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Given the pace of the Mutts Season this year Billy Buck is one of MY all time Heroes..lol

*sigh* The Mets have been disappointing me as often as endearing me since the day they were born, alas.

I watched the aforesaid Sports Century profile of Buckner and the ESPN Classic replays of Games Six and Seven, which were interspersed with comments from various Mets and Red Sox. Those Mets who were asked - outfielder/reserve Lee Mazzilli, outfielder Len Dysktra, infielder Wally Backman, outfielder Mookie Wilson - said they were stunned to see Buckner still in the field as the bottom of the tenth started. In another interview, Backman has said that to a man the Mets expected Buckner to be out of the game for the bottom of the tenth. "Are you expecting Buckner to be out there?" Mazzilli commented. "Because I know I'm not."

They also expected manager John McNamara to make another move and bring in his only lefthanded relief pitcher, Sammy Stewart - who never showed up in the Series. The Mets didn't know that Stewart was a victim of McNamara's propensity to both play favourite and hold grudges: Stewart was two minutes late boarding the team bus after saying goodbye to his family before a long road trip, and he'd been with pitcher Bruce Hurst and his family. Stewart squawked at the club traveling secretary over it (both Stewart and Hurst were known to be strong family men) and got fined for the outburst, and McNamara held it against him...all season long, even though Stewart had a lifetime 0.00 ERA in twelve postseason appearances prior to 1986 and even though the 1986 Mets' only real weakness was that they didn't do well against lefthanded pitching compared to righthanded pitching. As the years have gone by, no matter the jokes and gags about Bill Buckner, I notice that John McNamara looks more and more and more to have been part and parcel of the Red Sox's real (and saddest) tradition: bonehead decisionmaking.