Danger Zone

Welcome to Flashback Friday, a weekly feature devoted to the 20th anniversary of the 1986 World Champion New York Mets.

Twenty years, 43 Fridays. This is one of them.

Shame on me for listening to WFAN, particularly when it’s before 5 but after 4 in the morning. Shame on me for retaining anything any caller says, especially the guy last night who, while guaranteeing the Mets would win the N.L. East, predicted Cliff Floyd was ripe for an injury.

Putting aside the dual and departing tracks of those projections (2006 MVP Endy Chavez?), I’m suddenly besotted by visions of what could go wrong going wrong. Gosh, Cliff was awfully healthy last year…so was Jose…and that toe of Pedro’s…

Stop! There’s no sense delving into the miseries of the potentially awful. They’ll reveal themselves in due course if they are destined. It’s a good slap in the face for someone who’s spent this endless winter on the upbeat. I don’t believe much good comes from feeling too good. Didn’t last year, don’t now, doubt I’ll change (but it is comforting to know I’m getting my head in its proper precautionary space; play ball already yet).

This is unlike 1986. There was nothing but optimism then. Second thoughts were for second place. Perspective was for Pirates. I knew we were going to smack the living daylights out of the National League. Spring training was welcome as always, but why couldn’t we just get to the business of throttling all comers?

We were loaded.

We were healthy.

We were invincible.

What could go wrong?

Seriously — name one red flag that could have slowed us down.

How about hearing “batting third, the first baseman, No. 29, Tim Corcoran” on a regular basis?

When the possibility unexpectedly reared its mediocre head, the sound you might recall echoing up and down the eastern seaboard was my head meeting the nearest available wall. If you didn’t catch it, maybe it was because it was drowned out by your own mix of cabeza and concrete.

No offense to Tim Corcoran. No offense from Tim Corcoran either. His name was familiar from his two previous seasons in Philadelphia, one mildly impressive (.341 in 208 ABs, albeit with next to no power), one decidedly dismal (.214 and absolutely no power in 182 trips to the plate). It was after the latter that the Mets picked him up in February of ’86.

The Mets — all teams — make a habit of signing fringe 4-A players in advance of spring. So what if the Mets were giving this lefty first baseman, this 33-year-old veteran of eight big league campaigns a look-see?

Because Tim Corcoran represented something far worse than Tim Corcoran. Tim Corcoran was brought in to replace Keith Hernandez in the event that Keith Hernandez would require replacing.

Shudder.

There was a moment in spring training 1986 when the chance that Mex would not be playing in the season ahead appeared all too real.

Shudder. Shudder again.

On a team that won 98 games a year earlier and was a universal pick to win more than that in the coming year, there was one indispensable man. He swung lefty, he played first base, he batted third and he was most definitely not Tim Corcoran.

Tom Seaver’s the greatest Met that’s ever been, end of discussion. Given baseball’s tendency to view pitchers as something different from players, there’s never been quite the consensus on who is the greatest “position” or “everyday” player in Mets history…as a Met, that is.

• In the wash of sentimentality that greeted Mike Piazza’s bon voyage, he received not a few of those accolades. No doubt he was the headline player around here for a pretty long time.

• When Darryl Strawberry left the Mets after finally reaching his potential, it was not uncommon to refer to him in that manner. He was certainly the most talented player to develop as a Met and he owns the two glamour spots in the team record books, most HRs and most RBI.

• Among Mets non-pitchers (including Ashburn, Snider, Berra, Mays, Murray and throw in Rickey Henderson if you like) who have made the Hall of Fame, only Gary Carter truly burnished his Cooperstown credentials during his Met tenure. That makes him, technically, the only everyday player on the Mets to perform at Hall of Fame standards.

But if you were around to watch the Mets on a consistent basis while he put the full repertoire of his abilities and soul on display, you understand that this is Keith Hernandez’s gig. He’s the greatest Met position player that’s ever been.

End of discussion? No way. Considering Keith Hernandez was one of the privileges of having been a Mets fan from 1983 to 1989, particularly ’84, ’85 and ’86 when Keith was in full Mex, we could discuss Keith Hernandez all day and it wouldn’t do him nearly enough justice. Just a couple of thoughts from a couple of contemporary eyewitnesses to tide us over for now:

I have often written that Hernandez is the best everyday player the Mets ever had. Hernandez is also one of the most compelling athletes I have ever covered, a superb defensive player, a skillful hitter. It is like getting a master’s degree in baseball to stop by Hernandez’s locker after he has relaxed with a beer.

