Some New Yorkers, even after all these years, have an odd way of greeting Jesse Orosco. They jump up and down as if their shoes were on fire and then drop to their knees with their arms raised triumphantly.
“No matter what I do or where I go in New York,” Orosco said with a laugh. “Some people, it’s like they brainwash their kids. I’ve seen kids 5 years old — they’ll see me and say, ‘Jesse Orosco’ and drop to their knees.”
Orosco pitched in the major leagues for 24 years, played for nine teams and appeared in more games as a pitcher than anyone else. Yet the most indelible moment of his career centers not on a ball that he threw but on a glove — the one Orosco launched high into the air after striking out Boston’s Marty Barrett for the final out of Game 7 of the 1986 World Series.
Orosco then hopped up and down before sinking to his knees as his New York Mets teammates poured out of the dugout and piled on top of him in the middle of the diamond.
Orosco’s reaction remains etched in so many minds because it was so visceral — a cathartic release after a postseason that had been rife with drama and tension for the Mets, highlighted by their Game 6 comeback in the Series — and also because the Mets have not won a title since.
The Mets’ unexpected return to this year’s Series has rekindled attention on the 1986 team, with its colorful characters and riveting journey. As Orosco sat in his living room and watched the Mets’ 14-inning loss to Kansas City in Game 1 on Tuesday night, it was impossible for him not to be transported back.
Tuesday’s game had some of the familiar hallmarks — the ground ball that slipped under the glove of Royals first baseman Eric Hosmer put the Mets ahead, just as the one that slipped past Red Sox first baseman Bill Buckner had 29 years earlier.
“Just like Buckner,” Orosco said. “Wow.”
And the length of Game 1 was reminiscent of the Mets’ 16-inning, roller-coaster 7-6 victory over the Houston Astros that clinched the 1986 National League pennant. In that game, Orosco withstood giving up a game-tying home run — in the 14th inning to Billy Hatcher — but the Mets on Tuesday night could not overcome a similar misstep by their closer, Jeurys Familia, who allowed a game-tying homer to Alex Gordon in the ninth.
When Alcides Escobar crossed home plate with the winning run on Tuesday, Orosco — standing with his hands in his pockets — just shrugged.
Orosco, 58, has seen enough baseball for several lifetimes, so it is not often that he watches games on TV. He now reserves his competitive juices for the golf course. He plays four to five times a week, carrying a 1-handicap and playing frequently in celebrity tournaments.
Orosco, who still looks fit enough to return to baseball if anyone challenges his cherished record of 1,252 pitching appearances, does still have a hand in the game.
He is helping his son, Jesse Jr., market a pitching-instruction app that helps coaches train players remotely and also gives pitching lessons. His clients range from Little Leaguers to college students to 50-year-olds battling it out in Sunday leagues.
Mostly, though, he gives the impression of someone who is content with the peace and quiet that retirement has provided, living on three acres in the hills an hour northeast of San Diego, where stars and the howls of coyotes fill the night.
The few signs of his career sit in the entryway, with framed jerseys from each of the teams he played for along with a plaque of the 1986 Mets and a LeRoy Neiman portrait of him, in the middle of his distinctive delivery — left arm cocked, elbow up, about to sling a side-armed slider toward the plate.
The painting comes with a story of its own.
Orosco, who finished third in the Cy Young Award voting in 1983 — a bright spot on a dreadful Mets team — was introduced to Neiman the following year in spring training. Neiman congratulated Orosco on his season, and told him he had a portrait that he wanted to present to him as the team’s most valuable player. As Neiman pulled it from a satchel, he asked Orosco what he thought.
“LeRoy, I’m not a right-hander,” Orosco said.
Neiman gasped and quickly put it back in his satchel. He later presented Orosco in his natural, left-handed state.
Orosco said much of the memorabilia from his career is with his relatives. Autographs, jerseys, bats and balls never had much meaning to him. An umpire gave him a couple of baseballs from the 1986 World Series Game 7, which he figures are in a pillowcase somewhere — though his catcher, Gary Carter, who died in 2012, kept the ball from the final out.
Almost immediately after the 1986 Series, Orosco donated his glove to Steven McDonald, a New York City police officer who had been paralyzed after being shot in Central Park. Orosco said the Mets had the glove displayed earlier this year at their Hall of Fame at Citi Field.
Most important to him are the memories.
His appearance in Game 6 of the 1986 Series was brief. He threw one pitch, which Buckner hit for a fly ball out to end the top of the eighth.
The Mets, trailing, 3-2, then tied the game in the bottom of the inning. The Red Sox took a 5-3 lead in the top of the 10th and the first two batters for the Mets in the bottom of the inning were retired.
By then, Orosco had retreated to the office of the clubhouse manager, Charlie Samuels, where he watched the end of the game with several teammates. Rally caps were employed, but in this instance they were football helmets.
“I couldn’t bear to go outside; I thought it was over,” said Orosco, who wore a Dallas Cowboys helmet. “Then here comes a base hit by Carter. And then Kevin Mitchell. And the next thing you know we’re screaming by ourselves. All I can remember is we were all head-butting each other.”
Two nights later, after a rainout, Orosco found himself on the mound in Game 7, called into the game after the Red Sox closed their deficit to 6-5 in the eighth inning and had the tying run at second with nobody out.
Orosco retired three straight hitters — including Dave Henderson, who had hit two home runs for the Red Sox in that postseason — and in the bottom of the inning, after Darryl Strawberry homered to make it 7-5, Orosco pulled back from a bunt attempt and grounded a single to give the Mets their final run.
“You can write this down,” Orosco said as he detailed the play, the last of his 11 career hits. “It was a 35-hopper up the middle. Only my teammates remember it, but I like to remind people.”
Orosco traveled with his daughter Natalie on Wednesday to New York, where he will make several appearances and attend this weekend’s games at Citi Field. He called the Mets’ return to the World Series — only their second appearance there since 1986 — fantastic and said he would be rooting for them.
But he does have one concern if they win it all. When Familia clinched the NL Championship Series at Wrigley Field in Chicago last week, he fell to his knees as his teammates stormed the field.
“I’m like, ‘Dude, what are you doing?’” Orosco said with a laugh. “I’m yelling at the TV, ‘That’s mine.’”
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