wrigley and the Cubs machine rolled the rest of the way. Still a great 84 season for the Mets after so many losing years. This was a building block year for them as in 85 they got Gary Carter and won 98 games finishing just a game or 2 out for the division against St Louis. Then of course it all came together in 1986.
i remember being at the sunday afternoon game against the reds with my dad . the mets won and crowd was going nuts because it was first time in years the mets went into all star break leading the division.
i loved kiners korner in the 70's all the top stars would do the show, what a treat that was. garvey, bob watson, jr richards, bench. rose, lopes, sutton, randy jones, parker, stargell so many to remember.
I knew the Mets would be much improved going in to 1984, considering the young talent that had been percolating thru their farm system in the early 1980s. I estimated they'd finish 1984 in 4th place, like 81-81, not a contender, but a talented bunch of up and comers. I was surprised they skipped the rebuilding .500 also-ran phase and moved right into challenging for the division title. The offense was a know quantity, with Mookie, Hubie, Strawberry, and of course, Hernandez, already proven they were a professional lineup, unusual for a Mets team. What really turned the worm was the rapid maturation of the pitching in the form of Gooden, Darling, Terrell, and Fernandez. It was like they came up as in their prime MLB veterans. I mean, arm after golden arm.
@@glen4338 Chapman proved a major bust in 1985, as he had hitting issues from the start which became fielding issues as the season went on. Keith Hernandez writes about it in his "If At First." Chapman was very solid in 1984 (.289/.356/.401), and his collapse left a hole as the righty platooner at 2B.
Thanks for posting this man....brings back a lot of good childhood memories. The Mets from 1984-1988 were my summers. Pretty much revolved my life as a kid around them growing up in SW CT. And great inclusion of the sportscast with Warner Wolf, Marv Albert and Len Berman. Just awesome....thanks.
Glad you liked it. The 30-30 show Doc and Darryl is premiering Thursday on ESPN - the producers used some of my footage in the film from my 85 and 87 compilations. I was at the private screening last week, highly recommended. (and I got an end-credit!)
I'll never forget being a freshman in college and watching the 1984 Mets with my 2 mates and KFC with all the fixins in the Cortland State Emergency Squad watching Dwight Gooden pitch masterfully. Our fellow squad member was in the adjacent room trying to study and was banging on the walls because we were so loud. We were so oblivious. Boy I miss those days!
I wanted to see the game where my dad ducked under a line drive foul ball and he accidentally dropped a bunch soda a food on a cubs fan and all my dad's fellow met fans cheered. My dad was 30 at the time of game. It was in August of 1984. My dad was shown on national television and he said OH SHIT! My dad was so embarrassed! I wanted to laugh at that. lol
This was a fun year and a fun team. Just came up short vs the Cubs but you saw this coming at the end of 83 with Straw’s callup and the Hernandez trade.
They Mets went in 1984 on the season 9-3 against the Dodgers, 9-3 against the Reds, 8-4 against the Astros, 8-4 against the Braves, 11-7 against the Expos, 10-8 against the Phillies and 12-6 against the Pirates. Had a gut feeling in 1984 that the Mets were going to win a Championship soon within the next couple of years. The Big Pieces of the Puzzle started showing in the Team in 1984. Teams they have trouble with for years like the Astros they dominated that year.
Advanced statistics on baseball-reference.com point to the '84 Mets as being overachievers, and that this team should have finished closer to .500. I think some of that is because they had a few really lopsided losses (losing 14-4, etc.). Still, at the time, this was the second best record in club history, and built on the fan interest that had been ignited during the 2nd half of '83 with the arrivals of Strawberry and Hernandez. This was also the last hurrah for Craig Swan, Ron Hodges, and John Stearns. A "passing of the torch" year from one group to the next. Seaver was a better pitcher in '83 than his W-L record indicated, and what, if any impact he could have had on this club is academic. I would like to think though, that had Seaver been around, the mid 80s Mets would have been less chaotic, which could have helped Doc and Darryl.
