Hot Foot
October 20, 2006
Endy Chavez's catch will go down as one of the greatest of postseason history, right up there with Al Gionfriddo's in the 1947 series. It kept the Mets in the game to the very end. Though the game was a heartbreaker at the end, it will be remembered for many years to come and that catch will be talked about forever.

bobby mercier
October 28, 2006
I was watching this game and I thought the Mets were going to win after the great Endy Chavez catch that was all for nothing. Then as this game and the whole series showed no Mets lead was safe because those pesky cardinals always keep coming back to score. Then that Yadier Molina hits the homer in the top of the 9th to not only rip my heart out but the heart of every Mets fan. And also the sickening sight of the Cardinals partying on the Mets field just like the 00 Yankees. This game also resulted in the second upset in the 7 times the Mets have been in the postseason since 1969. 1988 Dodgers and 2006 Cardinals going to the World Series when neither of them should not have beaten the Mets. And that Jeff Suppan must be god or something for why the Mets were unable to hit him in 2 games. This game has made me now both anti-Cardinals and anti-Dodgers because of the final results of the 1988 and 2006 NLCS.

Shickhaus Franks
October 22, 2006
Less than 48 hours after the fact, IT STILL HURTS! This one hurts more than '85, '87, '88, '98, '99 and 2000 combined! When the bases were loaded and Carlos Beltran came up against Adam Wainwright, visions of August 22nd danced in my head and with his history vs the Cards in the NLCS; I was watching and praying and cheering Beltran would deliver the walk-off basehit and it would be on to DETROIT! But it was NOT meant to be! When CB stood there like a statue and took the called 3rd strike, I was devastated to say the least. It was like when a friend sets you up on a blind date and you expect the woman to look like Fox News anchor Julie Banderas but when the doorbell rings, she looks like Lunch Lady Doris from "The Simpsons". My TV clicked off ASAP because I DID NOT want to see that arrogant, Nazi lawyer LaRussa and his overrated bunch of Redbirds dancing on the Shea lawn. (Btw, I did call LaRussa a Nazi, just ask his "pals" Ron Gant & Ozzie Smith). A sad ending to a great 2006 and the METS WILL KICK THAT ******* DOOR DOWN AND WIN THE 2007 WORLD SERIES!

Peter A Deschnow
October 22, 2006
Thought Willie did a great job managing the series, that is until the bottom of the ninth. First and second wih no outs he HAS TO BUNT the runners over. Struggling to score all series you must play for the tie at home. He could have saved his bench by using Glavine to sacrifice since he is probably the best bunter on the team. The move would have put more pressure on the "genius" in the other dugout (does he walk Reyes to set up the DP and thereby put the winning run on base?), not to mention turning up the heat on the rookie closer. Woulda, coulda, shoulda. None of it mattered if the following batters stood there with the bat on their shoulders like Beltran. WAIT UNTIL NEXT YEAR!

Russell
October 28, 2006
About a week later I can still see Carlos just standing there but it was one of the best games I ever went to.

I got there while the Cards were working out and in batting practice, and Oliver Perez came out to the bullpen for his warmup. We in the upper deck started cheering for him, not knowing what was about to happen next.

In the 6th, one out, runner at first and Rolen coming up, Willie came out to talk to Perez. We all knew it was his last batter. First pitch Rolen lines it, and all I remember thinking was that Endy better catch it. Well, you know what happens. See him jump, and for at least one second, Shea was as quiet as I've ever heard it, then the place went nuts. I don't even remember the throw. Just jumping like crazy when we relized that Edmonds was out at first, the guy sitting to the left of me hugged me.

Then Molina's home run, Beltran looking and that was it. A great season not to forget and just as I left the tunnel, after about 10 munites of just hearing cursing and crying, one guy yelled "LET'S GO RANGERS!" And about 25 people that heard it left the game with at least something to be happy about.

Joe Figliola
November 6, 2006
It's one thing to be a good sport. It's another to ridicule the team you beat. From my understanding, the Cardinals players were making fun of the Reyes chant. That's not cricket. That action ranks up there with Mickey Hatcher making fun of the clench fists the Mets used to do in '88. At least the Mets players were gracious in defeat. The Cardinals players (Rolen and Pujols in particular) acted like a bunch of beer-swilling blowhards who need to take a semester in sports etiquette.

I also hope the Mets were watching the World Series on the TVs. With a few breaks, it should have been them winning the Series!

Mets2Moon
November 8, 2006
I did not attend this game. I was watching it at a Manhattan establishment.

It seemed like I had spend the last two and a half weeks walking a tightrope watching the Mets. After 6 years, I had forgotten how emotionally taxing following them through the playoffs could become. It was even worse knowing they were the favorite.

I remember seeing Fox signing on with their talking heads, seeing the multitudes of fans waving their towels and singing along to Bon Jovi. I felt sick. I didn't know which Oliver Perez would show up.

The good Oliver Perez showed up. A sign in the stands paid homage to Elvis Costello. "Oliver's Army."

