Friday night I went to Mohegan Sun to meet 1986 Mets Legends: Doc Gooden, Darryl Strawberry and Keith Hernandez. I had met Keith a couple of times before, but never Doc or Darryl. I wasn’t entirely sure how it was going to work – the tickets said it would be a Q&A, but I got there early to case it out. It was supposed to start at 8, but at around 7pm I saw the 3 guys walk into the sports bar and so I asked if I could get in early and was told that I could. They were taking photos and everyone lined up seemed to have the same wristband I did, so I gave it a try. I only spoke briefly to Darryl about our season tickets right by him when I was a kid. They printed out the photos for us immediately (think ComicCon, but a smaller sized photo) and then said after everyone got photos the guys would be signing. Since the event had limited information, I didn’t end up coming prepared with anything for them to sign and was being weird about getting my photo op signed. At this point I had also lost my initial seat so I opted to skip the signing to make sure I had a decent seat for the Q&A.
Unfortunately starting at 8pm was the Q&A and starting at 8:08 was World Series Game #1. It was pretty cool to watch the opening ceremonies with Doc, Darryl and Keith watching as well, but once the game got underway it became quite a distraction. I think they allowed anyone in to watch the game – so there were groans and cheers going on the whole time the guys were talking – and Keith even commented that they should have done it before the game started. There was one guy with his back to the Q&A yelling at the TV – ahh, my favorite kind of man, a drunk, obnoxious Yankees fan.
All 3 players had a lot of good stories to tell and advice for those who had kids who might want to be a major league player. I was only 2 when they won the World Series so if these were stories they had told before, most of them were new to me. I especially liked when Darryl said there was a guy he’d like to stuff in a trash can! And he bragged about how many pitchers he took off the scoreboard. Of course, Doc had to let it be known he was a good hitter as well and had 8 home runs. They also all gave their thoughts on Pete Alonso coming back – they all seem to hope that he will be back but aren’t sure based on who his agent is. Fingers crossed!
Overall it was a fun night, but I just wish I had stuck it out to stay until the end of the game to see the Yankees lose!