Did Shea Stadium Congratulate the Red Sox on Winning the World Series During Game 6 of the 1986 World Series?
SPORTS LEGEND: Shea Stadium congratulated the Boston Red Sox on winning the 1986 World Series before Game 6 of the 1986 World Series ended.
The moment will live on forever in infamy, Red Sox first baseman Bill Buckner allowing Mookie Wilson’s slow grounder to first go through his legs to allow the Mets to complete their improbable comeback in the bottom of the 10th inning in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series.
The Mets comeback began after the Red Sox had scored two runs in the top of the 10th inning and the first two Mets batters had made out.
Then, with two strikes on the next batter, Gary Carter, the Mets came to life and scored three runs with two outs, the last two runs scoring on a wild pitch/passed ball (Rich Gedman and Bob Stanley will certainly defend each possibility as the truth in that instance – Gedman believes that Stanley through the ball wide, Stanley believes that Gedman should have had the pitch in the dirt) and the aforementioned botched ground ball.
But did the Mets really prematurely congratulate the Red Sox?
As Peter Weiss said in Baseball Digest…
The champagne was waiting in the locker room, the team’s octogenerian owner [Tom Yawkey – BC] had already been presented with a plaque, and Bruce Hurt, the Red Sox’ star lefty, had been named the Series MVP.
And, of course…
“Congratulations to the World Champion Red Sox” flashed on the Shea Stadium scoreboard.
As it turned out, it was just a glitch – it was not intentional, it was just an error in the system as they prepared for it to be used after the last out.
Still, it’s pretty hilarious!
If anyone has a picture of it, I’d love to see it!
STATUS: True
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[…] « Premature Congratulation […]
Heck, if you’ve ever read Jeff Pearlman’s THE BAD GUYS WON!, a book about the 1980’s Mets, apparently Keith Hernandez was so convinced his team had lost that by the time Mookie was at the plate, Keith had left the dugout, and was back in the clubhouse with a beer! 🙂
Haha, yeah, that’s a great story, Robert.
And Stawberry was in the clubhouse, too, right? Because he was pissed that he was taken out on a double switch.
[…] The Twitterverse exploded, ripping the Dallas affiliate and comparing them to the Chicago-Tribune’s headline gaffe “Dewey Defeats Truman” in 1948. Some also compared it to the Shea Stadium scoreboard operator flashing a mesage congratulating the Boston Red Sox on winning the 1986 World Series in Game 6 before the game was over. […]
was at the game have ticket stub, totally true story about scoreboard,
trying to find picture myself
Kevin Mitchell was also in the clubhouse before the game ended. He was on the phone making airline reservations to fly home. He was also out of uniform when he was on the phone. When the Mets had that huge rally in the bottom of the 10th, Mitchell had to hurry up and put his uniform back on so he could go up to bat.