Klapisch: Mookie and Buckner: Game 6 of the 1986 World Series
From Bob Klapisch at The National Pastime Museum on September 22, 2017:
It was early 1989, almost three years since the most surreal moment in Mookie Wilson’s professional life. No one in New York had to be reminded. For any Mets fan, the ’86 World Series still had the effect of a hallucinogenic drug. And as for Mookie . . . well, he was a walking advertisement for the impossible. Honest and homegrown, Mookie was on a first-name basis with an entire city, and one of the principals in a surprise ending that’s remembered to this day.
Even casual fans have memorized the sequence of events that doomed the Red Sox in the 10th inning of Game 6. One ground ball hit by Mookie Wilson helped turn the Mets not just into world champs, but modern-day legends—all because Bill Buckner didn’t get his glove down for a grounder that whispered through his legs.
Buckner was a pariah throughout New England, all the way from Yawkey Way to the outer shores of Maine. It would be decades before Red Sox Nation could forgive Buckner, yet he refused to break. Mookie learned first-hand why the Boston first baseman had been one of baseball’s most popular players in the clubhouse—a to-the-core good guy who could’ve easily turned bitter in this case. But didn’t.
Read the full article here: https://www.thenationalpastimemuseum.com/article/mookie-wilson-and-bill-buckner-game-6-1986-world-series
Originally published: September 22, 2017. Last Updated: September 22, 2017.