Probably the coldest Mets game I have ever attended. My scorecard from that game looks like chicken scratch because my fingers were frozen. But of course it ended with one of the most memorable home runs in Mets history -- Gary Carter's game-winning blast off Neil Allen in the tenth inning of his first game as a Met. Then rose the most enormous roar I had ever heard from the Shea faithful, and all the way down the ramps the delirious fans were screaming GARY!! GARY!! GARY!! You just knew it was the beginning of something special.

I'll never forget this game for a couple of reasons. 1) it was opening day of what we were all hoping was to be a new era with the leagues stud catcher Gary Carter behind the plate. 2) I was thrown out of the game with two of my friends when one of them who was bombed out of his head got into a fight with the guy in front of him who was trying to enjoy the game with his young son. He had told us a couple of times to watch our language as we were quite loud and obnoxious. In about the 4th inning he got up to take his son to the bathroom and my friend said " Oh you're leaving, good!" The man got upset said something back and fists were flying. I tries to break it up but very quickly cops came and kicked out my friend, who deserved it, my other friend who joined in the fight, he deserved it too, and me who actually tried to break it up, I swear. So we walked around the stadium, slipped an usher a 5 and he let us back in. We ended up with much better seat, on the field and were there for Carter's memorable homer off of Neil Allen. I'll never forget that home run and I'm glad I talked my two friends into going back in. We were 22 years old and stupid but I will never forget that day. Luckily we drove home safely. And as a father of three I can relate to the poor guy in front of us that day.

The first game I can honestly remember. Tho I had been going since I was 3, which was 1982, making me 6 in '85. Not knowing too much what was going on, I focused on drinking hot chocolate and staying warm. It was real cold that day and I couldnt understand why my dad took me somewhere I would freeze to death. Carter comes up in extra innings and my dad told me to get up and cheer, going along with directions I did so, and it was as if my father magically willed Gary to knock that Neil Allen slider into the cards bullpen. At six, it was hard to follow baseball as it was when I was older, but I knew that I would love going to games after this!

my god it was about 32 degrees I was frozen sat in cheap seats 6 rows behind us 7 of my highschool teachers are there we walked down in bottom of 10th to box seats and when carter hit the ball I yelled and I said yes but when I saw lonnie smith I thought the bastard caught it but everybody got up and walked out so I knew and the gary gary chants down the ramps outside the stadium I had never seen anything like it I had not been to Shea stadium since 1980 5 years I had so much fun

Ditto on the cold. I have experienced 19 degrees below in January and I'm telling you that April afternoon at Shea felt worse! I seriously thought I was going to get frostbite. And I remember the first inning took about 45 or 50 minutes to play and my fingers and toes were going numb by the third inning. Left after the regulation nine and missed Carter's home run!

Yeah, it was cold.

Add to the picture my usual upper deck seats and my usual beer buzz, and this was a tough ten innings.

We were moving toward left field to catch the sliver of sun left in the stadium when Carter's HR cleared the wall. The picture is quite vivid still.

What a great day. We all knew this team was going in the right direction and NYC was a Met town all the way. The Yankees were nowhere!

I remember an article in the Daily News about how cold it was at Shea that day. One fan commented that Doc shoulda NOT pitched that day. The tag line "Where's Jay Hook when you needed him?" I wasn't at the game, thank god, I watched on Ch. 9 (So glad the game wasn't on cable; didn't get it until '87) and saw Carter's walk-off HR. They didn't call it a walk-off back then. Welcome to New York, Kid!

2nd coldest game I have attended. The first was in 2003 Home opener. Will never forget how Shea was shaking when Gary Carter hit that home run off of Neil Allen. Would love SNY to put this on as a Mets CLASSIC!

A typical windy, frigid April day at Shea. Why is it always ten degrees colder inside Shea than outside? The Kid becomes a Met and gives Whitey Herzog agita by homering off Neil Allen, who the Cards got for Hernandez. In my top ten of game thrills I've seen at Shea.

Also, HoJo's first game as a Met. he had a single and an RBI that made Gary carter's 10th inning heroics possible.

Hard to believe it's now 25 years since this game! Remember watching the game on TV and Gary Carter's game winning HR made it a memorable 18th birthday! It's also nice to see the bat Gary used for that game winning HR as one of the items in Citi Field's new Mets Hall of Fame and Museum.

My first game as a vendor, I was trying to sell Coke to the upper deck in that cold. It was also my last game as a vendor.

My first ever Opening Day at Shea and oh how cold it was! We sat in the top row of the Upper Deck (behind home plate) and witnessed Gary Carter's first game as a Met. Mets seemed to have game in hand until the Cards came back late to tie (believe off Doug Sisk). Then Gary sent everyone home happy with his dramatic walk-off HR. Welcome to New York, Gary!

An odd game to remember so clearly, but I was there and at field level no less. This was the game after Carter's GWHR in his debut game. It was exciting to see him in a Mets Uniform although he didn't do much this day.

I remember that ex-Met Neil Allen walked Danny Heep with the bases loaded in the 11th inning to end the game. A walk off Base on Balls. I never liked Neil Allen.

Joe, this was a wonderful game. I sat up in the mezz, just to the left of home plate and brother it was COLD that day! 50 if that and windy. Darling had awful control to start, throwing 14 balls among his first 20 pitches. But somehow he survived. The Mets scratched out a run on a fielder's choice by HoJo to tie it and then it became a struggle to score another run. I remember during Heep's at-bat the place was screaming trying to rattle Allen and he never came close to the plate.

I was at this one. It was the second game of the season and it was a overcast day and it looked like it might get rained out.

Because the Mets had sold out opening day, they advertised this as opening day 2 and Rodney Dangerfield threw out the first ball.

I think this game set the tone for the Cardinal/Mets rivalry that was to continue for the next few years. John Tudor was almost unhittible that day and also almost unheard of before the season, having come over from Pittsburgh in the winter. Neil Allen, who the Mets had traded to the Cardinals for Keith Hernandez, came in and threw 4 straight balls with the bases loaded and Roger McDowell got the win in his Mets debut.

This game was Roger McDowell's debut. This was also the game when the wave effectively died for me. During the 1984 season the wave had been a big thing and I enjoyed it, On this day I also got injured doing the wave (nothing major) but I banged my knee on the rail in front of my seat. (The wave was never the same again!)

I was 9 years old and this was my first ever trip to Shea Stadium. The give away itme was a Mets calendar featuring Mets on Sports Illustrated Covers. My dad brought me a pennant and a yearbook. I remember fans chanting Pete Rose sucks everytime he came up and Gary Carter's HR being the only run of the game. I remember being thrilled by the HR apple, and a throw Mookie Wilson made from the OF. It was a fun night and I still have the ticket stub. I also got a scorecard and it was here where I made my first attempt to keep score. All in all it was a fun night and I could not wait for my next trip to big Shea, it was from this game that I became a Mets fan for life. Prior to this game I was a Yankees fan, and even though my father was a Yankee fan he felt the Bronx was unsafe taking me here made me a Mets fan and led to me breaking from my family's Yankee tradition.

I went to this game in college. It was a freezing cold night game, and I sat in the upper deck behind home plate. With Bruce Berenyi pitching, I expected lots of runs, but the Mets somehow shut out the Reds 1-0. I remember that Rose got a hit in the 9th, but the Reds couldn't score.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this the game in which one of the more memorable photos from the eighties was taken? The photo can be found in George Kalinsky's Photographic Met book, and you've probably seen the photo: Darryl Strawberry, "celebrating an early-season homer" has just won the game for the Mets with a homer off of John Franco. He's flanked by Gary Carter on his left, Mookie Wilson on his right, and a helmetless, grinning Keith Hernandez in the foreground, leading the 4-5 man entourage. I know it's been included on several scorecards, and the highlight itself is at the tail end of the 25th Anniversary tape.

Karl, the picture you described was, indeed, from this game. It is also featured on the cover of the video documentary '1986 Mets: A Year to Remember.' Although it was a picture from the previous year, it was still put on the front of the video case. Great photo!

I remember the homer Darryl hit. Leading off the inning, he hit the ball to right field and just as it went over the wall, right fielder Dave Parker appeared to bang his foot on the wall base. Everyone in my house cheered as we saw Darryl circle the bases and arrive at the plate to his joyous teammates.

Later, a funny thing happened during the post game show on SportsChannel. Darryl was interviewed by Fran Healy and, at the end, Fran said "My guest has been Gary Carter." Realizing his mistake, Fran told Darryl that Gary (new to the Mets at the time) had been his guest so much lately that saying his name became a habit. Gave us a laugh.

This was the first Mets game I ever attended. I was a thumb-sucking five-year-old who told his dad he wanted to go to a Mets game to see Darryl Strawberry (my favorite player). My dad said I had to stop sucking my thumb in order to go because Darryl Strawberry won't play if he looks into the stands and sees me sucking my thumb. I bought it and quit cold turkey. Strawberry's ninth-inning, game-winning homer made me a Straw fan and a Mets fan for life.

I also remember this was Calendar Day. What I would give to still have that calendar!

The other comments are spot on....the picture of Darryl celebrating his homer after this game has been featured on many Mets publications over the years.......it's a shame the game has probably been lost to time though, never to be seen again unless SNY randomly has it in their vault.

Dwight Gooden struck out 14 Reds this overcast Sunday afternoon. The start of an awesome year for him.

I went to this game...."K" Day...They gave out "K" cards to all he fans for Doc..I still have it...Also, If you ever watch Bruce Springsten's "Glory Days" video, you see a highlight from this game on the TV screen...I remember it because it was Gooden pitching to Pete Rose on a cloudy day at Shea

I was at this game. I was at NYU at the time and they bought a block of seats in the picnic area in left field. It was too cold to do anything but sit there and shiver and wave those K-cards whenever Gooden struck out someone.

On a Friday night at the Vet, Dwight Gooden and Steve Carlton give vintage performances. Carlton pitches seven innings of two-hit ball and is perfect for the first four innings. Doc goes eight innings, giving up just three hits. The Mets finally break through with two outs in the ninth when Keith Hernandez singles home pinch- hitter Wally Backman, and Jesse Orosco pitches a 1-2-3 bottom of the ninth for the save.

All eight hits in this game were singles, and Doc improves to 2-0 at the start of his signature season.

I drove from Long Island to Philly for this game and had to pick someone up after work on Friday in Jersey City. I got lost so we got a late start down the Turnpike. The game went so fast we couldn't believe it. We got there in the bottom of the 8th inning. We saw Gooden pitch the 8th and got the win. We saw Orosco pitch the 9th and get the save. And we saw the Mets get the only run in the 9th to win 1-0. So in the 15 minutes were were there, we saw everything we had hoped to see. Then turned around and drove home.

One of 2 wins that Calvin Schiraldi had as a Met,though he really didn't pitch well in this one.

This early season game against the Cards would be one of the last games against St Louis that didn't have any kind of rivalry feel to it. As these two teams would play some of the more intense and memorable regular season games in Mets history over the next few years.

