GoodSports: Why New York Adores Mookie Wilson (Jeff Pearlman, Wall Street Journal)

All Mookie Wilson is known for these days is The Buckner Game. According to Jeff Pearlman's research, he's talked about it roughly 7,000 times over the past several years. And according to Pearlman's story about Wilson in today's Wall Street Journal, there's way more to Mookie Wilson than that. 

Anyone who knows anything about baseball, or at least the Boston Red Sox, has heard of The Buckner Game, alias Game 6 of the 1986 World Series. It was the year the curse continued, when Boston was about to finally, finally to win their first World Series since trading Babe Ruth to the Yankees way back in the 1910s. They were playing the New York Mets.

With two outs in the top of the tenth and a man on third, Wilson came up to hit for the Mets. The ultimate, end result of his at-bat was a slow-rolling ground ball down the first base line. BoSox first baseman famously booted it, letting it roll through his legs, letting Wilson get to first safely, letting the game-winning run cross. 

 Buckner became the goat and has had to live with the worst fame anyone in sports could ever imagine because of it. Which is actually another story all itself: Buckner's play was awful, but the pitcher, Bob Stanley, has somehow faded into obscurity while he also should be shouldering the infamy. With a 2-2 count, he slung a horrible pitcher nearly into Wilson's knee, it got away from the catcher, and the tying run scored. 

Anyway, not here to try to make anybody look bad. Just observing and such. Below, most importantly, is an excerpt from and link to Pearlman's fine piece on the other side(s) of Mookie Wilson. 

Turns out that Wilson is way more than just a dude who hit a groundball that got by that guy that one time. Which, being human, is sort of default for him, like it is any of us, but hey, society likes its categories. Looking a little deeper though, there's always something better to be found. Jeff always does a good job of that, and this piece reflects that. He Wilson to be one of the nicest guys in baseball, more warm and engaging even than legendary Yankees catcher and all-time nice guy Yogi Berra.

According to Jeff's blog, there was this bit about Wilson that didn't make the final cut of the WSJ piece, about Wilson when he was a minor league manager. Whenever one of Wilson's players' families were coming into town, he made sure they got in the starting lineup. One time there was this third catcher, mostly a bullpen guy, who landed on Wilson's team. The catcher never told Wilson the day his family came, but Wilson found out anyway, the guy started, and he scored the game-winning run. You can read more about that here. 

Why New York Adores Mookie Wilson

A reporter approaches, and Mookie Wilson knows what's coming. He can sense it, in the way a canine can sense a slice of beef jerky within a nearby handbag.

"So, Mookie," the radio guy says, sticking out his microphone, "when the ball..."

Watch Mookie Wilson, languishing here along the Citi Field first-base line in the lead-up to a recent game between the Mets and Giants. Watch him closely. Before the lips curl into a smile and before the hands start moving with each word; before he cracks a couple of one-liners and before he recites the hackneyed details of a seven-second sequence from 25 years ago—there is a breath. It is slight and quick and seemingly unremarkable, but it clearly exists.

It always exists.

Without saying so much, the breath screams, "Really? You're asking me about this again? Really?"

On the one hand, Wilson, the Mets' first-base coach, understands. For millions of baseball fans, Game 6 of the 1986 World Series—and, specifically, Wilson's slow roller trickling its way through Bill Buckner's legs—stands as a definitive moment in the history of sport. "It was huge, and huge events last forever," says Hubie Brooks, a former Mets third baseman and Wilson's longtime friend. "But...''

But enough is enough. Over the course of a year's 365 days, Wilson estimates the topic of Buckner's ball is broached on "well over 300 of them." For those averse to mathematics, that means Wilson has discussed the game approximately 7,000 mind-numbing, soul-sucking times. He says he is asked by fans; by ballplayers; by strangers on the street; by taxi drivers and hot-dog vendors and even by family members.

"It gets to the point that you're talking about the story of the event, and not the event itself," he says. "It's so monotonous, it's so redundant. I know I have to tell the story, and I know people I'm telling it to have already heard me tell the story. It never changes. I'm trapped."

And yet, within this sentiment lies the simple beauty of William Hayward Wilson. For as much as he has tired of repeating the same tale ad nauseam, Wilson, 55 years old, never stops repeating the same tale ad nauseam.

"We've been together for more than 30 years, and Mookie's never turned down a request for an interview or shied away from an autograph," says Jay Horwitz, the team's veteran vice president of media relations. "He is probably the nicest, most decent man I've ever met."

Continue reading at WSJ.com. 

[ Today's Wall Street Journal piece ..., JeffPearlman.com ]
[ Why New York Adores Mookie Wilson, WSJ.com ] 

[ Pic 1: Mooke Wilson. Via. ]