‘What Life Is All About’ : 2.2 Million New Yorkers Hail Conquering Heroes : New York Takes Holiday to Hail Triumphant Mets

The world champion Mets basked in sunshine, confetti and adulation today as an estimated 2.2 million New Yorkers took to the streets to toast their baseball heroes in a thunderous, chaotic ticker-tape parade.

“This means everything,” second baseman Wally Backman said. “This is what life is all about in New York City.”

Fans knocked over police barricades and flooded the streets of lower Manhattan in a riot of joy as open limousines carrying team members threaded their way slowly up Broadway. It was impossible to tell where the crowd ended and the parade began.

People dangled from trees, perched precariously on ledges and cheered from rooftops and windows as the champs made their way from Battery Park, on the southern tip of the island, to City Hall, slightly less than a mile to the north.

“What the Mets have done is to take New York, the international capital, and turn it into a small town today,” said Mayor Edward I. Koch, who rode in the lead car with Gov. Mario M. Cuomo and Mets Manager Davey Johnson.

Their car was preceded by two Sanitation Department snowplows that scooped up ankle-deep debris. On a gloriously sunny, crisp day, the sky rained tons of paper.

Koch said police estimated the crowd at 2.2 million. He said it was the largest parade in the city’s history.

The Mets won the seventh and final game of the World Series in a come-from-behind, 8-5 victory Monday night at New York’s Shea Stadium. (Stories, Part III.)

Manhattan offices no longer have a steady supply of ticker tape, since computers have mostly replaced the old financial tickers. But a manufacturer of tickers provided what it said was 100 miles of tape and the American Stock Exchange, the City Volunteer Corps and several companies provided bags of shredded paper. Many workers improvised and shredded their own.

“The whole last three days have been unbelievable,” said Mets third baseman Ray Knight, named as the most valuable player of the World Series. “I’ve got goose bumps.”

About two dozen people were treated for minor injuries.