OTD The Mets Acquire Gary Carter

By Jay Horwitz

On this day 36 years when we traded for Gary Carter.

I remembered the last time I saw “The Kid” alive. It was mid-January 2012, Jeff Wilpon and I flew down to Florida to see Gary. It was about a month a before he passed away from brain cancer at the young age of 57.

As we walked into his home in Palm Beach Gardens, Gary said loudly, “Don’t worry JJ, I will beat this thing.”

That was Gary. He never shied away from any challenge. It didn’t surprise me at all that he was the one who started our famous rally with two outs in the bottom of the 10th inning in Game Six of the 1986 World Series. There was no way he was going to make the last out.

After he scored the first run of the inning he immediately put on his catcher’s gear. In his mind the game would not end.

Gary’s knees pained him a great deal during his time with the Mets. He spent hours in the training room icing those knees so he could play the next day. Never once did Gary complain.

I never met a more self-effacing super star. He cared so much about people. He won the prestigious Clemente Award for his work in the community and made numerous visits the children's hospitals.

On a personal note, I broke my ankle in the fall of 2011 and despite the fact that Gary was beginning his cancer treatments he always found time to check in with me each week to see how I was doing.

When we acquired Gary that December day he was widely acclaimed to be the final piece to a Mets Championship. He was that and Davey Johnson’s team of course would win the title a short time later.

For me Gary was more than that. He was one of the most decent human beings to ever put on a Mets uniform in my 40 plus years with the team.