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The following article was written by Devon Jeffreys:
wasn’t even born the day Gary Carter played his first game as a New York Met, yet it’s possible there is no player in the past, present or future of the franchise that I will feel a deeper connection to.
So when I learned of his passing yesterday, I was filled with emotion, doubly so when I had to tell my father the bad news. As crushed, shocked and upset as I was upon hearing the news, it was even harder for me to tell him and watch him react.
As an infant I watched from my playpen (not yet cognizant of what I was watching, mind you) as my father took in the 1986 World Series. It was that connection with my father, from the very beginning of my life, that eventually sparked my interest in baseball. Carter and the Mets were always our special connection.
He’s told me stories of Carter and I’ve read many more on my own, but the fact that I didn’t get to see much of Carter’s career makes him even more of a folk hero to me than if I were an adult when he played and got to analyze every little thing he did. I’m kind of thankful that he’ll always be more of an icon in my eyes than a mere mortal.
Carter is perhaps best known by Mets fans as the man who started the two-out 10th inning rally to keep the team alive in the 1986 World Series. Acquired in 1985, the All-Star catcher’s arrival from the Montreal Expos legitimized the pennant contending Mets. In just his second year in town, they won the World Series, the team’s last championship and one that is held in high esteem by Mets fans, with good reason.
But what has struck me when reading about Carter is what has been said of his character off the field. When many players leave the game, their dirty little secrets begin to leak out, knocking each of them off that iconic pedestal the game had placed them on. It never happened with Kid. As fondly as teammates referred to him during his career, they reflected even more fondly after it. Listening to each of them talk about Gary yesterday, it became clear that the man truly was the personification of class, both on and off the field that, we as fans believed he was.
It’s that class that forced my father to reflect upon hearing the news simply by saying, “I thought the world of that man.” I did too. As a young child Carter was the first baseball player that I ever recognized. I grew up collecting baseball cards and always had a special place for my Gary Carter cards: Mets, Dodgers, Giants and Expos.
My own connection to him grew deeper as I grew up, even after Carter retired from the game. When I was a teenager, my father and I waited for hours in line at a small New Jersey sports memorabilia store to meet Gary and get his autograph. I searched out that signing myself because I knew how much it would mean to my dad to meet Carter. I’ll never forget how my dad was that day. Jubilant is probably the best word, a man in his 50’s turned into a kid again.
My dad grew up adoring baseball in the 50’s and early 60’s, worshipping the Brooklyn Dodgers and Duke Snider the way most of us do the Mets today. But when the Dodgers and Giants left town, so did my dad’s interest in baseball. By the time the Mets became relevant in 1969, he was in Vietnam, fighting for our country.
It wasn’t until the Mid-80’s and the Mets’ acquisition of Carter that my dad’s interest in the game returned. It was a ride he took me on with him, even if I was less than a year old for the best moment of it. We still share that special connection over the current Mets, a bond that has kept out father/son relationship as tight as ever through my college days away in Florida and into my adult life. But as much as he loves the Mets now, my dad will always think more fondly of that ’86 team and of Carter.
In 2003, we made our first and only trip to Cooperstown together to watch No. 8 get inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. It was another one of those iconic moments in my life that I will never forget. We’ve been to dozens of Mets games together, my father and I. Some I remember, some I’ve long since forgotten. But it’s those moments centered around “Kid Carter” that I’ll always cherish the most.
That’s why I’m hopeful that at some point the Mets can give us one more and honor Gary Carter one last time by retiring the No. 8 this season.
It would probably be more appropriate for the team to retire 17 first, and I would have loved to see both go up on the wall together this season, with Gary and Keith in the building. But now that Gary’s gone, it would only be fitting for the team to add Gary to the wall, allowing Keith to eulogize him and for all of us to say goodbye.
Please Mets, do it for Gary. Do it for his family and do it for we the fans, young and old, who adored him. I know there wouldn’t be a dry eye in the house.
Until then, I’ll pay tribute to Gary in my own ways. I’ll be searching out the various stories about him on the Internet this morning, watching my 1986 World Series DVDs and writing like this as an outlet. I encourage anyone reading this to do the same if you feel so inclined and leave a comment here or at MLB.com, where they’re encouraging fans to share their condolences.
RIP, Kid.
