Kings of Queens: Life Beyond Baseball with '86 Mets by Erik Sherman

Author:Erik Sherman [Sherman, Erik]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2016-03-21T22:00:00+00:00

8

ONE WAS TORMENTED

Things got so bad that some “fan” sent me a Rexall Drugs prescription for cyanide. The directions said “take until termination.”

—DOUG SISK

(METS RELIEF PITCHER, 1982–87)

It was a Saturday afternoon on September 8, 1984, at a packed and boisterous Shea Stadium, the crowd roaring to every single pitch. The first-place Chicago Cubs were in town, and the Mets had thoroughly dominated them in the opening game of the series the evening before, with a 10–0 victory behind Doc Gooden’s complete-game one-hitter. Banners screaming “Cub Busters!” a rallying cry in homage to the adopted Mets theme song and that summer’s hit movie Ghostbusters, were being waved by fans and hung from the railings throughout the ballpark.

The fans smelled blood.

A win on this overcast day would pull the Mets to within five games of Chicago in the National League East. A loss would all but end their hopes of winning the title in a division in which they had spent sixty-five days in first place during their unexpected, magical summer run.

Chicago led 2–0 when Davey Johnson summoned Doug Sisk to pitch the top half of the seventh inning to keep things close against Cubs starter Rick Sutcliffe, the would-be Cy Young Award winner for the National League that year.

Sisk had followed up a brilliant first full season with the club in 1983—a year he finished third in the Rookie of the Year balloting— with an even better 1984 campaign to that point, entering the game with an astounding 1.95 ERA to go along with fifteen saves. He was one of the building blocks the Mets had relied on during this turnaround season, and his nasty sinker ball had more movement than any other in baseball.

But on this day, Sisk picked the wrong time to not have his best stuff. The Cubs connected against him for four hits in plating two more runs, to give themselves a seemingly insurmountable 4–0 lead with their ace Sutcliffe on the mound.

As Sisk walked toward the Mets’ dugout after the final out of the frame was made, the boos rained down on him hard. Very hard. Watching the game on television, I was in near shock at how the Shea faithful could be so extraordinarily harsh on one of their own, particularly a relief pitcher who had been so remarkable up until that fateful game.

The Cubs, of course, would hold on to win the game, effectively sealing the Mets’ demise.

As for Sisk, he would remain with the Mets through the ’87 season and would even help them win a world championship, but would never be as effective a pitcher as he was over much of his first two seasons with the Mets.

And worse yet, many fans would never let him forget that early September day in 1984.

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