Mookie: Life, Baseball, and the ’86 Mets

They said it was the &quot;Curse of the Bambino.&quot; They said &quot;the bad guys won.&quot; Now one of baseball's all-time good guys, New York Mets legend Mookie Wilson, tells his side of the story - from the ground ball through Bill Buckner's legs that capped the miraculous 1986 World Series Game Six rally against the Boston Red Sox to the rise and fall of a team that boasted such outsize personalities as Darryl Strawberry, Keith Hernandez, Dwight Gooden, Gary Carter, Lenny Dykstra, and Davey Johnson.<br><br>Growing up in rural South Carolina in the 1960s, Mookie took to heart the lessons of his father, a diligent sharecropper who believed in the abiding power of faith - and taught his son the game that would change his life.<br><br>When Mookie landed in Shea Stadium in 1980, the Mets were a perennial cellar-dweller overshadowed by the crosstown Yankees. But inspired by Mookie's legendary hustle, they would soon become the toast of New York. And even when their off-field antics - made famous by a contingency of the team called &quot;the Scum Bunch&quot; - eclipsed their on-field successes, Mookie stayed above the fray.<br><br>In 1986, the Mets were a juggernaut, winning 108 games during the regular season and edging the Houston Astros for the National League pennant following a grueling 16-inning Game Six classic. In the World Series against Boston, in an epic at-bat that led to the Buckner error, Mookie would ignite a fire under the Mets, helping to force a Game Seven. New York would win to become World Champions.<br><br>In an era when role models in sports were hard to come by, some tarnished by their own hubris and greed, Mookie Wilson remained the exception: a man of humility and honor when it mattered the most.<br><br><b>WITH A FOREWARD BY KEITH HERNANDEZ</b>