I was 22 and took my dad, Sat mezz between catcher and first base. Wally went 5 for 5. Every time he came up after the first couple of hits our section was singing the Batman theme - da na na na na na na na na BACKMAN!!!

I was at this marathon game on a Sunday afternoon. Strawberry hit a grandslam in the first inning and the Pirates chipped away tying it at 4 after nine innings. There were several blown opportunities on bothe sides during the next nine inning but nothing happened. Thank God they were still serving beer. This was the game where Rusty Staub, and I think it was Danny Heep traded places in left and right field depending on what side of the plate the batter hit form. One of the Pirates hit a high fly in shallow right field that Rusty seemed to have run a mile on before he finally pulled it in. It was unbelieveable. The Mets finally pulled it out in the 18th and sent us home happy.

That "one of the Pirates" who hit the ball Rusty caught was none other than Rick Rhoden, who was pinch hitting.

That fly ball that Rusty caught took him across the foul line, and his momentum carried him to the wall, where a fan in the right field stands reached out and hugged him. It was great.

The other cool thing that happened in this game is that Clint Hurdle, who mostly caught at this point, got pressed into service in the outfield and threw out a runner at home who would've scored the winning run.

Some more memories of this game. My high school softball team got beat in a game out in Jersey that day and we had the game on the radio on the bus all the way home and some of us considered jumping off the bus when it passed Shea but we thought better of it. Even though it was a Sunday afternoon the game wasn't on Channel 9 so I had to "see it on the radio" when I got home.

The Mets were no-hit that day. Say what? Darryl Strawberry hit a grand slam in the first inning for the Mets second hit of the ball game. Check out the box score: they didn't get another hit for over ten innings!

I also recall Doug Sisk's performance in the top of the ninth. In what was to become a recurring nightmare for us fans, he walked the bases loaded with no one out. Jesse O came in and struck out the first batter, then got the next to pop up on the infield. Then he threw a pitch all the way to the backstop. Gary Carter scrambled for the ball and fired it to Orosco as Doug Frobel slid into home and he was "out at the plate! out at the plate!"

That was about the most excited I had ever heard Bob Murphy sound on the radio, until the eighteenth inning of course, when Rusty made the last putout of his major league career, and Murph screamed "way to go Rusty!"

For some reason watching this game on a Sunday afternoon is one of my most vivid childhood memories. For some reason I always had a thing for back-up catchers and when Hurdle threw the runner out at the plate, I went wild. The Rusty left-right back and forth thing was awesome, kind of like the Orosco/McDowell pitcher swap the next season in Cincinnati.

For some reason I thought that Gooden had driven in runs in this game, but I must be confused. They don't play them like this anymore.

A little known fact about the game... Daryl Strawberry's 1st inning grand slam hit a child in the face that was sitting in the bleachers. The child was picked up and hustled away by 2 men. I wonder what happened to that poor kid?

Listened to this game on the radio with my roommate in college; I loved Murph's call of Rusty's catch, " Rusty, trying to get there, TRYING TO GET THERE...he makes the catch!"

Little known fact--McDowell was the starter! As I recall the Mets were hoping to get 5 innings out of him; I didn't remeber 'til I saw the box score here, that they were not very good innings (four runs)!

I can't believe that of all the comments for this game, nobody has mentioned the most important thing about it. Clint Hurdle drove in the winning run for the Mets when he reached on Jason Thompson's error in the 18th inning. Mookie Wilson scored, pinch-running for Gary Carter.

Some oddities about this game: it was the last game Staub played in the field, McDowell was the starting pitcher and Tom Gorman pitched 7 scoreless innings in relief.

I remember that my buddies dared me to drink a beer every half inning. These were the days before they shut the vending stands after the 7th. I was never so drunk in my life and I gave up drinking that day and have not had a drink since. Thanks for a great day Rusty!!

An early season game that aired on SportsChannel, not seen by a lot of fans around NY. But it was a great contrast of pitching styles with Niekro's knuckleball and Gooden's pure power.

Doc ended up getting the best of this night, as he only gave up a 1st inning homer and nothing else.

The next day I found out that a man had fallen to his death from the upper level escalator. Link here: https://www.nytimes.com/1985/05/02/sports/shea- spectator-dies-after-fall.html

This was a landmark game in New York Mets and MLB history. It was the debut of one of the toughest and more likable players to ever play CF...my childhood idol Lenny Dykstra. Facing Mario Soto in his second MLB at-bat, while sporting his back foot leaning low crouching stance and his fingers wiggling around the bat, Lenny parked a line drive over the RF wall. I recall how excited he was rounding the bases and in the dugout afterwards, high-fiving everyone and with a look of astonishment on his face. Witnessing the amount of spark he provided the Mets in only his first game, you can see how this was just a mere glimpse of what was to come. Thanks Lenny for your example and for the memories.

As often happened against hard-throwing righties, Davey Johnson gave George Foster the night off and started Danny Heep in LF this Friday night against Mario Soto. Heep responded with a career- high 5 RBIs as the Mets beat the Reds.

After striking out his first time up, Heep hit a sac fly in the fourth, drove in two with a single in the fifth, and doubled in two more off reliever Joe Price in the sixth.

Ed Lynch pitched a complete game ten-hitter for the Mets and picked up his first win of the year. Dave Parker had four of those hits, including two home runs.

As mentioned in an earlier post, this was also Len Dykstra's first major league game, and after striking out to lead off the game, Lenny homered in his second at bat to make the score 3-0.

This is one game I'll never forget. It was my 25th brithday and I thought I'd celebrate by watching the Mets. Unfortunately, Doug Sisk gave up a double, triple, grand slam and walked the opposing pitcher all in the same inning. No wonder us fans wanted him to walk the plank.

There is not much I remember about this game as the Mets were smoked 14-2.

Also I was busy on this day as it was my Bar Mitzvah day and the all afternoon reception that took place for my special honor.

I do know that Lenny Dykstra had just been called up from Tidewater and began his MLB career and became real popular from the start.

I have been an Atlanta Braves fan since 1983, and used to live in New York. I was at this game, and it was one of the most frustrating games I can remember as a fan. The first eight innings of this game, until the last of the eighth, were very well played, and well pitched. A pitcher's duel between Braves starter Steve Bedrosian, and the Mets Ron Darling. After the Atlanta bullpen shut the Mets out for a couple of innings, and Darling got the Braves out in the eighth, things unraveled, and then, "Mr $40 million dollar closer", Bruce Sutter, came in for the Braves, and served up a Grand Slam homer to Gary Carter. At this point, with Atlanta trailing 5-1, my father and I decided to leave the game, and listen to the rest of it on the radio with Bob Murphy and Gary Cohen. Suddenly, the Braves started coming back against the Met bullpen. Then, with Dale Murphy as the tying run, Jesse Orosco struck him out, and got the final out, to preserve the win for the Mets. I remember shutting off the radio in disgust. Not only had the Braves lost with their ace "fireman" on the mound, but they had made a vailiant comeback, and fallen short. One of the most frustrating games I've ever been to as a fan, this game is fresh in my memory, even 21 years later, and I was only 15 at the time of the game.

Gooden was absolutely dominant in this game. He made a hall of fame 3rd baseman look completely lost and helpless at the plate in one particular at bat in the middle innings I believe.

This was the first game I ever went to -- ok, the first Mets game. The previous month my Dad had taken me to Yankee Stadium to see the Yanks play Texas; this, at the age of 5, was my first of many visits to Shea. Before the game Juan Samuel of the Phillies signed an autograph for me, and I remember my Dad's excitement after the game at the young combination of Fernandez and McDowell combining for the shutout. Of course, what I remember most was my hero, Strawberry, breaking his thumb making a sliding catch in rightfield.

This game, arguably, cost the Mets the division in 1985. Losing Darryl Strawberry for 6 weeks let the Cardinals right back in the race.

Sadly, the game that probably cost the Mets a playoff spot in 1985, despite the win. Straw breaks his thumb diving for a ball and the Mets play very average-below average ball for the next 6 weeks in his absence. (Though to his credit, Danny Heep did not play badly while filling in.) But the absence of Straw was a huge blow.

Watched this one recently on the old tape. Gooden did not have his good stuff in this game. One of the few times during this period where he truly had to rely on battling and working around his lack of command. He did it well enough to win on this night and Danny Heep hit his 1st homer in place of the injured Straw.

Rained throughout the game and slow working LaPoint-Darling matchup was great for the beer vendors. Carter's 12th inning hit wins it.

The most profitable game I ever attended.

My cousin got married that day and we went to the reception, which was in the afternoon. Some people at the reception, when it was over, decided to go out together to a club. One of them had two tickets to this game and decided to go to the club instead of the game, and gave the tickets to me and my brother. They were really good seats, in the upper boxes, and I had never sat in such expensive seats at Shea Stadium before.

Well, we stuck for the whole game. It was tied going into the tenth, the the Giants blew the Mets out in the top of the tenth, and, of course, almost everybody left by the end of the top of the tenth, but me and my brother stayed for the bottom half, hoping to avoid the traffic rushing out of the park.

When the Mets made their last out, we got up to leave, and when I turned around, I found two 20 dollar bills lying on the ground under the seat behind us. The people who had those seats were long gone, so I picked up the money and made 40 dollars, which was a whole lot of money to me back then, as I was still a college student.

Thanks Mets, for giving up those 6 runs, getting everybody to leave early, and earning me 40 bucks for sticking it out.

I was at this game, and looking back, it's striking how dominant Gooden was, even in one of his four losses that season...

Gooden vs. Valenzuela. This was the only game I ever attended specifically because of the pitching matchup. Gooden didn't pitch badly, but Valenzuela was better.

Between the 1984 and 85 seasons, it always seemed that when the Mets played the Dodgers, there would be a Gooden vs Valenzuela matchup, as it happened multiple times in those seasons.

This was one of the few in which Doc didn't quite live up to his end of the bargain, though he didn't pitch badly on this day, an NBC game of the week.

I had the chicken pox at the time and was stuck in the house for 10 days, including the Memorial Day Weekend; I was 18 at the time and I was miserable because I was supposed to attend a big party that holiday weekend and couldn't go. THANK GOD for the Mets and the all-time countdown of rock hits at 102.7 WNEW-FM when it was an album rock station. Stayed in bed, rubbing pink lotion every hour so I wouldn't be uncomfortable. Watching Doc pitch one of his greatest games on Ch. 9 and destroying a then-mediocre Giants team with 14K. Former Met Alex Trevino had the only run for the Giants with a dinger. Made me feel a whole lot better that rough stretch I had.

Gooden was especially dominant on this afternoon at Candlestick. By the time the 9th inning came, SF could not touch him. He struck out the side in incredible fashion.

A funny thing happened in the 8th inning of this game. Danny Heep hit a high, fair ball that landed into the right field seats. First base umpire Fred Brocklander, however, called it foul. The ball being clearly fair, Heep argued about it intensely.

Brocklander then said that he had lost sight of the ball. He asked Ed Montague, the home plate umpire, if he saw it. Montague indicated that he did and correctly ruled it fair. Danny was then allowed to circle the bases.

