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How one Red Sox loss may have changed NY Mets history forever

It's not too great of a leap.
ByTim Boyle
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The New York Mets Dwight Gooden and Boston Red Sox Roger Clemens prior to a charity game against the Boston Red Sox to benefit the Jimmy Fund at Fenway Park in Boston Sept. 4, 1986. The Mets won the game 7-3. The two teams would meet later the following month in the World Series which the Mets won in a dramatic 7-game series.
The New York Mets Dwight Gooden and Boston Red Sox Roger Clemens prior to a charity game against the Boston Red Sox to benefit the Jimmy Fund at Fenway Park in Boston Sept. 4, 1986. The Mets won the game 7-3. The two teams would meet later the following month in the World Series which the Mets won in a dramatic 7-game series. | Frank Becerra Jr./The Journal News / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

What did the Boston Red Sox have to do with the New York Mets in 1982? Years away from facing each other in the World Series, we have to first go to the standings and the ramifications of where they finished to understand what it has to do with the Mets.

The 1982 Red Sox finished 89-73. Good enough for third place in the AL East and with no Wild Card to play for, their season ended without much drama. Over in the NL West, the Atlanta Braves took the division by one game over the Los Angeles Dodgers. They did it with the same 89-73 record as Boston.

The Braves were defeated by the future World Series champion St. Louis Cardinals in a 3-0 sweep. Atlanta went into the offseason and signed Mets free agent Pete Falcone, forfeiting their 20th overall selection in the 1983 Draft. The Mets gained that pick plus another. With it, they took Stan Jefferson. We wish the story ended here.

The 1983 MLB Draft would’ve been legendary for the Mets if the Red Sox won one more game

A 90-win Red Sox team would have been picking 20th overall and been given a chance to draft Jefferson or anyone else. The Mets move up to 19th and are able to, for the second time in team history, take Roger Clemens.

Clemens was drafted by the Mets in the 12th round of the 1981 draft. He went unsigned and jumped up close to the top when he came back out of the draft again in 1983. This time around, he went to the Red Sox.

It can’t be understated how much of a villain Clemens is in Mets lore. Facing them in the 1986 World Series for Boston, the rivalry reached a new point when he was a member of the New York Yankees head-hunting Mike Piazza. The hatred boiled over when he threw a broken bat at Piazza in the World Series in 2000.

An entirely different career path is cut out for Clemens if he’s drafted by the Mets (and signs) then goes on to be a star for them in the 1980s and into the 1990s. Do they even win the 1986 World Series because, maybe they don’t feel it necessary to make other moves that helped them capture a title? Maybe they take down the Dodgers in 1988 and even build a dynasty on some level with a pitching staff headlined by Clemens, Dwight Gooden, and more?

The “what ifs” are abundant in Mets history. One of the stranger is how much differently everything could have played out if only the Red Sox won one more game in 1982.

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