Gary Carter really was a decent human being. Why does it seem like he was the only one from that 1986 team? I would never call what happened to Lenny Dykstra a tragedy because he made his own choices, but I can't fathom how ANOTHER '86 Met just couldn't get his shit together. Dykstra joins the list of Gooden, Strawberry, Mitchell, Backman, and Ojeda...hell, even Davey Johnson was blackballed from the game and he was (relatively) clean.
What is it about that '86 squad that wound up producing that bunch of drug users, tax cheats, wife beaters, et al? I'm not naive enough to think they were the ONLY guys getting into trouble but that '86 stigma is so bad, that it scared the Wilpons from acknowledging it for years.
It's ironic that as we say goodbye to one iconic Met, we shake our heads yet again at another one.
We had Jeff Pearlman on our podcast last year and I never bought his explanation that it was Cashen who felt the need to trade Kevin Mitchell for McReynolds and thus subsequently the demise of the 80s Mets. I found it suspect that it was only weeks after the Wilpon/Katz consortium bought 50% of the Mets that it all changed. That team was so bad ass that they ruled baseball and all of America practically. They certainly ruled NYC. If you think about it, the only guys who turned their shit around were Darling, Mex, Straw and Doc. It's just amazing that Lenny, who was really comic relief, is the one who is most fucked of all. Huh.
ReplyDeleteHey, don't forget my fav'rit (Mookie)! He was just as decent as Gary was.
ReplyDeleteLenny would probably have turned out all right had no never played for the Phillies. That city tends to turn people into miserable human beings.
Oh yeah, look at McDowell. Not even there for a couple of months before he started fighting...
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