The Immaculate 1986 Mets

Building a grid of champions in orange and blue

The 1986 Mets were the first team that I really got into, as a 5-year-old. When I went to school and they gave us marble notebooks, I guess I wasn’t paying attention when they said we were supposed to write in them, because my teacher was stunned when I asked for a new one so quickly – I’d simply filled my notebook with drawings of the Mets.

When I play Immaculate Grid, the first thing I check is to see if Jesse Orosco works for any of the squares. He often does, having played for the Mets, Dodgers, Cleveland, Brewers, Orioles, Cardinals, Padres, Yankees, and Twins. With 30% of the major leagues covered, there are several possible grids where Orosco, still the majors’ all-time leader in career pitching appearances, would fit any square, and he’ll even work for some non-team categories that IG will throw out there, like a 30-save season, a sub-3.00 ERA season, and All-Star selection.

Last time, I came up with an all-Mets panel for Grid 534, and it got me thinking is a grid of all Mets who played in the 1986 World Series?

There were 36 players who appeared for the Mets in 1986, but only 24 on the World Series roster. Of those, only 22 played against the Red Sox: backup catcher Ed Hearn and reliever Randy Niemann didn’t see action.

To avoid having to construct a grid with a Mets row, we need players who were on at least other two other teams. That eliminates Lenny Dykstra and Mookie Wilson, who only played for the Phillies and Blue Jays, respectively, after leaving New York.

Of the remaining 20 players, there are 13 teams for which at least three of the World Series-winning Mets played. That eliminates Ron Darling (Expos, A’s) and Howard Johnson (Tigers, Cubs, Rockies), whose other teams did not have enough ex-Mets.

Looking closer at the 13 teams with at least a trio of Mets champions, more teams and players are eliminated from consideration. For example, if you want to include Keith Hernandez, you need a St. Louis row and a Cleveland column. The only other eligible Cardinals are Orosco and Rafael Santana, which would leave Dwight Gooden and Bob Ojeda in the Cleveland column.

Since Santana can’t be the St. Louis-Cleveland intersection as Hernandez’s only option, he must go to St. Louis-Yankees. This is a problem because Gooden’s only other viable team is Houston, and Gooden is also the only Series-winning Met to play for both the Astros and Yankees.

Sid Fernandez might have worked for that square, had his 2001 comeback attempt panned out, but the lefty made one appearance for Triple-A Columbus, hurt his leg, and called it quits.

Fernandez is one of the nine players who made it into the grid that I was able to put together: rows of Yankees, Dodgers, and Red Sox, with columns of Astros, Cleveland, and Giants. I don’t know if this is the only six-team combo that works, but the way I have it laid out is…

Rows: Astros (Dwight Gooden, Sid Fernandez, Danny Heep), Cleveland (Rafael Santana, Jesse Orosco, Bob Ojeda), and Giants (Darryl Strawberry, Gary Carter, Kevin Mitchell). Columns: Yankees, Dodgers, Red Sox

This is not the only possible grid, and while I don’t know exactly how many permutations will work of these players in a 3x3 grid, there’s at least one more. Using those Astros — Gooden, Fernandez, Heep — you can add the following rows…

Twins: Jesse Orosco, Wally Backman, Rick Aguilera

Dodgers: Darryl Strawberry, Roger McDowell, Bob Ojeda

In this case, the columns are Yankees, Phillies, Red Sox.

I’m assuredly in the minority, but I really liked the script “New York” on the late 1980s road jerseys. The blue batting practice version, seen on Gooden’s card, would make a better road alternate than the black or the blue with NEW YORK in capital letters… although the road uniform from Carter’s 1986 Topps card, simply a gray version of the home uniform, still with “Mets” in script instead of the city name, remains the most underrated Mets road look.