Success: Winners and Losers

The 1986 New York Mets are one of the most legendary teams in Major League Baseball history. Heck, they won 108 of their 162 games, easily securing a place in the playoffs, and boasted five All-Stars plus a lineup powered by one big-name slugger after another. When they clinched the World Series with a now-legendary victory over the Boston Red Sox in the seventh and final game, many sportswriters couldn't resist relaying to their readers the cliched yet satisfying tale of a team destined to triumph: a team of winners.
If only it were so simple.
By most indicators, the Mets were, in fact, a team destined to fail. Their manager, former All-Star second baseman Davey Johnson, was a mediocre strategist who drank excessively and imposed minimal discipline. Their two brightest young stars, pitcher Dwight Gooden and right fielder Darryl Strawberry, were beginning to experiment with cocaine. Catcher Gary Carter was an annoying egomaniac who drove his teammates crazy; rookie Kevin Mitchell was a reformed San Diego gang-banger with a bullet lodged in his back and an alarmingly violent temper; third baseman Ray Knight was a 33-year-old has-been and his backup, Howard Johnson, had been dismissed by his former team, the Detroit Tigers, as a man who would crumble in the clutch. As for experience under pressure, they had next to none. A grand total of two Mets had played in a prior World Series.
"We had a lot of demons and issues to overcome," recalls Ed Hearn, the team's backup catcher. "But there was one thing we had that turned us into winners: one man who wouldn't let us lose, no matter what obstacles we faced.
"Thank God," says Hearn, "for Mex."
In Keith "Mex" Hernandez, the Mets had a leader who absolutely refused to bow down. A veteran first baseman who had won the 1982 World Series with the St. Louis Cardinals, Hernandez was the guy who paced the dugout while screaming at rival pitchers; it was Hernandez who advised Met relief pitchers about why the outside fastball would work better than the inside slider, and who set the ever-important (yet oft-absent) positive tone. Though Hernandez was a skilled player who would go on to win a National League-record 11 Gold Gloves, he was hardly the most talented man on the Mets' roster. Yet, as Hearn puts it, he possessed "that special something."
"Just something about Mex oozed confidence," says Hearn. "It was contagious. It made you need to win." Hence, when the Mets seized the championship from the Red Sox against all odds (New York was twice one strike away from losing), nobody within the clubhouse was especially surprised. "Hell," Hernandez said at the time, "we always expect to win. Always." And they did.