An umpire freely admitted that he was unable to make an accurate ruling, so he asked for help. Brocklander did the right thing here, which had to take some courage on his part. Padres' manager Dick Williams then offered his own argument about the overruling, but to no avail.

A Monday night Game of the Week on ABC, Danny Heep homered for the 2nd day in a row but the bullpen couldn't hold a 9th inning lead and the Mets lost a tough one in extras. One of those losses that you look back on in a season that ended up coming down to just a game or two.

Possibly the greatest baseball game I have ever witnessed in person. Gooden vs. Valenzuela, round one. George Foster hit a HR for the Mets early on, but it was 1-1 into the bottom of the eighth. The Dodgers loaded the bases with nobody out, but Doc pitched out of it. In the ninth, the Mets loaded the bases with nobody out, and Fernando almost pitched out of it too. With one out, the Mets broke through, the Gooden himself sealed the deal with a 2-run single.

Gruesome collision between Danny Heep and Terry Blocker. Awful to watch.

I remember Von Hayes hitting 2 homers in the 1st inning, one of them off Tom Gorman. That was miserable. 9 runs in the 1st and 7 in the 2nd innings. I remember the announcers, I believe Tim McCarver, talked about how important it was for the Mets to come back the next day, and forget about this disaster. The next day, they won 7-3. I will never forget that....Von Hayes!

All I can remember is it was 16-0 after two innings and Von Hayes had hit two home runs in one inning. Amazing that this, the worst defeat in Mets history (I think), came only one year prior to a championship.

Unforgettable game, for the wrong reasons. Tom Gorman was an emergency starter...someone else (Darling?) couldn't go at the last minute. Gorman didn't last long, and neither did the Mets.

The next day, Jeff Herbst, a Yankees fan, said to me, "Twenty-six to seven?" I said, "Shut up. They're going to win the World Series next year." Herbst said, "No way. They'd need someone to make a really bonehead error for that to happen."

strange but true trivia: both Schiraldi and Sambito who each gave up double-digit runs in this game, would pitch against the Mets for the Red Sox in game #7 of the '86 World Series.

Von Hayes this night became the first player in major league history to hit two home runs in the first inning.

I've always remembered this game, and it came back in my memory after reading about the Marlins' huge loss to the Red Sox, where Boston scored 14 runs in the first inning and won 25-8.

Back in 1985, I remember reading the stories about the game, and the Mets players talking about it being the worst loss they experienced since Little League, and the like. Unlike today, they didn't whine about Philadelphia running up the score. I mean, 26-7 wasn't just a whuppin', it was a bad whuppin'.

It could happen to any team, I guess, and it just goes to show what a weird game baseball is. The next game starts at 0-0, and you just go out there and play again.

1985 was a good year for the Mets, and 1986 was better. Bad games happen, but in a 162-game season, you just have to put it behind you.

Tom Gorman - a lefty who had "nothing". He was so bad the players sarcastically nicknamed him Gorfax, as in Koufax. Gorman gave up the incredible tying homer to pitcher Rick Camp of the Braves less than a month later in extra innings of the memorable July 4th-5th game the Mets eventually won 16-13.

Von Hayes was nicknamed "5 for 1". The Phillies sent five prospects including a young Julio Franco (yes, the very same) to the Tribe for this talented outfielder. Hayes had himself quite the night blasting a few first inning home runs and passing for 235 yards in the 26-7 win. Guess the Philly placekicker missed 2 extra points. What a blowout.

I was at the Vet. Life-long Mets fans, we had graduated college a few weeks before, and stayed in town. We were thrilled to get field box seats, too; 200 level on the first base side, a few rows behind the dugout. Hostile crowd; Phillies were a shadow of their pennant winners in 1980 and 1983; Mets were putting together a winning team and were up in the standings.

A couple Mets runners in the first with no results. Von Hayes leads off the bottom of the first with a home run and bats again in the inning, hitting a grand slam. 16-0 after 2 innings and it was over; Hernandez and Carter were pulled in the third. Phils pitcher Charlie Hayes barely lasts the minimum 5 innings to get the win, getting booed off the mound as he closes out the 5th having given up 7 runs with the hugest of cushions. Phils add another 10 in the late innings for good measure.

We stayed proud in our seats until the last out, with more than a few empty beer cups at our feet. The game still holds Mets records for earned runs (24) and hits allowed (27), in a game of any duration.

My area didn't have cable in '85 so I had to listen to this disaster on WHN 1050. A Mets game that was Marcia Brady smiling with Braces "UGLY"!

A bunch of friends joined me on a trip to Philly to celebrate my 21st Birthday! Gee thanks, Mets. Schiraldi and Sambito each giving up 10 runs as a reliever? That can't happen again in ML history.

The weirdest thing is that every year on my birthday, I have to read in the paper "This date in baseball history", and its always 1985 and Von Hayes and 26-7. Always makes the cake taste sour!!!

Brutal, just brutal.

I recall Bob Murphy ending his call of the game by saying "The damn game is over!" Everybody remembers his "They win the damn thing" comment but not this one, perhaps because I may have been the only person still listening on radio.

At the end of the game the Met announcers had to state the turning point of the game as part of a radio contest. Gary Thorrne said the turning point of the game was the "National Anthem". Sad but true.

The Daily News headline the next day was: PHILS DESTROY METS. That's a rare verb to put into a headline, even for the News.

Thankfully for myself, I did not tune in to this horrifying event. It was played on the same night as the championship game of the College World Series in Omaha, which is what I chose to see instead. But right after the University of Miami defeated Texas to clinch the national title, I switched channels to check in on the Mets. The sixth inning had just been completed and a 22-7 score in favor of the Phillies appeared on the screen. I decided to just head off to bed and call it a night.

The leading Met killer in the game was Von Hayes, who homered twice in the first inning. Hayes' second home run was a grand slam off Calvin Schiraldi, who would give up a total of ten runs in an inning and a third! Schiraldi was a Texas pitcher who led his team to the CWS crown two years earlier. It was a bad night for both the Mets and the Longhorns.

I was 10 at the time. Gary Carter was coming back at the Big O after being traded to the Mets to my great despair. My father had season tickets behind the 1st base.

Carter had a fantastic game going 3-for-3, 2 walks and a stolen base.

At first he was generally cheered by the crowd, but once the game was on the line we began booing him!

The Expos came from behind in the 9th to snatch the win, so we all left the Olympic Stadium very happy.

Amazing as it may seem, the calls for Davey Johnson to lose his job after this game were pretty loud at the time. The team was going through a bad month, dropped to 3rd place and Davey put Doug Sisk in the 9th to attempt to save the game for Gooden. Naturally, as often happened in 1985 for Doug, he blew the game, as he was having the worst season of his career.

A Monday night Game of the Week on ABC, the Mets opened a huge (at the time) 4 game series against the Cubs with a win. It was one of those rare series where two good teams were both coming into a big series in huge slumps, as the Cubs were hurting badly. The Mets ended up sweeping the Cubs away in all 4 games, easily the highlight of the month as for most of June, the team was playing bad baseball.

The game was a sell out or close to it and I bought tickets game day that were in the last row in the mezzanine and had a limtited view of the action..Ed Lynch went the distance that day.

A pleasant Wednesday night. 53,334, back when attendance meant something to a Mets fan. Biggest Wednesday night crowd in seven years they said. I sat right near the left field pole in the mez with my father and I don't think I've ever yelled as much or as loud at a baseball game as I did that night. Gooden was almost untouchable and given that the Cubs were banged up at the time, a win seemed like a foregone conclusion. But it was a struggle. 1-0 Mets in the ninth, Cubs got two on and Thad Bosley fouled off pitch after pitch. When Gooden struck him out swinging, Shea erupted. Win No. 3 in a very memorable four-game sweep over the hated Cubs.

I was at this game with my dad, and remember thinking the Mets were really getting payback on the Cubs for 1984, when the Cubs beat the Mets 8 out of 9 at Wrigley. This game completed a weekend sweep, as we beat up on ex-Yankee lefty stiff Ray Fontenot.

We took care of the Cubs, but oh those damned Cardinals!

This was my first game ever! I was 5 years old, and still remember it. I went with my parents to the game, and sat in the Mezzanine on the 3rd base side of the field.

I remember George Foster's Grand Slam followed up by John Christenson's solo shot. That's the first time I ever saw "The Apple" and it was awesome!

My first game ever. How fast time goes. I was in first grade and it was the last day of school. Then that night I went to Shea for the first time ever. Time goes so fast it's scary.

My first Mets game in person. Roger McDowell autographed my baseball glove before the game. I recall a female singer performed the Canadian and U.S. anthems in that order, just her and an acoustic guitar.

This was an exciting game. It was nostalgia night, fans had a choice of picking either a Brooklyn Dodgers or a NY Giants hat. Mets trailed 2-0 and Rusty Staub hit a pinch-hit 3-run home run off Jeff Reardon in the 7th inning. Mets would later lose in 10, 5-4, but very exciting game.

I remember this game for a few reasons. Prior to the game, Daryl Strawberry was throwing balls to the fans in left field and my friend caught one. Later when Willie Mays was introduced for Nostalgia Night the fans went wild with cheers. We were struck on the head by a pretzel from the upper deck. Also at that same time, a gold bracelet fell from the upper deck and landed at my dad's feet. He still wears it to this day.

I was at that game. Ironically, my little league team was the Expos that year (how many other little leagues can say that now!). The best moment was definitely the Staub homer and it was the 292nd and last homer of his career.

Rusty's homer in this game was the last of his major league career.

I was at this game with my family for my 7th birthday. I got a NY Giants hat and watched Rusty Staub hit his last home run of his career.

If I remember correctly, he hit one foul first and then I figured there is no way he'll hit TWO home runs in one AB... but he did. A great moment somewhat tainted by the loss a few innings later.

What a shame the owners colluded to keep the roster to 24 (or 25) in 1986, since no one chose the 25 option, costing Rusty his rightful spot on the '86 team.

One of the last games I ever attended with my Dad. He was a NY Giants fan, so he took the Giants cap in the giveaway, and I took the Dodgers cap. Rusty is my all-time favorite athlete, and I remember his home run so vividly, but I never realized until today that it was his last home run ever. Rusty came up with a chance to tie the game, to the usual chants of "Rusty, Rusty" from the crowd. He had no homers on the year, and the fans were just hoping for a single or double. One or two pitches before the home run he put one over the fence in right field that was JUST foul, and the fans went crazy, thinking how incredible it would have been to take the lead with a Rusty home run. And then BOOM-- magic struck! THANKS, RUSTY!

Great game. Yes the posters are correct, I remember it like it was yesterday. Rusty slams a pitch from Reardon about a foot foul. Reardon tries to sneak the same pitch by him again and he didn't miss that one. Shame they lost it but the stadium shook when Rusty went deep.

I remember this game very well. It was Nostalgia Night and fans had a choice of a Brooklyn Dodgers or NY Giants cap. Rusty Staub came off the bench and hit a three run home run in the bottom of the 7th to give the Mets the lead, after missing a home run by about two feet on the previous pitch. We were sitting in the first five rows of the upper deck and it felt like Shea was going to fall down when Staub's home run cleared the fence.

