Even in the best of times, the Mets rarely make things easy.
The franchise’s first championship in 1969 was a miracle — seven years removed from its birth as a lovable laughingstock — after coming back from a 10-game deficit to the Cubs in mid-August. Their second pennant was clinched in 1973 after Tug McGraw asked you to believe in a team that would be six games under .500 and in fifth place in the second week of September.
The most dominant team in Mets history needed an improbable ninth-inning rally (16 innings total) to avoid Houston’s Cy Young winner, Mike Scott, in Game 7 of the 1986 NLCS, then forced Game 7 of the World Series by executing the most memorable two-out rally the sport has ever seen. In 1999, the Mets needed to sweep a series from the Pirates — and have the Reds lose two — on the final weekend of the regular season to force their way into a one-game playoff.
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