Goodbye Gary
– via Yahoo Sports –
Just 9 months after he had been diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor, Gary Carter leaves the world at the age of 57.
324 home runs, 2,092 hits, three Gold Gloves, 11 All-Star games & a place in Cooperstown…Those were some of The Kid’s career stats…
For New York Mets fans, he was the prime example of what happens when you believe. That one Saturday night in late October 1986, the scoreboard had given up on the Mets, indeed some Mets had given up on the Mets (it was reported that Keith Hernandez had already gone into club house to drink a beer and watch the Mets make the final out to lose the series), but Carter had not. His single with two out in the 10th inning sent that Game 6 of the World Series winding in the direction of Mookie Wilson and Bill Buckner, and the series off toward something special and the last truly great baseball moment in the lives of anyone who ever gave a damn about the Mets.
The Mets issued a statement Thursday that read, “He was a Hall of Famer in everything he did.”
It must have been true, too, because it’s what everyone else said Thursday.
One of his daughters wrote on the family website she’d lost “my precious dad,” and, “I believe with all my heart that dad had a standing ovation as he walked through the gates of heaven to be with Jesus.”
Commissioner Bud Selig described him as “Among the most beloved players in the history of [the Expos and Mets.]”
Former Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda called him, “A Hall of Famer as a player and a man.”
And upon an announcement of his passing Thursday night, the crowd on hand for a New York Rangers game at Madison Square Garden stood and cheered the Met he once was, the player he always was, and the man he will forever be.
Mets third baseman David Wright told Newsday, “If you strive to be half the player and half the person Gary Carter was, you’ll be all right.”
That seems about right.
So, we mourn for his wife, his son, his two daughters and his three grandchildren. He fought for life. Man, did he fight.
And, man, did we always adore him for it.