I was working as a photographer at a newspaper in Franklin, Ind., and got a press pass for the game. What a great feeling to stand on the grass at Wrigley on a warm sunny summer day!

Shot lots of wonderful photos of Mets players (still think I need to get the best of Rusty Staub and Gary Carter autographed).

Sat in the photographer's box along the first base line -- which in Chicago is next to the visitor's dugout. Unfortunately, the Mets were stifled by Rick Sutcliffe as they so often were in 1984 and 85.

The 3rd game in a 3 week span against the Cards that the Mets would lose in the 9th or extras, essentially the difference between winning the pennant and not by season's end. This was pretty much the low point of the year for the Mets.

The definitive Sid Fernandez game, I always thought. He pitched hellaciously well in every inning but one (the 2nd this night) and lost because of it. Three walks in the second inning. I gakked a foul ball of the bat of George Hendrick when I somehow couldn't drop that stupid little pencil I was keeping score with.

This was the very first Mets game that I ever attended. I was seven years old and so excited to be at Shea for the first time. I sat with my family in the mezzanine. Too bad that the game was so boring. A 1-0 loss wasn't quite what I had in mind. But I didn't care at the time. Just being there was enough of a thrill.

Just like the prior poster, this also was my first Mets game I attended. Field seats were on the 3rd Base line.

Fernandez was out-dueled by roly-poly veteran Rick Reuschel of the Bucs. The Mets batters were kept off balance all night, game went super fast!

Oh, that and the poor guy that fell into the Bucs bullpen!

This game completed a TERRIBLE stretch of baseball for the Mets, who played their worst ball of the season for most of June. After this game, the Mets would go on to an unbelievable run for most of the rest of 1985.

This was my brother's and mine first Met game at Shea Stadium. we sat in the lodge section just fair of the left field foul pole about 3 rows from the front. Outrageous time with my dad! Saw ex-Met Lee Mazzilli pinch hit for the bucs., and watched Kelvin Chapman save the game with a great stop at 2nd base.

Sat in the right field upper deck for this game. Foster's shot was a rainbow over the bullpen in left. Not a memorable game but for whatever reason a memorable HR; I had a perfect side view of it. Headlines called it a "three-run rocket" in reference to July 4. One of the longest HRs I saw at Shea.

Funny how Tom Gorman is apart of two memorable games of the 85 season. How can any fan forget this one? Rain delay after rain delay, John Sterling, a Brave announcer at the time!?!?! He is still biased. Hernandez hitting for the cycle. Lenny Dykstra showing his scrappy play, after the Mets blow a late lead (around 8th inning). Rick Camp!!! Rick Camp!!! Danny Heep placing his hands over his head in disbelief. Carter and Hernandez playing all 16 innings, untill 4:05 AM!!!! Unreal...one of the most memorable of all time.

I remember watching the game as a 12-year-old (and as a 13-year-old, as my birthday is July 5). Gooden's shortest outing to that point in his career, the two rain delays, the score tied 8-8 after nine innings. HoJo hits a two-run homer in the top of the 13th (I think), only to have Terry Harper hit an 0-2 slider off the left field foul (fair?) pole with one on in the bottom of the inning to tie the score. The Mets scratch across a run in the top of the 18th, only to have poor Tom Gorman hang an 0-2 forkball (why a forkball?) to Rick Camp (lifetime .036 hitter, five extra-base hits), who followed the old adage, "Swing hard, because you might hit the ball", and deposited the pitch over the left center field fence. Heep covers his head and Dykstra throws his glove up in the air in disbelief. Gorman struggling to complete the inning. The Braves then give up 5 runs in the top of the 19th (at least 3 unearned, thanks to errors by Claudell Washington and Camp himself, I think)...only to score two in the bottom of the 19th and have the tying run at the plate...Rick Camp again! However, Ron Darling strikes him out on three pitches.

I didn't realize Hernandez had hit for the cycle until years later. Poor Ronn Reynolds, didn't make it into the game because Carter caught all 19 innings, and Davey Johnson didn't want to use him as a pinch hitter in case Carter got hurt.

And then, after the game ends at 3:55, the fireworks go off at 4:01. Oops. Too much noise for sleeping citizens. What were they thinking?

I believe this game was one of the weirdest ever. What made it so strange was that at one point in the extra innings, the Mets went ahead by a run, and it looked like they were going to win as the Braves batted in the bottom of the inning. Reason being is that Atlanta was out of pinch-hitters; the only people left to hit were pitchers.

So they send up reliever Rick Camp to pinch-hit. Camp (it was later revealed) had the lowest batting average of any active major leaguer as he stepped into the box. And what does he do? Of course--he hits a home run to tie it!

Well, the Mets ended up winning anyway, in 19 innings. As a fitting finale to this other-wordly game, the Braves went ahead with the planned post-game July 4th fireworks--at two in the morning!

Undoubtedly, the best regular season Mets game ever!! (Best Met game ever reserved for Game 6 1986 NLCS).

Who could ever forget Rick Camp hitting the homer in the 13th to keep it going for the Braves. I just couldn't believe my eyes. I stayed up for the entire game, right up until the fireworks display put on by Fulton County Stadium at 3:55 a.m. the morning of the 5th.

Just reading this boxscore is great entertainment.

I second that emotion, Jon. How often do you see 10's in the AB column?!?!

Try as he might, Doug Sisk couldn't blow this one for the Mets.

my god I remember going to my aunts house and being pissed off I was missing the game on ch9 well got home at 11pm and what??? Mets in 4th inning??? I love late night baseball so I stayed up AS long as my 16 year old body could 2am I saw sisk almost blow it but orosco got out of it after dale murphy triple with bases loaded of sisk then Mets tie it up off bruce sutter ho jo again then I went to bed the ny post said it the next day when I bought it I couldnt believe it that they got the game on the paper

I watched the whole game on TBS. Skip Caray said something like "If Camp homers here this will be the wildest game of all time" just before Camp did homer. Walk into any bar tonight and 90% of the guys there will be better athletes than Camp was. The game lasted forever, and I still wanted more.

It's all been said already, but I'll add my vote to the masses. This is in the top 5 Met games of all time. I remember actually going to bed (not sure why) and listening to HoJo's homer on the radio. I got back up just in time for Harper to tie it. Hernandez hitting for the cycle was almost an afterthought. I had actually forgotten that Doc started this one - who remembers the first 9 innings. I will always remember the name Rick Camp, that's for sure.

I was 16 years old and a big Braves fan at the time of this game. My brother and his fiance ask me to go along with my brother's buddy. I remember that we sat in the nosebleed seats at Fulton-County Stadium to watch Doc Gooden pitch. Then game the rain, and more rain. By the 9th inning, the majority of the fans left due to the rain. We moved our seats all the way up behind home plate. What a roller coaster of a game. One cannot imagine the emotions of that game unless you were there. Of course all looked gloomy for the Braves until Rick Camp hit that homer in the bottom of the 17th? Then blew it in the 18th to lose 16 to 13. I wish I had that ball! I remember the headeline in the paper next day, "Forget Game, Camp hits Homer!". We stayed till the fireworks at 4am. I found a foul ball after the game and still have it signed by my brother with the score and date on it.

This is really the first baseball game I remember going to, and everyone hears about it. I was 10. My dad has always been a HUGE Braves fan, and he took my brother and I to Atlanta to see a game. We even got there early to watch batting practice. The rain poured down and the little guys scurried across the field to cover it with the morton salt cover. It was cool the first couple of times... The waves in the crowd were awesome... we kept it up because we were afraid they would call off the game.

To be honest I slept through several innings, I was 10; I think I passed out around midnight. I woke up around 3 when people were cheering hysterically. Dad had asked if we wanted to go back to the hotel but the fireworks were worth the wait. It was a memory never to be forgotten.

Minus to this is I dread commiting to watching a full game, never know how long it will be. However, games do seem much shorter to me as well when they only go 9 innings.

Oh how this game brings back memories. I remember watching the game waiting for my friends to pick me up for July 4th party. When we returned at 3:30 AM I thought Sportschannel was rebroadcasting the game! What a shock.

What wasn't weird about this game? Dwight had I think his only bad outing of the year, Hernandez hitting for the cycle, and the game being tied in the 9th, the 13th, and at 3:00AM, the 18th by Rick Camp! I remember Camp being up in the bottom of the 19th with the Mets having 3-run lead and the Brave having two men on. If Camp would have homered again, they might still be playing.

Most entertaining night of watching Mets baseball. Went out at 9 or so after first rain delay, came home after 12 and to my amazement Met game was still on. Stayed up for whole game, could not believe what I was witnessing. At 12:30 though switched to Friday Night Videos to watch Bruce Springsteen's Born in the U.S.A video. Very happy to see my two joys in life at the time.

I was 12 years old and keeping score of this game in my bedroom. I think I ended up going to bed at 4AM, which is very late for a 12 year old. Each 4th of July I look up this game to re-hash the memories. Today I am a die hard Phillies fan, but I still have a place in my heart for the Mets of the mid 80s. Who could forget Rick Camp hitting a HR to tie the game? I wish I still had the score book for this game, but that's long gone. This game though still lives on as the longest game I watched and kept score of.

Games like this are what makes being a Mets fan special.

I remember this game. I was living in Boston and came home from a daylong party (it was the 4th) and fell asleep watching this game. I woke up around 3:00 AM, saw the Mets playing the Braves and thought I was watching Sports Center coverage of the game. I suddenly realized that I was watching the actual game! I thought to myself "what the hell did I miss?!?!"

While I was not alive for this game, upon listening to the Mets broadcast tonight of their rain-delayed game in Atlanta, Gary Keith and Ron started talking about this game. I had never heard that much about it, so I did some research, and realized how crazy this game was! It really must have been a thrill to see live!

Too many memories of this one to condense here, but as I recall Hernandez was not having a good season and this game propelled him to a great second half. Also, when the Mets went down a run in the 8th, you just knew they were going to score in the 9th. The Camp HR was incredible as was Heep's exasperated reaction. I was actually rooting for Camp to hit another one when he ended the game, just not wanting the game to end; who knew what might be coming around the next corner?

Finally, looking at the box score I forgot about the 2-run 13th inning -- I wonder what the record is for most different extra innings scored in, in one game? This one has to be close with three, or six, depending how you look at it.

I was born in 1973. My Grandmother, who lived in Tucker, GA, took me and my cousin Tim to this game. Tim and I were a month apart and this was my first MLB game.

We stayed all the way through the fireworks. We sat through every rain delay and after the last delay, we moved down to left center because I was a HUGE Dale Murphy fan.

I remember the intense waves going on during the game and how the upper deck went one direction and the lower deck went another direction. My poor Grandmother had to drive us back after the fireworks, walking to our car at 4:30 AM and then the drive home. My cousin and I passed out immediately.

To extend this luck even further, my Grandmother went to the 7-6-86 game where Bob Horner hit 4 jacks in one game at Fulton County.

