PORT ST. LUCIE — Howard Johnson remembers Gary Carter standing on the dugout steps in the 10th inning of Game 6 of the 1986 World Series before he sparked the Mets’ famous rally against the Red Sox.
“He said, ‘There’s no way I’m going to make the last out of the World Series,’ ” Johnson said after the Hall of Fame catcher died yesterday at 57. “And with Gary, more than just about anyone else, you believed him. He was the ultimate competitor.”
And it was that fighting spirit that he brought to his battle against the brain cancer.
“If you could mold yourself after one person, both as an individual and an athlete, it should be Gary Carter,” said another former Mets’ teammate, Wally Backman, now the manager at Triple-A Buffalo. “He was the guy. He was the perfect combination of a great player but an even better person. There was no one I would rather have as a teammate. … He was like a big brother to me.”
Backman, who will wear Carter’s No. 8 in his memory this season, talked with Carter for half an hour at Carter’s charity fundraiser in Florida just a few weeks ago.
“You knew how sick he was, but he was still himself,” Backman said. “He never changed.”
Those thoughts were echoed many times yesterday.
“The baseball world lost one of its gladiators today, and I have lost a friend,” Ron Darling said in a statement. “Gary Carter was everything you wanted in a sports hero: a great talent, a great competitor, a great family man, and a great friend.”
MLB Commissioner Bud Selig said Carter was “driven by a remarkable enthusiasm for the game” and “one of the elite catchers of all-time. … Like all baseball fans, I will always remember his leadership for the ’86 Mets and his pivotal role in one of the greatest World Series ever played.”
And those who played with him on that 1986 team credited the catcher with being the key reasons they beat the Red Sox.
“Gary was a one-man scouting system,” manager Davey Johnson said. “What people didn’t know was that he kept an individual book on every batter in the National League. He was the ideal catcher for our young pitching staff.”
But his importance included more than just what he brought to the field.
“What he added to the team was character,” said Darryl Strawberry, who also told WFAN: “I wish I could have lived my life like Gary Carter.”
“He battled his fight to the end,” Dwight Gooden said. “[That] gives me a lot of strength and faith to battle mine. We will always be connected at the hip.”
danmartin@nypost.com
Gary Carter, Gary Carter, Wally Backman ebook download, World Series, Howard Johnson, the Mets, manager Davey Johnson, Darryl Strawberry
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