—George Vecsey

Keith Hernandez…is all edges and angles. He is a favorite topic of conversation and a source of fascination among the reporters who cover the team — at once prickly and cooperative, eloquent and saturnine, guarded about everything in his life except baseball, which he can discuss with rare insight.

—Joe Klein

I never played with anyone like Mex before. I mean, the guy’s been around the league a few times, he makes lots of money and all — you just don’t expect someone like him to be so fresh and exuberant and intense all the time, especially out on the field.

—Bobby Ojeda

Hernandez is dark, reflective, analytical, urban. Throughout the winter, you see him around the saloons of the city, sometimes with friends like Phil McConkey of the Giants, other times with beautiful women. His clothes are carefully cut. He reads books, loves history, buys art for his apartment on the East Side. Carter is the king of the triumphant high-fives; Hernandez seems embarrassed by them. In a crisis, Carter might get down on one knee and have a prayer meeting; Hernandez advocates a good drunk.

—Pete Hamill

It wasn’t his reluctance to be a holla back guy or his fondness for designer suits that made Keith Hernandez the best everyday player the Mets have ever had, but it added to the character and the legend that he created on the field. We could figure out from watching him hit .311 in ’84 and .309 in ’85 and drive in 94 and 91 in those respective years that he wasn’t one of those marquee types who misplaced his talent when he was traded to us. We could divine that he was clutch even without the meaningless Game Winning Run Batted In statistic (rendered meaningful when he led the world in it). We could see, even on the radio, that he defend field in a league of his own. And we couldn’t help but notice, especially in ’84 when the catcher was rookie Mike Fitzgerald, that he took it upon himself to nurse the kid pitching staff to maturity in the midst of a wholly unexpected pennant race.

His on-field persona was awesome. His postgame personality was brilliant. In an era when we were really beginning to be told what made athletes tick, nobody presented a more intricate or intriguing package to the beat writers day by day. Columnists like Mike Lupica built a cottage industry out of Hernandez envy. Tim McCarver, who was sold by St. Louis two days after Keith was first called up, spoke about him night after night with a reverence one reserves exclusively for a player you consider a true peer. The cumulative effect of the Keith coverage — not only could he play, but boy could he think — made those of us who were consumers of every word we could read about our team treasure him. Hernandez wasn’t the stud Darryl was, didn’t have quite the All-Star credentials Gary did and couldn’t match the phenomenon of Doc, but he was why those Mets were those Mets.

Keith Hernandez made us special, made us stand out, made us The Mets when that meant something entirely different from what it’s usually taken to mean. Other teams could have their superstars. Other teams could have Mike Schmidt and Dale Murphy and Andre Dawson. As long as we got to have Keith Hernandez, we’d win.

And without him?

Shudder. Shudder. Shudder.

Yet we were faced with at least the prospect of a Mexless 1986 at the end of that February when Commissioner Peter Ueberroth announced the penalties for a group of players who testified they had been drug users at the infamous Pittsburgh baseball drug trials the previous September.

Most significantly, a suspension of one year.

Shud…

But wait! There was an out! Ubie was no fool. Big names were involved in Pittsburgh. The commissioner, having assumed office during the “Just Say No” phase of this country’s ultrasuccessful War On Drugs (you can tell it’s successful by the way it’s gone on so long), needed to show he could be as tough as Nancy Reagan on the subject. Pete Hamill believed there was “something inherently unfair about punishing a man who came clean,” which is what the players in question — Keith Hernandez among them for his Cardinal sins — had done in ’85 in exchange for immunity, but the commish was lord of his own realm. He was going to make a statement and an example at the same time.

On the other hand, guys like Hernandez and the Reds’ Dave Parker were big players and star attractions. Had Ueberroth been serious, it would have been the one-year suspension he had meted out, good luck appealing, see you in court. Instead, it was a one-year suspended suspension with a hefty fine, a large dose of community service and mandatory, random drug testing. In other words, if you wanted to play ball, you’d have to play ball.

The Mets fan heard only this: “Keith Hernandez…suspended…one year…” The Mets fan then thought this: “Tim Corcoran…” And finally: “AAUUGGHH!!!!”

I’ve never used illegal drugs in my life. That’s not a boast, just a fact. I roomed with two guys in college, when I was a sophomore and when I was a senior, who smoked a little of this, snorted a little of that, maybe made a transaction or two on the side. It was around me, it just never appealed to me. I preferred liters of TaB over lines of coke. I mention this to indicate I had no tangible personal fallout from the evils of drugs except for the time the second roommate and his racist customer from down the hall woke me up with their high (on, uh, life) cackles and I responded by spraying something from an aerosol can that I thought was filled with Lysol but wasn’t, thus making the room stink worse than it had from just their smoke. I didn’t much care that Keith Hernandez had indulged a darker side as a Redbird. Hey, if it was drugs that moved Whitey Herzog to trade him to us for the paltry sum of Neil Allen and Rick Ownbey, then maybe drugs weren’t all bad.