Even though my first MLB game was 19 innings, my next game I attended was a White Sox game at the Old Comiskey and it went extra and then the next game I went was back in Atlanta and it went to extra innings. I also witnessed a 16-14 game between the Braves and Expos and got to see The Murph finally take one yard.

Keep in mind, I grew up in Oklahoma so attending a MLB game was a treat for this young baseball fan. My grandmother passed away 9 years ago and I will always have the memories of this game and many others to put a smile on my face every time I think about how much I miss her.

Rick Camp's home run in the 18th inning off Tom Gorman prolonged this marathon and gave Rusty Staub a rare opportunity to run the bases. Pinch-hitting for Gorman in the top of the 19th, Staub was walked intentionally and stayed in the game since there was nobody left on the Mets bench to serve as a pinch-runner. Rusty moved around from first to third base on Ray Knight's double and later came home on a single by Danny Heep. This was the 1,189th and final run scored by Staub in his career.

I can't imagine what it was like for the 41-year-old Rusty to be baserunning at four o'clock in the morning when he just wasn't doing it anymore.

What a memory... Went to the Meadowlands track with Dad and Tom on this night when I was 17... I was a little bummed that I would miss the game but I knew there would be TVs there showing the game. I watched the first 2 innings on the TV and game was delayed with rain. Listened on the way home and so excited that the game was still on when I got home. My brother Dean, 13 at the time, had the convertible couch opened up to the big tv at the time, watching the game when I got home. Got onto the couch and watched the game with him, amazed at every pitch and at bat. RICK CAMP!!! NO!!!! He fell asleep around 2:45AM and I had to wake him up and give him the happy recap at 4:05AM... It was a childhood memory I will never forget.

This was the latter half of a doubleheader in Atlanta that the people back in New York couldn't watch on television. The game was a makeup of a rainout from the previous day, which neither WWOR nor SportsChannel was supposed to carry since it was scheduled to be shown nationally by NBC. The stubborn attitudes of the two local stations, both of whom refused to take the responsibility of covering the game when it needed to be done, deprived the fans at home of seeing the Mets complete a sweep of the Braves.

After one of the worst slumps of his career, Keith was finally as hot as could be during this stretch. He homered for the 2nd straight day, Gooden was his usual self and the Mets won and continued a red hot July. That would continue for the rest of the month.

Nolan Ryan strikes out Danny Heep leading off the sixth inning. It is strikeout number 4,000 of Ryan's career, making Ryan the first pitcher ever to strike out 4,000 batters.

Ryan finished this game with eleven strikeouts in seven innings but got a no-decision as the Mets got two unearned runs in the top of the seventh to tie the game, 3-3. Bill Doran singled--his fifth hit of the game--off Tom Gorman in the bottom of the twelfth to drive in Dickie Thon with the game-winner as the Mets fell 3.5 games behind the Cardinals.

I remember this date well: There was a block party/rummage sale happening on my block but I also had my trusty radio so I could listen to the famous charity rock concert called Live Aid (my area didn't get cable tv until '87) so we had only VHF and UHF. Later that night on Ch. 9, the Mets romped over the Astros but it would be a costly win as Gary Carter hurt his leg (I think) late in the game and would have to miss the All-Star Game at the Metrodome. Then almost 15 years later it would be deja vu all over again (thanks Yogi for that quote) when Piazza would have to miss the ASG in Atlanta due to the pitching of a very nasty man named Clemens and that happened on a Saturday before the ASG as well.

This broke the previous Met record for runs scored at Shea in a game which had been 14 on more than one occasion.

This was one fun game to watch, which I did from the field level seats near the Mets' dugout. Darryl Strawberry's first inning grand slam off Steve Bedrosian on a 2-2 pitch from Steve Bedrosian set the tone for a 16-4 win. Darryl also hit a 3-run homer to center field. I remember Dale Murphy's glove falling off his hand as he reached for the ball!

Howard Johnson, Danny Heep and Clint Hurdle contributed four-baggers, too. Five home runs in one game, all by left-handed hitters!

Because of the lopsided score, Dave Johnson put Doug Sisk in to replace Dwight Gooden in the seventh inning. He pitched the final three innings, which was nice to see after the problems he had been experiencing. For about a year, his pitching declined, he lost his job as the righty closer and he was booed by fans. Even though he allowed three runs, it was good to see him finish a game again.

Mets also won the next day 15-10 which was the first time they had scored over 30 runs in two consecutive games.

This game was the first in Mets history in which the team hit all four kinds of home runs. Darryl Strawberry led the way with both a grand slam and a three-run blast, Hojo provided a two-run shot and Danny Heep contributed a solo clout. This cycle of homers was already completed in the fourth inning! Clint Hurdle (who entered later) added another solo homer in the seventh. Also, each member of the Mets’ starting lineup had at least one hit for a game total of eighteen. One of the most productive games the team has ever had.

Funny. The Mets never scored more than 14 runs in a home game through the first 23 years of their existence - and then exceed that in two consecutive home dates. Amazin'.

First time the Mets ever scored over 30 runs in two consecutive games.

I was at this game along with my cousin and late brother. We were pumped because my cousin kept blasting the music of "QUEEN" on his car stereo while going to the game. (Live Aid had happened the previous weekend.) It was the highest scoring Mets game I've ever witnessed in person under blue skies and a rocking crowd.

I took my eight year-old son to the game. We were lucky enough to get Dale Murphy's autograph before the game. In appreciation, my son gave Murphy his own little league baseball card. Murphy was so nice, he said he would keep it in his back pocket during the game and HE DID! We wished him luck and said we hoped he'd hit a homer off Leach...after the Mets were up big. Sure enough in the top of the sixth, he hits one over the center field fence. A real "Babe" moment.

This game was memorable for me because it was the first and only time I've ever caught a foul ball. Howard Johnson fouled off a pitch from Mario Soto, I was sitting in Section 1 Row A in the Loge. This game was a typical Sid Fernandez game...he had a no-hitter with 12 strikeouts through 6 innings but then got tired (as El Sid tended to do). Soto pitched a great game that night too and so it was a 0-0 game going into the seventh. Sid fell behind the leadoff hitter in the 7th and then imploded (as El Sid tended to do).

Still, for me it was one of the most exciting games just because I caught a foul ball. (The ball is in a case somewhere in my attic right now.)

I remember taking off from summer school at Queens College to see this weekday afternoon game. It was one of Aguilera's first games and it was hot...really hot!

If Earned Runs decided the game, the Mets lose 4 - 0. The Mets score 16 unearned runs, this must be some kind of a record.

I was living in Houston at the time of this game and remember watching it. I didn't realize that the 'Stros gave up 16 unearned runs. The Houston announcers (including Larry Dierker) were beside themselves -- I thought over the 16 runs. Five errors -- yikes!

I was there. And I kept score and got the unearned total right ... as a 10-year-old!

The 16 unearned runs is 2nd-most.

The Indians scored 18 runs in a 27-3 win over the Red Sox in 1923.

Dwight at his most dominating best! As I recall, in the 6th inning, Gullickson threw at Carter's head, sorta like payback for leaving the Expos. In the bottom of the 6th, Gullickson leads off, Gooden throws the 1st pitch dead on at Gullickson's head, sending him to the dirt. The ump issues warnings to both benches, then what does Doc do? K's Gullickson on the next three pitches, and then proceeds to K Raines and Law with the next 6 pitches. the most awsome inning of pitching I had ever witnessed! Ten pitches, and he strikes out the side! We will never see an arm like that in its prime ever again.

My first trip to a live baseball game was this game. (At the time I had recently turned eight years old.) Sat in the upper deck, nevertheless, I was happier than a pig in, uh, excrement. Doc was my favorite player and I was actually happy to see the ex-Met Hubie Brooks. At the start of the game I tried to boo the Canadian national anthem, but my dad quickly told me I shouldn't ever do that. I really had nothing against Canada at the time, I was just a pretty obnoxious fan for my age. One by one Doc struck out ten Expos, about 41,000 people there were nuts just about the whole night.

Oddly enough this was also the night I first tasted a beer. Some fat old guy sitting in the row above me accidentally spilled a tray of several beers right on top of me, enough so that I got a pretty decent sized gulp of the liquid. At first I thought it was some type of rotten ginger ale (remember I was only 8.)

A took a whole decade after that before I finally starting enjoying "rotten ginger ale" for real.

Further to an earlier post on this game:

Doc struck out ten. He struck out the side in the top of the first (Raines, Law, Dawson), and in the top of the fifth (Winningham, Fitzgerald, Gullickson).

Gullickson had two at bats in the game and made the last out of the inning both times.

Both Mets runs were driven in by George Foster with two-out singles in the sixth and the eighth.

Just another random game that I happen to remember well. Mets led 3-2 into the bottom of the 8th behind Darling. The Cubs came back and took the lead 4-3.

The Mets came into the 9th against Lee Smith who was as close to unhittable as there was at that time. The Pennant race was heating up and the Mets needed the game. As I remember it was a Saturday Afternoon Game of the Week on NBC.

Hernandez got the key hit in the 9th a run-scoring double down the right-field line to score Backman and tie the game. Then in the 10th after coming in on the double-switch, HoJo blasted one out to rightfield. Mets win!

Let me be the first to comment on this game and on this day. I was over my cousin's house watching Gooden and the Mets beat those rotten Cubbies on Ch. 9 but (don't get mad Mets fans) we were switching back and forth to Ch. 11 watching White Sox-Yankees to see if George Thomas Seaver would earn his 300th win. (A milestone like his no-hitter in 1978 for the Reds should've happened in a Mets uniform if it wasn't for Frank Cashen's brain freeze in January of 1984.) When the Mets game ended, we watched The Franchise get his 300th win.

Dwight Gooden got his 11th straight winning decision in this game. It surpassed the record set by Tom Seaver for most consecutive wins recorded by a Mets pitcher within one season. Coincidentally, it came on the same day that Seaver won the 300th game of his own career.

I'll start off admitting that my team is the Cubs, but this was the first baseball game I had ever been to at age 12, so it holds a very special place in my heart. My Grandpa Don took me to Wrigley Field, bought some peanuts and drinks, and kept score all game. He even recorded my "potty breaks", which loading up on soda were probably every two innings.

Easy to remember this game, because Daryl Strawberry homered three times, and if memory serves, they were his first three at bats. The stadium, regardless of Mets or Cubs affiliation, was rooting him on for number four that next at bat. I cannot recall if a hit or the intentional walk came in that fourth at bat. Anyway, Mets won, and all the fans got a treat that day, thanks to "Straw".

Ben, you are right...Strawberry hit three homers in this game, but the intentional walk came after his second homer and then he hit the third one in his fourth plate appearance.

Straw hit a three-run homer with two outs in the first, then hit a solo homer with two outs in the third. Both of those came off starter Derek Botelho. In the fifth he came up with a runner at second and two outs with the Mets up 4-0 and Botelho walked him intentionally...but that didn't help the Cubs as Danny Heep folowed with a double driving in two runs.

