Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry talk '86 Mets vs. '96 Yanks
The Mets' Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry. Credit: Newsday/Paul J. Bereswill
Doc and Darryl. Darryl and Doc.
Doc Gooden and Darryl Strawberry always will be linked in New York baseball history. That history is coming alive in 2026; this is the 40th anniversary of the 1986 Mets and the 30th anniversary of the 1996 Yankees.
Both teams won the World Series. Both teams included on their rosters Doc and Darryl. Or Darryl and Doc, if you prefer.
In 1986, Gooden and Strawberry were young phenoms on the most hated, most feared and now most revered team (other than perhaps the 1969 squad) in Mets history.
In 1996, Gooden and Strawberry were George Steinbrenner’s veteran add-ons to a talented but untested Yankees team. The franchise hadn’t won a World Series since 1978.
The 1986 Mets expected to win the World Series. Manager Davey Johnson, on Day 1 of spring training, said his team was going to “dominate.” And the Mets did, winning 108 games in the regular season.
The 1996 Yankees, under manager Joe Torre and with a precocious rookie shortstop in Derek Jeter, were underdogs in the World Series against Atlanta.
Or, as Strawberry put it in a recent telephone interview with Newsday: “The ’86 Mets, we made a name for ourselves. We made a name for ourselves, not just in New York City. We made a name for ourselves in baseball, period. Everybody hated us.
“When I got to the ’96 Yankees, nobody hated them. Nobody knew that the ’96 Yankees could be what they turned out to be.”
Gooden, who was reunited with 1986 Mets pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre when he signed with the Yankees, threw his only career no-hitter on May 14 against a Seattle lineup that included Alex Rodriguez, Ken Griffey Jr. and Edgar Martinez.
“86,” Gooden told Newsday, “it was definitely special, and you cherish that. To be honest with you, when you win that first one, you think it’s going to be something that you’re going to be doing pretty regularly.
“Going to ’96, I got suspended in ’94. I missed all of ’95 and obviously, I wanted to come back to New York to make it right with the fans and play with the Mets. But the Mets wanted to cut ties, which I completely understood at the time.
“Mr. Steinbrenner gave me an opportunity to join the Yankees and we won the World Series in my first year with the Yankees in ’96. Also pitched a no-hitter. To win with the Yankees my first year there — and it had been a while since the Yankees won — with Strawberry there, Stottlemyre there, guys I won with in ’86, was very, very special in its own way. I don’t pick the one over the other.”
OK. But who would win a mythical seven-game series between the ’86 Mets and the ’96 Yankees?
“Of course the ’86 Mets would,” Strawberry said. “Totally different breed of guys. Hardcore, hard-nosed mentality. Fight to the end. That’s just the kind of team we had.
“The ’96 Yankees was a team that was pretty much established, with a core of veteran players. [Derek] Jeter was like really the youngest player we had on the team that was playing every day. Most of the other guys had great major-league careers. When you look at that team and you look at Joe Torre, he knew what he had. He knew he had a veteran team. He knew he had veteran players. If guys struggled, he can use his other players that’s on the bench that’s played a lot of big-league ball.”
Said Gooden: “If I had to pick one, I would say the Mets team. I think the Yankees probably had more talent — and there’s no knock against the Yankee players that we had in ’96 — but I think the heart and the desire and determination that we had in 1986 can’t be denied, and I think that would put that team over the hump.”
Both teams had postseason magic (Mookie Wilson’s grounder through Bill Buckner’s legs, Jeter’s Jeffrey Maier home run). Both teams came back in the World Series (the Mets with two outs in the bottom of the 10th in Game 6, the Yankees after getting outscored 16-1 by Atlanta at home in the first two World Series games.)
The Yankees’ group went on to win the World Series again from 1998-2000, with Strawberry a part of the ’98 and ’99 champions and Gooden a member of the 2000 team.
The Mets’ group did not go on to any future World Series glory. That, plus the Amazin’ comeback in Game 6 against the Red Sox, is perhaps why the ’86 Mets team still has an aura.
“People don’t realize how good that team was unless you were in that clubhouse,” Strawberry said. “They understand the kind of players that were on that team. We were never out of a ballgame. People said, ‘You got lucky in the series against Boston.’ No, we didn’t. Guys didn’t want to make that last out. That’s the kind of team we had that whole year.”
David Cone, a veteran leader on the 1996 Yankees, got his first introduction to New York when he was traded to the Mets by Kansas City before the 1987 season.
“My first impression was kind of a smack in the face,” Cone told Newsday in a recent telephone interview. “When I first showed up in spring training in that clubhouse, I couldn’t believe it. It’s the toughest group of guys I’ve ever been around. It was the harshest, toughest, strongest. Very loyal as well. So I’d never seen anything like it.
“I don’t think I spoke for a week. It took me a week to say something. I think that Keith Hernandez or Ron Darling came up to me and said, ‘It’s OK. You can talk.’ ”
And when it comes to the ’86 Mets — and the ’96 Yankees — people are still talking.
Happy anniversary.
Anthony Rieber covers sports media and business and professional sports (you know, games and trades and things). He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since Jan. 1, 2026.