I wasn’t at the game in September of ’85 that followed Keith’s testimony in Pittsburgh, but if I had been, I would’ve joined in the standing ovation he received. Not for his bearing witness, not for his personal rehabilitation but because he was the best player on my favorite team, one who by all indications had kicked the habit…and did I mention that he was the best player on my favorite team? Dick Young and others said those who thought like that were immoral. We were in the middle of a battle royale with the Cardinals. Nothing could have been more moral than wanting to defeat such evil.

When spring training rolled around and Ueberroth was pounding us over the head with Corc’d bats, I thought I might be hitting the pipe by the All-Star break. But there was more to this suspension. There was the out, and when we heard that, we breathed a Metropolitan sigh of relief.

Until we heard that Keith Hernandez was the one player offered the deal who wasn’t sure he was going to take it. Mex objected to being lumped in with the group of players saddled with this particular penalty. It was for those who “in some fashion facilitated the distribution of drugs in baseball”. That’s not me, Mex wrote in If At First: “I never sold or dealt drugs and didn’t want that incorrect label for the rest of my life.” He was willing to accept the punishment handed out to another group of players who had copped to drugs, players more lightly sentenced because Ueberroth couldn’t link them to dealing.

Hernandez didn’t like having to ante up $100,000 to pay the proscribed fine (1986 salary: $1.65 million), didn’t relish committing to 200 hours of community service — presumably anti-drug speeches — over two years on account of shyness, and wasn’t crazy about the invasion of his privacy when it came to peeing on demand; yes, Virginia, there was a time Americans objected to infringements on their civil liberties. But mostly, Keith said, he didn’t feel he warranted inclusion in the dealt-drugs bunch.

Ueberroth announced his decision on a Friday. Keith left the Mets complex in St. Pete to go home and think about what to do. On Saturday he issued a statement allowing he was “not pleased with the decision of the commissioner”. During the ensuing week, Hernandez continued to think and while he did, he was vilified in most corners. You mean they’ll lift the suspension as long as you pay a fine and talk to kids and whiz now and then? For the kinda money you make? Why you rotten druggie, what’s wrong with you? Go be our hero, ya bum.

I sort of admired Keith’s refusal to immediately give in, especially on the drug testing, It’s an accepted part of sports and other employment now, but then not everybody was on the side of invasiveness. If Keith Hernandez did anything else for a living or played for another team, I’d have urged him take that principled stand and sit out the year.

Especially if he played for another team

But my principles ran approximately the length of .095 points in batting average, the base difference between Keith Hernandez and Tim Corcoran in 1985.

On March 8, eight days after they were offered, Keith Hernandez accepted Peter Ueberroth’s terms. He publicly objected to his classification as a dealer, but acknowledged he had made a mistake when he took drugs and emphasized that he felt “an obligation to my team, the fans and to baseball to play this year”.

Keith Hernandez played 149 games in the 108-win season that followed, batting .310, finishing fourth in league MVP voting, starting the All-Star game in Houston and collecting his ninth consecutive Gold Glove.

Tim Corcoran was purchased from Tidewater right after the season opened. His first appearance came in the Mets’ eleventh game. He was announced as a pinch-hitter in St. Louis but then removed in favor of Kevin Mitchell when Whitey brought on a lefty. Five days later, he grounded out in Atlanta. Ten days after that, he was outrighted to the Tides. He returned more than three weeks later. Pinch-hit three times (no hits, one walk) and was given a start at first in the second game of a doubleheader in Pittsburgh. Went 0-for-4 with a walk and a run scored. Three days after that, he was put on waivers and never played in the Major Leagues again.

Final totals: 6 games, 7 at-bats, 0 hits, .000 batting average.

Tim Corcoran, sparest of 1986 spare parts?

Like, whatever.

Tim Corcoran, Plan B first baseman in lieu of Keith Hernandez?

Just say no.

Schedule advisory: Saturday night, August 19, Mets vs. Rockies. Wait! Don’t yawn! It’s Old Timers Night! Or whatever they’re calling it this year. Surprisingly, the Mets will be devoting it to the 20th anniversary of the 1986 Mets. Seemed too obvious for them to get it right, didn’t it? Club says everybody’s been invited back. Wanna bet they lost Tim Corcoran’s address?