In his next at bat, this time against LHP Ron Meridith, he again hit a solo homer. This one came with two outs in the seventh inning. Darryl's final at bat was in the ninth inning, again with two outs, and he singled off RHP Warren Brusstar.

Darryl finished the game 4-for-4 with four runs scored, five RBIs, three homers, and an intentional walk. Straw and Danny Heep combined to go 7-for-9 and drove in all seven Mets runs.

The only negative about Strawberry's most productive day as a Met is that this game was on Sportschannel. As so many New Yorkers didn't quite have cable just yet, this game wasn't seen by as many fans as it could have been. This was also the last game before the now forgotten strike in 1985. It only lasted 2 days and the games were made up over the last 2 months.

The Mets "reopened" the year again in Montreal after a 2 day players strike. Keith had 5 hits (the first of 3 such games he had in 1985) and the team had one of their best offensive days of the season.

I think this was the first game I ever saw in person. I've narrowed it down, and it seems the most logical.

The only memories I have are that it was a day game, that Gooden pitched, and that it was against the Cubs. I realize now that it was probably during the summer, had to be on a weekend, and was more than likely in 1985.

Thanks for the help finding this game!

This is the first big league game I attended. All I could recall was that Dwight Gooden pitched and George Foster hit a home run. I think it's truly ironic that the day I decide to look it up happens to be the 20th anniversary of the game itself!

Thanks for preserving Mets history.

I'll never forget this game, it was my first Mets game! I sat in the Upper Deck in Left Field. It was an afternoon game, a hot August day. Foster's home run was a bomb over the centerfield wall if my memory serves me right. Gooden was awesome!

Even with the Mets red hot since early July, Gary Carter was one of the very few Mets who weren't playing well during that stretch. That changed in this game as his 2 homers helped the Mets win 7 in a row.

This was a very frustrating loss on a hot, humid, breezeless Wednesday night at Shea. I was in my regular seat in Loge section six, row E.

Kevin Gross and Ron Darling were locked in a 0-0 pitcher's duel through six innings. Rick Schu drove in a run with a single in the seventh and then Kevin Gross drove in the insurance run in the ninth. The Mets came back to score one in the ninth but they should have at least tied it, and probably should have won it in their last at bat.

Gross walked Howard Johnson and pinch-hitter Rusty Staub to start the inning. Don Carman relieved Gross and pinch-hitter Ron Gardenhire bunted. Carman threw the ball away and a run scored. The tying run was at third and the winning run at second with nobody out. Tom Paciorek batted for Dykstra and was intentionally walked. But Wally Backman, who finished 1985 with a .122 batting average and a .212 on base percentage vs LHP, grounded into a force play at the plate, and then Keith Hernandez grounded into a 4-6-3 DP.

The Mets left eleven runners on base in the game. Eight Mets walked to go along with their six hits, but they only got the one run, and that was because of an error. The Mets had at least one baserunner in every inning except the fourth. They grounded into two double plays and also might have run themselves out of a big inning in the bottom of the first when Lenny Dykstra was caught stealing third base as Keith Hernandez struck out.

This was my first Met game. Carter went yard, Doc started out strong, but struggled in the later innings.

This was a Thursday afternoon game I attended with my two sisters. We sat in the back row of the loge level along the right field line. There was a guy in front of us who was celebrating his birthday - and he let everyone in that section know it, too.

In the first inning, the Mets got three home runs from Tom Paciorek, Gary Carter and Ray Knight. They all came off, of all people, Jerry Koosman. For Paciorek, it was his only homer as a Met.

Unfortunately, Dwight Gooden was not having one of his usual stellar '85 performances on this day. He gave up a long home run to Mike Schmidt that landed underneath the main scoreboard behind the right-center field wall. The Phillies were scoring in every inning against him. Doc lasted for only half the game and got a no-decision. Still, the Mets won with three runs in the eighth.

I remember getting very disgusted with the Phils' Glenn Wilson. In '85, he was a nemesis to the Mets with his continuous hot hitting against them. He was no different in this game, collecting three more hits.

One more thing I recall from this day is that it was the 20th anniversary of the famous Beatles concert at Shea. This event was commemorated on the DiamondVision screen between innings.

This game was the first date I ever had with a woman who is now my wife. I remember that before the game I told her how great this young pitcher for the Mets was.....his name was Dwight Gooden. We'll the game starts and the Mets hit 3 home runs in the first inning. Gooden has his worst start of the season and barely makes it through 5 innings. The Mets score late and eventually win. I also remember it was brutally hot that day and we had seats in the sun in right field. Walking to car after the game we were dying of thirst and I bought 2 freezing cold beers from some guys tailgating in the area. Still the best beer I ever drank. Still the favorite game I ever attended. Got my first kiss from my future wife later that day.

The first of Sid Fernandez's two triples as a Met was hit in this game!

Gooden was on fire that night at Shea and the house was rockin! As he racked up more and more K's, I looked up from my field box seat to the K corner and thought those guys are having a lot of fun up there. Left my seat for the very end of the upper deck in left field. When Gooden would get a 2 strike count, we'd all clap and stomp our feet at the same time until the whole upper deck was bouncing up & down. The security guys had to clear us out because the stadium could come crashing down. He set a personal best that night with 16 K's and matched his rookie win total with 19. The only down side was Chili Davis smacking his fastball around. He was a Met killer.

I was 10 years old when I went with my family to this game. My dad grew up watching the NY Giants at the Polo Grounds so we always saw the Giants play when they came to Shea Stadium.

We sat by the Giants 3rd base dugout and I had the good fortune of watching Dwight "Doctor K" Gooden mowing down the hitters. It was a great night, I remember it well.

The only hitter on the Giants who Gooden couldn't strike out was Chili Davis. For some reason, Chili was one of the very few hitters in the league during the height of Doc's dominance that never had trouble with him. No one else could touch Gooden on this night, 16 K's in all for his 19th win.

On the way to the game I was on the 7 train and I was the lone Giant fan on the train. I was surrounded by Mets fans, and I thought even though we're not so good this year we can beat 'em today. So it was a good simple victory for my team that later lost 100 games.

Terry Leach didn't find out that he was starting this game until about a half hour before it started. Sid Fernandez was scheduled but couldn't go. So naturally, he goes out and pitches a complete game shut out.

Leach is generally forgotten in Mets history by fans because he had nothing to do with the famous 1986 team (since they were so healthy, they never needed him and he was stashed in the minors all year). But he was truly one of the most underrated and underappreciated Mets of all time. Always tended to pitch well when given the chance.

In the top of the eighth, with the Mets ahead, 3- 1, the Padres loaded the bases with no outs. Nettles looped one into short left field, and Santana made a sensational Willie Mays-like catch over hit head in left, holding the runners. Terry Kennedy then hit a smash toward first and Hernandez handled a bad hop, threw to Santana at second, who leaped over the sliding Steve Garvey and threw in the dirt back to first. Jesse Orosco made an unbelievable scoop of the throw to complete the DP, and the big crowd exploded.

The next day on Channel 9, I heard McCarver say that he had never seen three outs in one inning recorded in such spectacular fashion.

This was a great and memorable game(s)...because it was the 20th win for Dwight Gooden, I believe he was the youngest to achieve that, and it capped a doubleheader sweep by the Mets over the Padres...a mistake on this listing. Strawberry had a huge series, homering and also hitting a shot to dead center field which froze Padre center fielder, Kevin McReynolds. Electricity, the wave, what a day!

This was Doc's 20th win in '85. That gave him the record for the youngest pitcher ever to win 20 games. He beat Bob Feller by a month.

Correction to an earlier post: this was a Sunday afternoon game at Shea, not a doubleheader. These teams had played a twi-nighter two nights earlier (Friday night) that the Padres swept.

Doc won his 20th but lasted only six innings, striking out just four Padres. Strawberry had a terrific day: he had an RBI double and later scored in the first, he walked in the third, homered in the fifth, walked intentionally and scored in the seventh, and had an RBI single in the eighth.

This was the first baseball game I ever attended. I was four years old. I still remember bits and pieces of it. Any time something seemed to happen, I asked my father whether it had been good for the Mets. I remember my father pointing out Howard Johnson and telling me they called him "HoJo".

I was at this game on a cloudy, rainy Sunday at Shea. The weather was no problem as the Mets whipped the Padres. Dwight Gooden pitched superbly and became the youngest 20-game winner ever. Darryl Strawberry hit a home run to center field and Roger McDowell finished up for a save. McDowell also doubled down the left field line to drive in a run.

Gooden’s feat was displayed on the message board right after the game. The fans called for Dwight and he came out of the dugout, already dressed in street clothes, to acknowledge them.

This game was one of those times that Davey sent a clear message to Ron Darling, to either put up or shut up.

Usually, Davey gave Gooden to most leeway on the staff, especially early in his managerial career. But on this night, he showed supreme confidence in Darling (not always easy for Davey as the two of them butted heads on occasion). In the 9th inning with a one run lead, with Darling still in there and after getting the first 2 men out, he suddenly loads the bases with a walk, single and walk.....prime time to bring in McDowell or Orosco. But Davey decided to let Darling get out of his own jam, and he proved him right, getting the final out on a harmless fly ball to the outfield.

a remarkable Mets win, Keith Hernandez put the Mets up for good with a pinch-hit homer off Mark Davis into the upper-deck at Candlestick. The rally almost dies as Larry Bowa, pinch-running for Staub gets caught rounding the bag at 3rd.

This was a Labor Day game and I was at a family outing. I stayed inside all day watching this game which was a total bust for the Mets until the 9th. Hernandez blast off the tough lefthander Mark Davis was awesome. One of my personal favorite Met memories.

Keith hit what was probably his furthest Mets homer to win this one, off of one of Mark Davis' curveballs.

The Mets were red hot at this point in the season as Keith had his second 5-hit game of the year. He'd miss the next few games after this due to flying to Pittsburgh for the famous drug trials taking place for testifying.

This was the start of probably the best run that Gary Carter had in his career with the Mets. Five home-runs in two days and every one of them a bomb. I remember staying up late to watch the games on the west coast. Gary never looked more like a hall of famer than he did on this road trip.

Gary Carter hit three homers in a game right on the 20th anniversary of Jim Hickman becoming the first Met to do so. Carter had solo, two-run and three-run clouts to drive in six of the Mets’ eight runs. Darryl Strawberry also homered and the Padres, as a team, had three round-trippers of their own.

Gary Carter was red hot with another 2 homers, giving him 5 in 2 games. Still a Mets record to this day.

This was also one of the games that Keith Hernandez missed because he was in Pittsburgh with baseball's drug trials.

Gooden vs. Valenzuela, round 2. If the game in May was the greatest ever, this has to be number 2. Tom Paciorek made a miracle catch in right field to keep this one scoreless, and both pitchers dominated. Gooden pitched 9, Fernando went 11 -- and many people think he was never the same after that game. The Mets finally won it in the 13th when Darryl Strawberry poked a 2-run double down the left line.

I remember going to my brother's house to watch this game because my town hadn't gotten cable yet and this game was on Sportschannel. On top of that, I had a vicious stomach virus but I still sat on my brothers couch watching until nearly falling asleep. If I had leprosy, I woulda went there anyway: It was Doc vs Fernando.

