This really ought to be a more crowded summer for the Mets. This week, the longest homestand of the season will culminate with another public coronation of the 1986 champions, who will be honored Saturday afternoon at Citi Field.
Every five years, the best team in Mets history is brought back to be feted and toasted, and they, of course, earned such reverence with that 116-win juggernaut of a team that also had just enough pixie dust to perpetuate the team’s “Amazin’ ” moniker. So they will roll out Straw and Mex, Doc and Darryl, and Darling, Nails and Sid. All of them.
By rights, they should have company. Back in 2006, when the franchise was enjoying the 20th anniversary of the ‘86 team, the Mets put together a club that was good enough to honor that bunch, because they, too, were running roughshod over the National League, as the ’86 team had. That team closed out July by sweeping the Braves in Atlanta, and by July 31 — the trade deadline that year — they were 14 games up in the East, five clear of the rest of the league.
The Mets had hoped to use that day to add one more arm — Roy Oswalt? Barry Zito? Jason Schmidt? — and finish what in that moment seemed like the most complete team by far in the NL, with only the rampaging Tigers — 70-35 that morning — seemingly in their class.
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