I remember one of the last games I went to at Shea before I moved out of NY. It was family day or something so there was some kind of picnic and you got to meet the mets, greet the mets. Think I met Todd Hundley. Anyway, it was Mets vs Braves, and I think it was the season when the Braves lost all those games in a row to open up the season and we were just sitting by the braves bullpen before the game started yelling at them telling them how bad they sucked. The last thing I remember from that night was some idiot kid stealing my baseball glove. I set it down for one second and then it was gone.
The importance was far outside of baseball, of course, but people forget that that HR pulled the Mets to within 4.5 games of first, and the win the next night pulled them to within 3.5, with 13 games to play. People forget that a week later the Mets began a three game series with the Braves only 3 games out of first; the myth that the team fell off the table after the WS in 2000 is just that, a myth. Now, if you want to talk about 2002-2004, that's a completely different story ...
The three home runs by Donn Clendenon in games 2 (2-1 win), 4 (2-1 win), and 5 (5-3 Series clinching win) of the 1969 World Series were all much bigger than Piazza's from a baseball point of view, and in a very different way also were a very big deal to lots of people (including very casual Met fans) in New York.
And, if Armadano Benitez didn't blow those 2 saves.. I bet we would have won the divison. I bet we would have.
statjeff22 pointed this thread out to me because I mentioned the following in another thread: 1986 NLCS, Game 3. Mets trail the Astros 5-4 in the bottom of the 9th. Lenny Dykstra hits a walk-off 2 run homer. A deafening roar for close to 10 minutes after the shot and enless euphoria in the parking lot. As big as any HR in Mets history.
