Where were you...

...20 years ago tonight, when the Mets finished off the Red Sox in game seven of the ’86 Series and permanently etched the name “Bill Buckner” into the wretched annals of goathood?

Me, I was on the couch in my house in Springfield, PA, a sixteen-year-old Large rooting large for the Red Sox in spite of myself. Oh those 80’s Mets, I hated them. Gary Carter’s hair. Ray Knight’s face. Keith Hernandez’s moustache. If I had known better, I would have chanted “West Village” the entire game and got some very confused looks from my parents.

I remember that at the time it seemed like the Mets winning the series, or more, the Red Sox losing it, was a foregone conclusion after the game six debacle. Which makes it even easier to forget what a rollercoaster game seven it was.

Ron Darling started for the Mets and Bruce Hurst, with two wins already in the series, went for the Sox. Boston went up 3-0 in the second with back-to-back homers from Dwight Evans and Rich Gedman and a Boggs single knocking in Hendo. The Mets didn’t answer until the sixth, when they touched up Hurst for three, Hernandez driving home two with a bases loaded single and then a Carter fielder’s choice scoring pinch-runner Wally Backman.

Then the Mets put up another threespot in the seventh off the real goat of the series, game 6 and 7 loser (and former Met) Calvin Schiraldi. And that was that, although the Sox made it interesting in the top of the 8th with two runs off Roger McDowell before Davey Johnson brought in Orosco (who was probably only like 38 years old in 1986) to shut down the side. Orosco did the job, and made it easy on the New York's collective ticker the next inning, pitching a 1-2-3 ninth.

No Mas presents a 20th anniversary tribute to Game 7 tonight at Classic Kicks, 298 Elizabeth Street (see the CI invite below). Lots of original Mets-inspired art and Reverend Vince and ’86 Series trivia and Brookyln beer and I-berg perpetrating his general retro mayhem. Yours truly will be in attendance. I’ll be the one looking glum in the corner, trying to get someone to talk to me about Bake McBride.

Game seven boxscore, 1986 World Series (retrosheet.org)