The Seventh Game Six

Twice, they’ve been intended to wrap things up; once, that worked. Four times, they’ve been meant to stave off an ending; that purpose was served thrice. Now, the seventh time. We’re striving for staving.

Welcome to the two most underrated words in sports: Game Six. Game Seven gets all the laurels before it becomes necessary. Quite understandable, though the fuss over a Game Seven reminds of Fonzie (Henry Winkler, not Edgardo Alfonzo) explaining to Richie Cunningham on Happy Days why he didn’t bother going out on Saturday nights: “I like to stay home on amateur night.” Judging by the Nielsens, Game Seven attracts the lookie-loos. The networks love Game Seven. Game Six can be the emotional pinnacle for those of us who’ve been tuned in since Opening Day and lived and died the Full 162 and then some. Game Six is something you couldn’t have imagined, can’t take for granted.

That’s where we are.

The first Mets Game Six was supposed to be a wrapper-upper. The Mets led the A’s three games to two in the 1973 World Series. We couldn’t have imagined any of it, not when we were in last place on August 30, not when Dave Augustine hit that ball that was surely going out, not when rain soaked Chicago for consecutive days at the end of the schedule, not when the Big Red Machine got to chugging. Not, for that matter, when mighty Oakland made off with Games One and Three by a run apiece. Yet here we were, in the sunny Coliseum, one Tom Seaver start from our second world championship. Somehow, Seaver — and his opposite number Catfish Hunter — are reduced to asterisk status in the regretful retellings of the first Mets Game Six. It usually boils down to a pitcher the visiting manager didn’t use. Maybe a Stone’s throw would have made all the difference. As was, Seaver gave up a pair of runs over seven innings, with Tug McGraw allowing another in the eighth. Catfish, as much a legend as Tug and ever bit the Hall of Famer Tom was, scattered four hits in seven-and-a-third of one-run ball. The omnipresent Darold Knowles and the Cooperstown-bound Rollie Fingers finished up. A’s 3 Mets 1. There’d be no wrap on the Series that day. There’d be a rap on Yogi forever after.

The second Mets Game Six did wrap things up. Not nice and tidy, but whaddaya want after sixteen innings fueled by an intense desire to not face Mike Scott the next day? 1986 National League Champion Mets 7, 1986 National League Runner-Up Astros 6. No matter what happens in L.A. tonight, the 1986 National League Championship Series remains for the foreseeable future the only postseason series the Mets have ever taken in six. Of all the Mets Game Sixes, this, to the Metsnoscenti, can be referred to as simply “Game Six,” and everybody in earshot oughta know which one you mean.

No real argument.

Unless you mean the third Mets Game Six, which was also a doozy. The other team was the one looking to put a wrap on the matter at hand. If there’s a Game Six, somebody is one game from clinching. In the 1986 World Series, it was the Red Sox, up three games to two, not to mention up five runs to three with two out and nobody on in the bottom of the tenth, Gary Carter coming to the plate. This is the Levy’s Rye Bread of Game Sixes: you don’t need to be a Mets fan to know it (though it helps if you want to love it). They even made a movie out of this Game Six. It wasn’t a good movie, but the real-life footage of Mets 6 Red Sox 5 will always be timeless.

Real life was better.

The fourth Mets Game Six did its job. It staved off elimination. I’m comfortable in asserting that “nobody” talks about it or remembers it. Of course some people don’t have selective amnesia, but when the 1988 National League Championship Series stirs conversation, it’s rarely to revel in recalling the 4-for-4 performance of Kevin McReynolds that included a homer and three RBIs, or the way David Cone redeemed his idiotic ghostwritten column by going the distance (a.k.a. nine innings, lest you not believe such pitching stamina is impossible) in defeating the Dodgers, 5-1. It happened. You can look it up. Actually, you don’t have to. I just told you about it. You can go back to spitting at the thought of Mike Scioscia now.

The fifth Mets Game Six was a Viking funeral for a saga of a season that could be properly laid to rest only by setting it ablaze at sea. That’s what Braves 10 Mets 9 slamming shut the 1999 National League Championship Series felt like to me. It’s still the grippingest Mets game I’ve ever experienced, and that includes the aforementioned “Game Six”. I was crushed and I was elevated. Even the Game Sixes that get a little lost to the mists of time can do that.

The sixth Mets Game Six, and the most recent, started with a bang in the form of a Jose Reyes leadoff home run. Who doesn’t like a tone being set? The Mets needed to win this Game Six if they wanted a Game Seven in the 2006 National League Championship Series. They built a 4-0 lead, they carried it to the ninth, and Billy Wagner, bless his heart, gave half of it back. Whoever bought the red Shea Stadium seat I sunk into at the instant of the final out of Mets 4 Cardinals 2 probably wonders what that residue they can’t quite scrub clean is from. It’s from the portions of my soul that seeped out of my body as Wagner made the game we needed closer and closer and closer. That’s why they call them closers. John Franco came out to wave a towel prior to Game Four of the 2024 NLCS, and I was delighted to see him, because it wasn’t a late inning in some year when Franco was a Met. I know Franco piled up tons of saves. I know Wagner piled up tons of saves. I know Franco and Wagner are two of the best lefty closers ever. I’ll applaud Billy should he make the Hall this January. I think Johnny deserved a closer look. But Jesus H. Alou, does every outstanding Met closer have to be the way they are — close your ears, Edwin — especially in a Game Six? Franco gave up a crucial run in 1999’s. Armando Benitez did the same. As for Wagner, he never saw action in Game Seven of the 2006 NLCS. And no Shea Stadium seat can claim to be 2006 World Series-used.

So there you have it. Six Game Sixes thus far. Four Mets wins. Two Mets non-wins. In the seventh Game Six, only one result is an option. When we get it, we’ll invite the lookie-loos over for Game Seven, no hesitation.

But first, Game Six.