Remember the comic strip "Motley's Crew" which was in the New York Daily News in the 1980's? It featured the antics of the beer drinking, blue collar working and sports fan Mike Motley, his family and his friends. Anyhow, the Saturday September 7th, 1985 edition foretold a Mets win from this game. It begins when the Old Man asks Mike what is in the news and Mike replies "Yesterday, the Mets beat the Dodgers, the Blue Jays beat the Twins and the Pirates beat the Astros." In the words of Phil Rizzulto's pal Meatloaf, 2 out of 3 ain't bad: They got the Mets and Blue Jays victory right but the Astros wound up winning in 10 innings over the Pirates. (Comic strips are drawn in advance.) I was a big fan of "Motley's Crew", I read it every day until it ended many years ago.

SportsChannel had this game, so a lot of New Yorkers didn't see it. But Tom Paciorek made one of the best catches of the year for the Mets to end the 8th inning and save the game. Diving with his back turned toward home plate to catch the line drive.

This was the infamous "brawl" game on the NBC Game of the Week. The day after a great Gooden- Valenzuala match up, Ed Lynch piched junkballs for six innings. Mariano Duncan (a rookie) didn't take kindly to Lynch and after failing to bunt for hits twice, struck out in the sixth. Word were exchanged and escalated into a bench clearing fight. Mets lost the game and Lynch was hurt and useless the rest of the season. Some fans said the Mets lost the 1985 pennant because of this game.

I was at this game, a HUGE one for a lot of reasons...

This was Hernandez's first game back after the Pittsburgh drug trials. We give him a standing O and he whacks a base hit on the first pitch...

Bottom of the first, 2 on, 1 out, George Foster gets hit in the butt and makes a move out to the mound. Both benches empty, the usual pushing & shoving, yaddayaddayadda...

So, now, bases loaded, no out, HoJo comes up and hits a rocket over the right field scoreboard. YEAH BABY!

The the f-ing Cards start a comeback...then it starts to rain.

During the rain delay, they put the Reds-Padres game up on the Diamond Vision and I got to see Pete Rose break Ty Cobb's all-time hits record, sitting on the aisle steps in the right field mezzanine, between the raindrops.

Fantastic night!

I remember this one like yesterday. Foster gets plunked in the 1st inning. Hojo steps in and launches a bomb off of Cox way out to right. I can still hear Ralph's call "...it's going, going and it's gone goodbye! A grand slam home run for Howard Johnson!"

A real heartbreaker, but a great game. I remember buying tickets for this one in April, knowing it would memorable. Tudor and Gooden were locked up for nine innings; Cesar Cedeno's home run off Orosco won it in the tenth. The most disappointing regular season loss until the Pendleton game.

Cesar Cedeno, at the end of his career, takes Orosco deep in the 10th to win it for the Cards. This was the night after Hojo's grand slam and the day before Keith's single through the whole. God the '85 season just drives me crazy with what ifs - what if the Mets win this game, what if Foster comes through with the bases loaded in the first inning in game three of the final series at Busch. Well it wasn't meant to be!

I had Tix to see Dire Straits at Radio City Music Hall this night. I was bummed about not being able to see the game, but hell, it was Dire Staits at Radio City. Anyway, we knew the game was starting and you could hear a buzz in the crowd. I went into the lobby and it was packed with people listening to portable radios. I quickly reported back to my brother at our seats, Mets had the Bases Loaded in the first inning. Our hopes were high. It was a crushing loss.

This was a great pitcher's duel between Tudor and Gooden. I went to this game with my brother and oh boy did we hate Tudor, but he pitched a 10-inning shutout. Gooden pitched great. Cedeno's HR down the left field line into the Mezzanine was one of the hardest hit balls I've ever seen in person. It's so funny that Mets fans never give Cedeno any credit in the Cardinals winning the NL East in 1985. He was the difference. Sure there was the Pendleton HR, but Cedeno's contribution as a late season addition to this team was huge.

Second year law school - Moot Court competition the same night - I have tix to this game - what to do - I pass on the game! Now, 20 some odd years of practicing law, I shoulda gone to the game!

This was the reason the Mets never caught the Redbirds, Cesar Cedeno: Traded by the Cincinnati Reds to the St. Louis Cardinals for Mark Jackson (minors) August 29, 1985. Cedeno Hit .434 in the last 37 games.

Picking up Cedeno was a major factor in St. Louis holding off the Mets. He hit 6 HR, 19 RBI, .434 for Cards, after being picked up from the Reds on Aug 29th 1985.

This is one of those Met highlight reel classics. Tie game in the bottom of the 9th. A game the Mets absolutely need to stay in the race. Mookie leads off the 9th with a single. Wally bunts him to second and then Keith goes the other way and punches one past Ozzie into left field. Wilson barely beats the throw to the plate. What a game!

I have bittersweet memories of this game. It was the day the Yankees were also playing the Toronto Blue Jays at home, trying to win their division. My brother Andrew had tickets to the Yankee game.

I covered the Met game for Inside Pitch. But that morning, I went to my interview with the magazine's new editors from No'th Ca'lina, and that was just a formality. They gave me the axe. But I still had my press pass for this game, and I didn't want to miss it. My favorite Mets, Ed Lynch, and Keith Hernandez starred, the good guys won in thrilling fashion, and I said my good-byes to my colleagues.

They drove me across town to Yankee Stadium for the second half of "Baseball Thursday," and dropped me in the press parking area. A few handshakes, some backslaps, and my days as an editor of Mets Inside Pitch were over. Then I pulled out my ticket, walked through the turnstiles, up to the upper deck, where Andrew waited, and I was an ordinary fan again.

It really hurt.

This was my first ever baseball game. My grandfather wanted to leave, but I whined and fussed so he stayed, and I'm glad he did. From that game Keith Hernandez became my favorite player and I became a Mets fan for life.

My Dad and I made the trip to Shea from Connecticut to see a great game in the thick of a pennant race. We saw a classic mid 80's Mets game. I'll never forget the sinking feeling and dead silence when McGee hit that HR in the top of the 9th to tie the game. Keith Hernandez's single through the hole between short and third is still one of my most vivid memories of Mets thrills. I'll never forget seeing Mookie round third base in full sprint in his white Mets uniform as the winning run. Nobody ran like Mookie, he had a certain style I've never seen. Hernandez was such a clutch hitter. I miss those days!

Doc was in complete control in this game, giving up only 2 hits, right in the middle of a month in which he didn't give up an earned run.

El Sid was completely in command the entire night in this one. The only hit he gave up was a homer to Gary Matthews. Foster, Carter and Straw all homered as the Mets continued the most exciting pennant race in team history. A true shame that the Cards were just a tiny bit better in the end. The 85 Mets were easily a top 5 team in franchise history.

Maybe the most forgotten gut-wrenching loss in Mets history. On a night when the Cards won late against the Expos, the Mets needed a win to keep pace in the worst way. They blew a few run scoring chances late and then eventually the Pirates get the go ahead run on a bad hop single. The Cards lead went to 2 full games, and unfortunately with the way they were playing, the Mets had to play almost perfect baseball and it just didn't happen.

Have a friend who recalls watching Gooden go deep on Rick Rhoden. In recent years we would see Mr. Rhoden playing a Champions Tour golf tournament in Des Moines, Ia (we are from Sioux City, Ia).

Each year we would be near the practice green as Rick would be there preparing for his round. My friend would say to me he would like to ask Mr. Rhoden what pitch he threw to Gooden when he homered off of him. But he never did.

I always wondered if indeed what he told me was true so I did a little research and lo and behold came across this site to find out it was true indeed.

So do any of you out there know what type of pitch he threw?

I don't know the pitch he hit, but it was Gooden's first homer in the major leagues.

This was the game in which Dwight Gooden hit his first major league home run. It was a 3-run blast that came on Rick Rhoden's first pitch, capping a 7-run inning. Rafael Santana had just doubled in a run to keep the inning alive for Doc to come to the plate.

The ball Gooden hit was to left field, backing R. J. Reynolds against the wall. Reynolds jumped for it, but it was gone. As Dwight approached first base, he high-fived Bill Robinson before going into his circular trot.

Later in the game, Gooden singled. Showing him on first base, SportsChannel displayed his AVG- HR-RBI totals for the season with the number 1 below the 'HR'. This is something normally done only for a player's first plate appearance of the game. Since it was so late in the season, the cable station may have figured it might not cover another game Dwight pitched that year. It probably wanted to show his stats containing a homer while it had the chance.

The ball Gooden hit for the homer was off of a hanging breaking ball (not sure if it was a curve or slider...but DEFINITELY a hanger)

A great day for the Mets with eighteen hits in a rout of the Pirates during a pennant race. Dwight Gooden, as usual in '85, pitched extremely well. He also hit his first major league homer and singled twice to drive in four runs. The three hits gave Gooden twenty for the season to set a record for Mets pitchers. Dwight would get his 21st hit five days later.

Other Mets had memorable games, too. Wally Backman had four hits with three RBIs, Rafael Santana collected three hits and scored three runs, and Howard Johnson was just a home run short of hitting for the cycle.

One special note on the game is that Rusty Staub (batting for Gooden in the eighth inning) singled for the 2,716th and last hit of his career. It was also Staub's 100th hit as a pinch-hitter.

This game concluded yet another shocking lost series to the worst team in baseball, and a big reason the Mets did not win this year.

Shortly after being swept by St. Louis, the Pirates win 2 of 3 against the Mets. This also happened in August. The Cardinals were 15-3 against Pittsburgh, while the Mets were a mediocre 10-8.

The Mets got their revenge the next year, going 17-1 against Pittsburgh.

Wrigley Field was practically empty on this day, with the Cubs out of the race and it being an overcast and chilly day. Gooden did not have his best stuff but gutted out a complete game shutout, in a game that the Mets absolutely had to win (at the time).

Everybody remembers Strawberry's homer in St Louis in the series after this game...but HoJo and Carter hit 2 HUGE homers in this Sunday game as well. HoJo saved the season with his game tying 9th inning homer, and Carter's 2 run game winner in extra innings put the Mets in position to really make the Cardinals series as big as it was.

I was in college with some of my frat buddies sitting in bar in PA watching this game after a class. I was so pumped by Darling's performance..gutsy was putting in lightly! I think he was up against John Tudor, who was one of the Card's best that year. I remember jumping out of my chair when Straw hit the homer..One of my all time greatest games to watch! A great game no matter who won it..

I remember this game vividly. I was a freshman at the University of Michigan and the only way we could get the game was to pick up the St. Louis radio station in a friend's dorm room. We barely got any reception, it was in and out the entire game, sometimes based only where people were standing in the room. When Staw hit the home run, the entire room full of New Yorkers went nuts...A great pitchers duel filled with tension in every pitch.

Darryl Strawberry stopped the clock with his 10th inning homer.

