Mets could be apple of New York’s eye again

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In 1969, it was the Miracle Mets who won the World Series after seven years of wandering in the National League’s subbasement. A mere 17 years later, the Mets won their second World Series, beating the Red Sox in one of the most memorable series ever.

From 1986, the year of Buckner’s Folly, through 1988, when the Mets went back to the playoffs only to lose to the Dodgers, the Mets actually owned New York.

That was when the Yankees were a warped reflection of the old Bronx Zoo of 1976-81, when they went to four World Series, winning two of them. Encouraged by his early success with free agents like Reggie Jackson, George Steinbrenner kept spending money until he’d assembled one of the most dysfunctional teams ever seen.

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As the Yankees stumbled through the 1980s, the only decade since the arrival of Babe Ruth during which they didn’t win a title, the Mets grabbed the city’s attention with two extraordinary kids — Doc Gooden and Darryl Strawberry, and a truly great team led by Keith Hernandez and Gary Carter that ran through the National League in 1986 like grass through a goose.

Shea Stadium was packed every night during that season and the two that followed. And, it seemed, the good times would last forever.

But Frank Cashen, the general manager who put the team together, just as quickly took it apart. When he traded the mercurial Kevin Mitchell for the publicity-shy Kevin McReynolds — thinking Mitchell a bad influence on Gooden and Strawberry, when it was probably really the other way around — the team started slow and steady decline.

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It wasn’t until 1994, though, that the Yankees returned to prominence. They were headed for the playoffs that year when the players went on strike and canceled the rest of the season. The following year, they made the playoffs. A year later, with Joe Torre now in control, they began their run of four World Series titles in five years, the last at the expense of the Mets. Since the run began, the Yankees have again dominated the headlines and have consistently outdrawn the team from Queens.

The Yankees are still too strong and too laden with superstars for the Mets to overtake them in the attendance race. But the pinstripes aren’t so good that they can smother the roar that can rise from Shea if the Mets start another of their gotta-believe seasons. And if the best team Steinbrenner’s money can buy stumbles, the Mets will take over the town.

It’s happened before. And if ever there were a year when it could happen again, this looks like it.

Mike Celizic writes regularly for NBCSports.com and is a freelance writer based in New York.

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