Baby Doc & Darryl. SO young here, man these were the days, both 1984 & 85 were great years after a decade in the dumps for the Mets. They continued to get better every year until 86 they dominated.
I wish I did. I didn't have a vcr yet, unfortunately in 1983. I do have a lot from the 90s but I haven't set to organizing and compiling any of it yet. I think I have a partial audio recording of hernandez' first at bat as a Met but I would have to find it.
I don't have as much 1990s stuff which is why I posted 99 and 2000 individually. That is all I have from those years. I thought I had more but I do not
They were one starter shy of winning that year! Tom Seaver,anybody! They were above average at every position accept shortstop! They also had a great bullpin and stayed healthy. The lack of certain batters at the top of the order taking walks probably resulted in a couple of losses. They actually gave up more runs than they scored but were 90-72 but a lot of that was Mike Torres who was 1-7 and was their opening day starter. He was later released but they needed a veteran.
The Mets did not have an offensive catcher, though they had 3 good defensive ones,. Santana was better than average at short. Tom Terrific, winning 15 games, might have pushed them over the top.
wheelinthesky300 Santana did come up until towards the end of that year around the time when Ray Knight joined them. They were a young team and didn't sulk when they lost. Despite finishing in last place, the Pirates led the league in ERA and undoubtedly slowed some higher ranking teams up. On base percentage is what got them that year because Wilson, Backman, and Gardenhire never walked. Other years like 1990-91, when they became "the worst team money could buy" the Mets could not move runners along and were near last in average with runners in scoring position. I still think Howard Johnson hurt the team despite the number of homers he hit. He looked fastball and thus couldn't move runners along when needed.
Ah, somebody that was paying attention! To be fair, he was more or less unhittable in both years, but nobody ever talks about how his decreased leg kick coincided with his decrease in effectiveness. He got very lazy with it, and it was always my belief that was directly correlated with the loss of explosiveness of his fastball. He also got quite thick around his midsection, which I think contributed greatly to the decreased leg kick. His mechanics went to shit, and so did his effectiveness. He also never developed a reliable third pitch, which I blame on Stottlemyre and the coaching staff. He was essentially done by 86, which was a tragedy. And let's be honest, I don't think the "extracurriculars" helped him much.
@@jaykay6387 To be exact, it was the Mets coaching staff that cut down Doc's leg kick, as they thought it was the reason he was having problems keeping runners on first base. If you think about that, its a little ridiculous -even if a runner got on against Doc, odds are he was going to punch out the next batters, so why so focused on the runner? The Mets also incorrectly felt Doc needed a third pitch -again, ridiculous as both his fastball and curve were "tens out of ten", a la Sandy Koufax. Mel Stottlemyre imposed a cut fastball on Doc, which never became a dominant pitch and decreased his overall velocity. Doc was not some run-of-the-mill pitcher who needed to be improved. He was a once in a generation talent with two pitches so explosive that conventional rules did not apply. Gary Carter commented about this after his retirement, and said the Mets "should have just left him alone".
@@wheelinthesky300 I wasn't aware that they "actively" tried to cut down on his leg kick. Totally asinine. Yes, he was at least "Koufax adjacent" in terms of talent. Sandy had 5 unhittable years, Doc had two, and should have had more. In 85, I remember hitters basically waving at his fastball upstairs, he was making them look foolish. That was the most dominant year I ever saw a pitcher have, with Ron Guidry in 78 a close second. Guidry threw extremely hard for a few years, but he had that devastating cut fastball that dove. Back to Doc, I think some of it is on him with the pharmaceuticals, he was not the same guy by 86. I remember even the Red Sox were commenting that he wasn't all that dominant, and anybody paying attention that year knew something wasn't right. I'm not sure having a third pitch is going to take away velocity, but I don't ever remember in those years him using more than the fastball and the 12 to 6 curve (which also lost some bite and consistency). But once you lose dominance with the two pitches, I don't disagree in theory that you should add something else, at least a change if you can't blow away hitters any more. As great as he was, he was not Nolan Ryan, or even Tom Seaver, who had great stuff and was an "artist" on the mound.
