WATCH: '86 Mets 30-for-30 Trailer Is Out and I CAN'T WAIT

by Tim Reilly July 13, 2021

Lost in the Pete Alonso HR Derby show Monday night was the teaser of the '86 Mets 30-for-30. Premiering Sept. 14 and 15 as a 4-part special, this documentary is going to get every Mets fan amped UP for the '21 Mets playoff run.

Carter. Hernandez. Gooden. Strawberry.

The 1986 Mets are the focus of a new four-part @30for30 titled "Once Upon a Time in Queens" 🍿 pic.twitter.com/teSc11Wdrw

— ESPN (@espn) July 13, 2021

The '86 team is beyond legendary status. Those guys are larger-than-life figures 35 years later. There's no story you can tell me about that team I wouldn't believe. It feels as though we've heard it all before, and yet I know there's much, much more to be told.

I don't consider myself a big reader by all means. These days I consume the majority of my content in under thousand articles (don't worry, I'll keep this one under 500) or under 280 characters on Twitter. But one book I cannot recommend enough is "The Year The Bad Guys Won." I can honestly say it's the only book I've read more than once in my life... and it's likely to be the only book I do so with.

The stories and insight are amazing. "You don't drink a World Series drinking milk" is my favorite quote from any piece of literature. That line alone should tell you what kind of stories you're in for if you pick up a copy. Yet there's still more to this team. I know there is, and I'm hopefully we'll get it all over the course of 4 hours. 

Hell, those guys have probably forgotten more good stories while under the influence than the rest of us will have in our lifetimes to share. Man oh man, what I would've done to be a fly on the wall for that season (drug-free, of course). There's just something about that team, those characters and that time in New York that go together so well.

I was born just a few months after the '86 World Series. Yet I have such a strong reverence for those moments and those faces. Keith, and Kid, and Mookie, and Doc, And Daryl, Oh my. These are names and nicknames Mets fans learn as a right of passage to this day. We don't just yearn for another championship; we yearn for another team like that.

The truth is there will never be another team like that. That's not to say there won't be another team as talented to play in Queens. It could happen. But if it does, they would never, ever be able to behalf even a fraction of the same way off the field. Those days are numbered. The '86 Mets were the last of the Mohicans.

I expect this 30-for-30 to be more than just a documentary about the Mets. It will be a time capsule for New York and New York baseball in the '80s. A time when the Mets ruled the city. A time many of us wish we lived through. And a time many are hoping to live through once more. 

This 4-part series will be the perfect appetizer before bringing another World Series trophy home to Queens. How fitting this timing will be!

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