I remember sitting in the dark in the living room late at night watching this one play out. It was a desperate must-win for the Mets - actually all three games of this series were and we only got 2 of them! I remember the matchup was set Darling-Gooden-Aguilera vs. Tudor- Andujar-Cox. I was always a big Darling fan and he did an awesome job in this one. He matched Tudor, pitch-for-pitch. Anyway, Darryl hit the ball from Dayley high off the scoreboard in right. I remember McCarver said for years that it was the second longest shot he had ever seen hit in Busch Stadium. I think second to Willie McCovey. What a win!

Yes a must win game. The Mets #2 starter up against the ace of the first place cards with five games left to play (three against St. L) and two games behind the Cards.

This game is memorable not only because of how crucial it was for the Mets 1985 season but because it was the most intense pitching matchup I have ever seen.

Darling matched Tudor pitch for pitch. Through nine innings Darling gave up three scattered hits and Tudor gave up four. I was on the edge of my seat with every pitch. I knew that one mistake would blow the game. After nine full innings, there were no mistakes from the mound and no score.

The two starters pitched until the tenth and then both were taken out for pinch hitters. It was a letdown for me that the two starters did not finish the game though they both pitched with excellence. If the game were in the sixties, they likely would have been kept in the game.

The Mets won in the eleventh but the Cards won the pennant. I can not remember a single game that was as strongly pitched from both sides as this game was and it is vividly and permanently in my memory as one great ballgame for the pitchers.

Strawberry's biggest regular season HR as a Met!

Anyone out there live on Long Island in 1985? This game was played on the day after Hurricane Gloria hit and we had no electricity. Saw it on my friend's battery-powered Sony Watchman, which was state of the art at that time. That clock shot by Strawberry in the wee hours of the morning . . . major excitement, albeit in the dark. I'll never forget that game. Nail-biter from start to finish.

Darling pitched the game of his life.

I remember Johnson getting a lot of heat from the NY press for not matching up Gooden (on 3 days rest) against Tudor who was almost as unbeatable as Gooden down the stretch (Tudor had a 1.97 era and a unthinkable 10 shutouts in '85. Almost half of his wins were shutouts!).

Herzog, switched Tudor's place with Andujar in his rotation, but Johnson didn't take the bait and keeped Darling in his turn. I never knew what the controversy was all about. The Mets need all three games to have a chance at the division so why mess up the rotation. (If the Cardinals had loss all three games you know the White Rat would have gotten a lot criticism for messing his rotation!)

For young Met fans (I was 17) '84 is remembered as the year we all felt what a pennant race was, but it was really '85 and these three games that really showed us the heat of the race and gave a glimpse of what was to become in '86.

I remember the whole city was up watching these games. The lead story on all the local news, etc.

Strawberry's homer (still one of the biggest in Met history) was truly amazing! Van Slyke didn't move an inch when the ball sailed into the St. Louis night. Of note, Dayley’s curveball that night was unhittable. In the 11th he fanned Hernandez (with the hometown Cradnial fans going crazy every time Hernandez made an out) then again Carter, before he threw one to many curves that Straw (keeping his shoulder in) tagged.

Lastly, everyone remembers Darling's big game, Straw's homer but what about the bottom of the 11th? It started with Mookie dropping a fly ball and Orosco doing his Houdini routine to get out of trouble! As the game ended all I thought about was having Gooden fresh the next day...with his 23-4 record in tow...and how Johnson now looked like a genius.

The Mets cruised through eight innings behind the Doctor in this critical game - the night after Darryl's shot won it in the 11th. If my memory isn't fading me, the Cards put on quite a rally in the 9th. In fact, I'm pretty sure that Tommy Herr was at bat with two outs in the 9th as the tying run and lined out to second base. This was the high water mark of the season, as the Mets came up short the next night against Danny Cox.

It's hard to believe there is only one posting on this game!

Joe Lanzisera is correct--the Cards struck fear into the hearts of us who were watching this game. The Mets had a 5-1 lead in the bottom of the ninth with Doc on the mound--money in the bank. In fact, Doc retired the first two batters he faced in the ninth and it didn't seem to matter that the Mets had the bases loaded with one out in the top of the ninth but did not add to their lead.

But Gooden walked Ozzie, and then he walked pinch- hitter Curt Ford. Vince Coleman singled in a run and Willie McGee singled to load the bases, meaning that the tying runs were on base and Tom Herr represented the winning run. Herr already had two singles and a walk off Doc that night, but this time he lined it to second baseman Wally Backman and the Mets were just one game out of first with four games left.

I was born right after the Mets won. Darryl's home run came around 11. I was born 12:09. My grandmother still holds me responsible for making her miss "the Mets" and most of the doctors were more interested in this game then me. But my dad and mom's favorite team won and they became parents. That's a pretty good day.

Doc set a record in this game for Mets pitchers by driving in a run for his 4th straight game.

As I remember it, if the Mets had won this game they would have tied the Cardinals for first place with three games to go in Montreal (please note that the Expos played so exceptionally well during the last three games that winning the East would have been tough anyway). After winning the first two games,the Cardinals came back and finally won one, leaving the Mets two games behind.

Cardinals manager out-managed Davey Johnson. One fine move by The Rat was placing injured, but active, Jack Clark on the on-deck circle forcing Johson to make a pre-mature pitching change.

I had the strange, but exciting privilege of "watching" this game (and series) from Paris, through the boxscores in the International Herald Tribune, which were printed on the second day after the game. Everyone stateside knew the result by the time I rushed down to the newstand, still hoping that the Mets had swept and tied for first place. To hell with the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower. Did the Mets win? It was not to be.

The Mets came in on a roll after winning the first two of the series to move within a game of first place. It had been an uphill battle all the way and now first place was just a win away. I remember the Mets loaded the bases in the 1st inning with two outs. George Foster grounded out and the Cardinals dodged a bullet and the Mets just could not get anything going the rest of the night against Cox. The final series against Montreal was very anti-climatic.

I was keeping score of this game at home and was so upbeat. Disappointed with the finish in 1984, I felt this was the year!! This was also pre-ESPN media info days and you had to wait until the lineup was shown by Channel 9 for any info or news.

All I can remember is cursing Davey Johnson for putting in George Foster instead of LH Danny Heap against RH Danny Cox in the lineup-why!?!? Sure enough, George did what he did best for us- grounded into a fielder's choice when a hit would have sealed a sweep and who knows, maybe the division.

It made me realize that Johnson was not a bright manager, but rather one that had a good team for a couple of years and wasn't able to ride it to the finish line in 85, 87 and the NLCS in 88. Its a shame because we should have been in the WS more than that one time and this game was proof of his inadequacy as a manager. Thank goodness for Buckner, otherwise we may not have won at all!!

Bitter end to a memorable series. Gary Carter popped out to end game; he swung at Lahti's 1st and only pitch of the game. If Mets hadn't won it all in '86, I probably still wouldn't have forgiven this poor AB in a hall of fame career.

A.J. give me a break, The game was tied when Buckner made his error. As for this game - two words - George Foster. What a disaster. How about my man Keith going 5 for 5 when it mattered - as always! We should have swept this series and gone on. But it wasn't to be.

I turned down a chance to go see the then WWF (now WWE) have their Saturday Night's Main Event taping at the then-Brendan Byrne Arena in East Rutherford, NJ (now Izod Center) to watch this pivotal game. After the Mets lost, I cried for days and cursing the rotten Cardinals (which I would wind up doing again in 2006). But I watched the Main Event that Saturday on CH. 4 at 11:30 watching Uncle Elmer get married and an all-out brawl featuring Paul Orndorff and Rowdy Roddy Piper. AT LEAST THE AMAZINS WON IT ALL THE NEXT YEAR!!!!

Mark, your man Keith may have gone 5 for 5 in this game but 1985 was not his finest moment. His slump in late August plus his mediocre September helped give the Cards the lead in the standings that made this game a must and the Mets did not get it.

Gary Carter practically carried the 1985 Mets on his back to even keep them in contention during the 1985 pennant race. Keith is remembered much more for 1984 and 1986 than for 1985.

Remember this game well. A big disappointment after winning the first two and potentially being tied for the lead with three left to play. It wasn’t meant to be. Keith Hernandez had his third 5 hit game within a 2 month span, which confuses me as to why Ed K mentions a “late August slump and mediocre September.” On August 15 he was hitting .294 and finished the year at .309. Seems more like he was peaking at just the right time. He will always be the Mets General.

Some friends and I were at Shea that day -- Fan Appreciation Day, I believe. With the Mets trailing 4-1 late in the game, the scoreboard posted the Cardinals victory, which gave them the pennant regardless of what the Mets did. The whole crowd got on their feet and began CHEERING the Mets long and loudly in acknowledgement of a great effort and a great season, knowing in our hearts this was a team on the rise. Many fans drove home while cheering wildly with their heads out the windows and giving each other the "thumbs up." That seems like another era. Today, if a team doesn't win it ALL, so-called "fans" want to run them out of town and fire everyone from the GM to the groundskeepers.

After the Cardinals victory was posted and in what was now a meaningless game, Gary Carter hits an infield grounder and then runs with absolutely everything he has to try to beat it out. The guy just never quit.

Bill Latham had the dubious distinction of taking both the Mets first and last losses of the '85 season. Not only was this game his final one with the Mets (he and Beane were dealt for Teufel that winter) it was the last major league game for both Rusty Staub and Larry Bowa as well as Ron Gardenhire and Tom Paciorek's Met farewells. Hubie Brooks got a nice ovation after driving in his 100th run and coming out for a pinch-runner.

I remember going to this game despite the Mets' elimination the day before - the stadium was about half full, with fans spaced out in every section across the whole stadium. It was a very sad atmosphere as I recall, given that the team got so close to winning the division.

At the end of the game all of the Mets came out of the dugout to salute the fans, and threw their hats into the crowd...

If, as many Mets fans I know have said, there is some romance to playing a whole season, coming right down to the wire, only to find that your most bitter rival and fiercest competitor has put up just a little bit more than you were able to muster, then 1985 has to be considered the most beautiful season in Mets history, even moreso than 1986.

1985 was, indeed, one of those seasons where you were eminently left wanting more. Anyone who doubts that has never bothered to read Keith Hernandez's book chronicling this season on a game-by-game basis. It is, perhaps, the finest Baseball book ever written.

My only regret about the 1985 Mets has to be that I was only 6 at the time, and not having discovered Baseball or the Mets in my young age, I was not around to watch the team or appreciate them. Not that I was old enough to fully appreciate it anyway. Only the 1999 Mets can come close, in my eyes, to comparing to the Mets of 1985.

Apologies to Ron Gardenhire for making him the verbal target of my frustration at this last game of a season that had one heckuva pennant race, even if the Mets came up short. I believe I screamed that he should find another line of work. On the bright side, that night I went to Giants Stadium and saw the Giants beat the Cowboys.

Rusty Staub's last game in the majors, and he also made the last out of the season. It would have been a nice swansong for him to get a hit, but after fouling off a bunch of tough pitches, he finally grounded out to 2nd base, ending the season.

Also a nice job by the Mets fans in attendance as they gave Hubie Brooks a nice cheer when he got his 100th RBI for the Expos on this day.