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We were seniors at NYU, me and my friend Jim Luttrell, and we could feel the gravitational pull from Flushing.
It was a Tuesday and it was freezing and neither of us was particularly dressed to sit outside for several hours. But we kept giving each other that “what the hell are we doing here” look. Especially when we could be there.
So we hopped into Jim’s 1974 Chevy Malibu, a race from the Village to Queens to beat first pitch. A race to see it all. A race to be there. Gary Carter was making his Mets debut, and it was happening in our hometown. It didn’t matter a whit that I wasn’t even a Mets fan. I loved sports and baseball, and the biggest story in sports and baseball was happening too close by to miss.
This is what Linsanity felt like in 1985. As if you had to be there. Like you would regret it for the rest of your life if you weren’t.
There was no social media. WFAN was not yet born. ESPN still was in its infancy toward world domination.
But there was no need for the wall of sound to raise the temperature or the meaning. Doc was pitching and, for the first time, The Kid was catching, and so on April 9, 1985, you knew where you had to be. Must.
Don Mattingly was great and Bill Parcells was building something in the Meadowlands. But the Mets were the talk of the town. They had ended a seven-year run of sub-.500 ugliness in 1984, winning 90 games and capturing the city with Dwight Gooden’s lightning, Darryl Strawberry’s muscle and Keith Hernandez’s intensity.
But general manager Frank Cashen felt the team needed a last ingredient, not just of talent, but of ballast, steadiness, professionalism. Carter personified this as if central casting had created him just for the moment. The seismic impact of his trade was mammoth, so big that Howard Cosell broke the news of the four-for-one blockbuster to the world as the Raiders were trouncing the Lions on “Monday Night Football” — the biggest water cooler in sports in those days.
Carter was a mega-star in Montreal, and so extrapolate what this meant heading to the States, heading toward Broadway. He had the smile, the sound bites and the family values — and, oh yeah, he already had seven All-Star appearances, two MVPs in those Mid-Summer Classics. He was the heir to Johnny Bench, best darn catcher in the sport — power bat and arm, unafraid to lead. He had a wholesome charm, a never-ending smile, a desire for the camera that brought detractors who read phony.
That merely added to the intrigue, the storyline. Or do you think how Jeremy Lin and Carmelo Anthony will work together is the first of its kind in New York? We wondered about Carter and the strong-willed team-captain, Hernandez, in particular, and also how an Ozzie Nelson personality would gel with a team already building an Ozzy Osbourne reputation.
And so a couple of 21-year-olds looped through traffic, scored two tickets in the left-field loge at Shea, froze in the shade until we could sneak down toward the first-base dugouts. We both ended up bed-ridden sick. But we stayed. Stayed to the end. Stayed because when greatness opens in our city, you have to be there — and stay there.
Because this is who Gary Carter was in 1985 and who the Mets were beginning to be, and we had to see the marriage consummated.
Carter homered in the 10th to win the game, went deep to left off of St. Louis’ Neil Allen, who has been acquired by the Cardinals for Hernandez. The symmetry was poetry. The noise was something even today’s Madison Square Garden could be envious of. Carter pumped his fist and showed those million dollar teeth and, well, that will forever be my memory of him. Young and happy and timely; honoring his moment on our stage.
It was the moment I remembered most vividly yesterday when we all felt too old because Carter left us too young at 57.
joel.sherman@nypost.com