A World Series Retrospective

It is refreshing to see that the three players who created home runs with their gloves in post-season play all popped balls out of the park with their bats as well.

Most baseball fans never get to see an outfielder carry a ball over the fence for a home run. Baseball fans who chewed their nails through this year's playoffs and World Series saw it happen an amazing three times.

Perhaps next year's Series will feature multiple triple plays or hidden ball tricks. But aside from all oddities, this year's World Series was just what everyone had expected--the Mets against the Red Sox--and oh so much more.

No teams from Kansas or Quebec or--God forbid--California in this Series. Just baseball's two favorites in the head-to-head match-up everybody had been waiting for since August.

There were no upsets. The team everyone expected to romp to victory did just that--although the Mets didn't have as easy a time of it as the Celtics or the Chicago Bears did in their title conquests.

For the Mets, anything less than a World Championship would have been a let-down. After failing to reach the playoffs the two previous years, the New Yorkers had one mission: winning the World Series.

They were the pre-season pick of nearly every sportswriter in the country to win it all--and sure enough, they wasted no time in jumping to a 20-game lead. Had they lost the World Series, their season would have been a failure.

The Red Sox, on the other hand, cannot be considered a failure.

They had no business finishing higher than fourth in their division--and wouldn't have, had it not been for gutsy performances by players like Dwight Evans, Bill Buckner, Bruce Hurst and Roger Clemens.

The Sox made Bostonians forget about the 1975 World Series loss. They made everybody forget the nightmare of '78 and little Bucky Dent's pop-fly homerun."

Most of all, both teams can be proud of having played in one of the most exciting World Series in recent memory.

Buckner can be proud for giving his all while hobbling around first base. Dave Henderson can be proud of coming from last-place Seattle to first-place Boston and hitting up a storm in both the playoffs and the Series.

Keith Hernandez can be proud of cementing his reputation as Mr. Clutch. Jesse Orosco can be proud of the 10th hit of his career. Len Dykstra can be proud of being one of baseball's best gamers.

The 1986 postseason was a time for little errors, big hits, great pitching, bad pitching and everything else that makes for interesting entertainment over a three-week stretch.