Red Sox, Series at Their Feet, Unravel in 10th : Mets Turn Back Clock to 1969 for a Miracle

They came from behind to win 39 times during the regular season. They came from behind three times against the Houston Astros in the National League playoffs.

But this?

Keith Hernandez, the usually calm, cool and very collected New York Mets first baseman, put it in perspective.

“This was our ultimate comeback,” Hernandez said. “I mean, two outs, two runs behind, nobody on base. This is one time a Lenny Dykstra homer isn’t going to save us. The season’s over. I mean, we’ve got a club that never dies, but this. I don’t believe it. It’s unbelievable. It’s nothing short of awesome.”

Hernandez stood in an electric Met clubhouse at 12:30 EDT this morning.

The calendar still read 1986, but it seemed more like a page out of the Mets’ Miracle of ’69.

This was moments after they had done the unbelievable, scoring three runs with two outs for a 6-5, 10th-inning victory that deprived the Boston Red Sox of their first World Series championship since 1918 and set up a climactic seventh game tonight.

What impact will the stunning events of that 10th inning have on the Red Sox? And on the Mets?

Said Rick Aguilera, the winning pitcher who had given up the two runs in the top of the 10th that seemed to doom the Mets:

“I think the tide has turned our way. I think the Red Sox have to feel it. They were one out from winning the World Series, and now we’re back in it, one game from winning it. We’re on our home field with the support of a crowd that’s going to be bananas after what we did tonight.”

Said Darryl Strawberry, when asked if he thought the Red Sox were finished:

“No question about it. The big thing is that we wanted this second chance against Oil Can Boyd (who pitches for Boston tonight). We wanted to beat him again after all the smart things he had to say about us in Boston.

“When a guy is prancing and showboating out there and gets shelled after saying all kinds of things about what he’s going to do to a team he’s never faced before, I’ve got no respect for him. None at all.”

Strawberry wanted a seventh game for other reasons as well. He was taken out of Game 6 as part of a double switch in the eighth inning and wasn’t happy about it.

The fact he had stranded 15 runners in this World Series and was 4 for 22 didn’t prompt him to think the move was justified.

“It’s happened only once before and that was in April,” Strawberry said. “This is the World Series. It was embarrassing. It hurt. It was frustrating to be here in the clubhouse during that 10th inning when you’ve been a part of the club all year.

“I mean, this is when you go with what got you here, but the manager obviously doesn’t have confidence in me. I’m very disturbed about it, but I have a chance now to redeem myself tomorrow.

“I’m going out there to do it for myself and for my teammates. That’s it.”

Strawberry, at least, wasn’t alone in the clubhouse as the Mets rallied.

Hernandez had come in after making the second out of the 10th inning. He opened a beer--perhaps to cry in--and sat down behind Manager Davey Johnson’s desk to watch the season end via television.

Then . . .

“Well,” Hernandez said, “(Gary) Carter got a hit, then we got another, then we got a third, and I was going to get my glove and go back out there, but I said to myself, ‘Hey, you ain’t movin’, you ain’t goin’ anywhere.’ That was a lucky seat and I wasn’t going to leave it even if Davey got mad at me for sitting in it.”

Lucky?

“Call it what you want,” third baseman Ray Knight said, “but you make your own destiny. We never give up. We’re not out there doing it with mirrors.”

Knight looped the third of the Mets’ three straight hits in the 10th--a two-strike flare over second baseman Marty Barrett’s head.

It made the score 5-4 and put the tying run on third.

Knight regarded it as redemption for a seventh-inning throwing error that allowed the Red Sox to take a 3-2 lead.

“I’ve always been able to cope with errors because I have so many positives in my life,” he said, “but I don’t know how I would have handled an error that cost us the World Series.

“I came off the field after that inning and said a little prayer. I didn’t want to be the goat. I wanted to get another chance. I wanted a shot at redemption.”

Knight was behind Calvin Schiraldi, 0 and 2, when he delivered.

“My concentration was at such an acute level that I was thinking about nothing else expect making contact,” he said. “I think I’m a better hitter with two strikes because I don’t overswing. I was like numb--in a trance.

“Now, all I want is a soft pillow. I’m very, very tired.”

Aguilera, a right-hander from Edgewood High School in West Covina, was very relieved.

“I didn’t feel badly about the pitch (Dave) Henderson hit for a home run (in the top of the 10th),” he said, “because it was where I wanted it, and he just did a good job of hitting.

“But I was real disappointed that they got the second run (on a double by Wade Boggs and a single by Barrett). I felt like the two runs were almost too much to come back from. I was crushed. I was heartbroken. I sat there when we had two outs (in the home 10th) thinking about how long the off-season was going to be, how I didn’t even want to face it.

“I mean, the goat horns were halfway out when they took me off the hook. What a feeling. What a relief to know we’re still alive.”

Aguilera yielded to pinch-hitter Kevin Mitchell after Gary Carter had kept the Mets alive with the first of the two-out hits in the 10th. Mitchell also singled to put Carter on second. The single by Knight scored Carter and put Mitchell on third, from where he scored the tying run on a wild pitch by Bob Stanley.

Mitchell said that third-base coach Bud Harrelson told him to be alert for a wild pitch because of Stanley’s sinker.

“I was getting a big lead,” he said, “and once I saw it get past the catcher . . . well, nothing was going to keep me from scoring. I was ready to dive head first because I didn’t think the pitch had enough spin to get too far behind him (catcher Rich Gedman), but it wasn’t necessary.”

Of his single to center, Mitchell said: “I had done a lot of hitting in the cage today, so I felt good at the plate even though I don’t face too many right-handed pitchers. I kept telling myself that I didn’t want to make the last out of the World Series and the season.”

He didn’t. Now?

“Well,” Mitchell said, “Oil Can is pitching for them tomorrow. We hurt him pretty bad in Boston. We’re definitely ready--especially after this.”