On Sunday, MLB Network’s series of “MLB’s 20 Greatest Games” continues. And the countdown has reached number 5 with the extra long, extra innings Game 6 of the 1986 National League Championship Series that ended with the Mets winning. The game was tension-filled throughout and it lasted five hours as the game went back and forth. Crazy game. And if you watch Sunday’s episode, you’ll hear Keith Jackson and Tim McCarver calling it for ABC. Yes, Keith actually called baseball once, but until he was brought back by ESPN to call a portion of a game a few years ago, that was the last MLB contest he called. Interesting way to end your baseball career.
Anyway, we have the particulars of Sunday’s program which will be co-hosted by MLB Network’s Bob Costas and Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci.
STRAWBERRY, OROSCO AND KNEPPER DISCUSS 1986 NLCS GAME SIX ON MLB’S 20 GREATEST GAMES ON SUNDAY, APRIL 17
Game Ranked Fifth in Series Countdown of the Best Games of the Last 50 Seasons
Secaucus, NJ, April 14, 2011 – MLB Network’s MLB’s 20 Greatest Games continues on Sunday, April 17 at 7:00 p.m. ET when Darryl Strawberry, Jesse Orosco and Bob Knepper join series hosts Bob Costas and Tom Verducci to discuss Game Six of the 1986 NLCS between the New York Mets and Houston Astros, which is ranked as the fifth best game of the series. In a game that lasted 16 innings and nearly five hours, Strawberry, Orosco and Knepper discuss the pressure on the Mets to win the series, how both teams rallied late to tie the score, the possibility of facing the Astros’ Mike Scott in Game Seven, and the legacy of the 1986 Postseason 25 years later. A clip of the episode detailing a confrontation on the mound between the Mets’ Keith Hernandez, Gary Carter and Orosco in the 16th inning can be viewed here.
New episodes of MLB’s 20 Greatest Games, which counts down the best games of the last 50 seasons, will continue to air weekly through May 22. A list of the rankings to-date is available here.
Highlights from the episode include:
DARRYL STRAWBERRY ON FACING MIKE SCOTT IN GAME SEVEN:
“I knew if we had to go to Game Seven, there was no way we were going to beat Scott. He had already got in our heads so bad, we were so frustrated with that fact that we were going to have to face him again and that challenge. We just knew we weren’t capable of beating Scott.”JESSE OROSCO ON FINISHING THE GAME IN THE 16TH INNING:
“I was tired. I was just trying to make those pitches. In that time of the moment, you just have to reach back and get everything you have inside you and go for it.”BOB KNEPPER ON IF MIKE SCOTT WAS SCUFFING THE BASEBALL IN THE SERIES:
“Everybody said everybody knew it. … I think you’d have to ask Mike to get the low-down, but I would say yeah he was.”KNEPPER ON LOSING THE SERIES:
“The immediate aftermath was just a complete emotional bottom of the barrel-type of feeling. … The entire series was just an emotional roller coaster. To have it end, you realize just how quick the ending comes. Even though it’s a six hour game or 16 innings or whatever it was, the ending is so sudden. … It was definitely a carpet being pulled up underneath you. … For me, it took me a long time [to get over the loss]. For too many times after that, I let that game define me because it was such a disappointment not to have finished that game out.”STRAWBERRY ON WINNING THE SERIES:
“That was the greatest time of my career to be able to be in a series like that because that’s what every kid dreams about, getting to the World Series. Getting to the World Series is not an easy to path. … People always ask me, ‘What were the great moments [of your career]?’ The great moments were playing in that series against the Astros because it was a nail-biter for us, it challenged us because we were the big bad [team] from the East. We were the Mets, we were the team that dominated, we were supposed to just run through it, but it wasn’t like that. It was baseball at its finest.”
And I’ll end the press release posts for now, but I have a lot more so look for them later on in the day. I have a few things to work on at the office.