@@jaykay6387 The efforts of the Mets coaches to "improve" Doc Gooden were widely reported in the mid-80s. I was confounded by it at the time. The guy wins 17 his rookie year, 24 his sophomore season -what is there to improve? Doc's use of drugs doomed his career. True. Third pitches may not reduce velocity, but cut fastballs can, and did to Doc. From Sports Illustrated, May 22, 1993: _____________________________________ Gooden started losing the hop on his fastball in 1987, after his return from a drug rehabilitation program. He began using a cut fastball, dropping his arm a little in his delivery, which produces a pitch with a slight break that resembles a slider. He threw so many cut fastballs that he became sloppy with his highest-octane heater, letting that pitch go from a lower angle, too. His fastball had deteriorated so badly by 1991 that, after one pasting by the Philadelphia Phillies that year, former teammate Wally Backman marched into the Met clubhouse and asked him, "Doc, what are you doing? That thing is about a yard shorter." "He said he wasn't even trying to cut the ball," Backman says. Gooden had lost the natural action on his fastball. Though the Mets still clock his heater around 93 mph on the slower of the two radar guns used by major league teams, Backman says, "It doesn't have that rise to it anymore." "He lost the movement because of throwing the cut fastball over time," Stottlemyre says. "And because of injuries to his shoulder, his arm strength wasn't always there to get the proper extension." ____________________________________ In 1984 and 1985, Doc was every bit as good as Seaver and Ryan in their primes. Except those guys primes lasted 10-20 years.
@@jaykay6387 According to Sports Illustrated, March 22, 1993: ***** 'Gooden started losing the hop on his fastball in 1987, after his return from a drug rehabilitation program. He began using a cut fastball, dropping his arm a little in his delivery, which produces a pitch with a slight break that resembles a slider. He threw so many cut fastballs that he became sloppy with his highest-octane heater, letting that pitch go from a lower angle, too. His fastball had deteriorated so badly by 1991 that, after one pasting by the Philadelphia Phillies that year, former teammate Wally Backman marched into the Met clubhouse and asked him, "Doc, what are you doing? That thing is about a yard shorter." "He lost the movement because of throwing the cut fastball over time," Stottlemyre says. "And because of injuries to his shoulder, his arm strength wasn't always there to get the proper extension."' *****
@@MrJsfingers Gary certainly handled the staff well, and contributed some heavy hitting seasons, but I think the Mets were so talented with farmhands that they were going to win it all at some point in the mid-80s with or without Carter.
If the Mets had somehow dumped Foster and his salary after 1983 or 1984, and maybe played Danny Heep in left field, they would have been a better team. Foster was really a drag on their progress.
Giving Foster that big contract was obviously a dumb move, especially at age 33 with his numbers in free-fall over his last 4 years in Cincy. But he actually had fairly good seasons for the Mets in 84 and 85 so I don't think he was holding them back at that point,in fact the team improved quite a bit from 83 to 85 with him still as an everyday player.They dumped him when they needed to in 86.
@@Fordham1969 His numbers in 1984 and 1985 were merely mediocre. They could have replaced him with anybody. Especially with somebody who had a future. Furthermore, he did not hit in the clutch, and was bad for team morale.
@@wheelinthesky300 I'd say he was a bit better than mediocre, particularly in 85. His OPS was slightly better than Mookie and Heep and much better than Dykstra, who was definitely a player with a future but clearly wasn't ready for the big time until the following season. The 85 team won 98 games with him hitting in the 6th spot most of the year so I don't believe he could have hurt them much, in fact I'd say he helped a bit. In 86 when he faltered and Dykstra and Mitchell were able to make major contributions that was the time for him to go and The Mets made the right move in releasing him and adding Maz.
@@Fordham1969 Not really fair comparisons. Heep was a part time player who was expected to produce after long stretches on the bench. Dykstra came up after the season started in 1985 and shared center with Mookie. Also, Lenny was just a rookie feeling the league out.