1-1 in the 6th. I still felt sick. My legs were shaking. My friends were making up nonsense words. Rolen ripped a drive to deep left. My heart stopped. Endy Chavez went up...And he caught it! And all we could do was scream incoherently. ENDY! ENDY!

To the 8th. Drunk. Still shaking. Biting my nails. My friends catatonic. Still speaking borderline gibberish. We make jokes to try to ease the tension.

9th inning. It happens. I am unable to speak.

The game ends. I am still unable to speak. A hug and a cigarette on the sidewalk. I walk around the block. I still can't speak.

3 weeks later, I'm speaking. It still stings. It took me this long to be able to go back and watch the tape. Really a sublime night of Baseball. Some day, I'll be able to appreciate it more than I do right now.

Some day...

Jon Macowski
November 8, 2006
I think we should have used Glavine to pinch hit. But if only Floyd had jacked it. We open at St. Louis in 2007 Let's kick their **** and show them we mean business in 2007.

J-murph
November 11, 2006
Three weeks or so after the fact and I finally have the stomach to come back on the site and write about this game. This is also the first time I read what I wrote after game 6. So much for all those runs I predicted.

I went up to Shea for the game with my buddy from work. Between the two of us we did not have enough money for two scalped tickets so we ended up watching the game from a hole-in-the-wall bar right outside of the Shea parking lot.

There were only 20 or so people in the place but the atmosphere was awesome. I was wearing a homemade Oliver Perez #46 t-shirt and we were going crazy watching him pitch. We threw the kid into a fire and he could not have had a better showing. Although he is erratic, he has a swagger and I hope we get to see him for the years to come.

Anyway, when Endy made the catch the place lost its mind. I was giving piggy back rides to people I had never met. It took the entire next half of the inning for everyone that was volunteering to buy a shot. You are not supposed to lose games that have plays like that.

The Molina homer was a blow, but I really thought we were going to pick Heilman up in the 9th. I still dont know what Beltran was looking for. But his knees buckled, my heart sunk, and what would beocme one of the longest nights of my life had actually just started.

Jose
November 17, 2006
Well almost a month after we lost the pennant, it still hurts me. I remember I was watching the game with my dad in the living room, I had my "LETS GO METS" poster that I got from the postseason rally a couple of weeks earlier and my lucky Mets cap right next me. As I was watching on TV and Shea Stadium was rocking, it was beautiful to see my fellow Mets fans swing the towels, to show the yankee fans how the Playoffs really are in New York. Oliver Perez was pitching the game of his life, in the 6th Willie comes out, I knew Scott Rolen was going to be the last batter he faced. then Rolen lines one to deep left, all I remember was my heart stopping, I was hoping for a miracle to happen, and it did. Endy Chavez caught it at the wall, it was unbelievable, my heart almost jumped out of my mouth, then I said "it must have been the old Casey Stengel who lifted Endy up!". The bottom of the 6th was an upset, the Mets left the bases loaded, WHY??. the Molina homer, the home run that broke every Mets fan's heart. Before the bottom 9th inning I was hoping for "1986 comeback", the Mets were fighting to comeback, but Carlos Beltran struck out looking with the bases loaded, it was a game we should have won, I cried and I was heartbroken, and realizing that the most toughest, longest, and saddest winter as a Mets fan I have ever had to face, was about to begin. WAIT TILL 2007, REVENGE WILL BE OURS!!!

SCOTT ROGERS
December 8, 2006
As part of my Saturday season plan I got tickets for this game. I've been lucky enough to be at a few playoff games but this one had the best atmosphere I ever saw. It was awesome to see all those towels going at once. I don't think I sat down more than 5 minutes the whole game. The place went absolutlely nuts after Endy's catch plus I felt the place moving, the stadium was vibrating. I've been to hundreds of games but this would have been my number 1 until Molina's homer. I thought I was in shock; Shea went silent until the rally in bottom of ninth, then disbelief when the rally fell short and the game ended.

JFK
February 8, 2007
I went to the game and was excited like a little kid before Christmas. When I got to the stadium, I turned to my girlfriend and said I have a bad vibe all of a sudden.

Seats were under the overhang in mezzanine. No one saw Endy's catch in my section besides me--- you could not see the LF wall due to the overhang. I saw it because when the ball was hit I dropped to the ground to get a view. When Endy caught it I jumped up screaming "HE CAUGHT IT". No one in my section knew what I was talking about.

I am a Willie killer, but the right move was letting Heilman pitch the 9th. Wagner could never handle tie games or games with big leads.

However, Willie went for the Hollywood ending by letting Floyd pinch-hit instead of bunting the runners over.

Beltran proved again he is the most over rated player in baseball by looking at strike 3.

I have heard people say the game was a classic. I didn't think so.

Regardless, the series was lost in game 2.

Shickhaus Franks
February 11, 2007
I know I'm supposed to get over it but somehow I can't because some Satan Worshipers, I mean Yankee fans (REAL and FAKE) remind me once in a while to tell Beltran to get the splinters out of his shoulders!!!! NOT FUNNY!!! But as a lifelong Mets fan, I learned what to do and look for in 2007:

• The Mets will be having the final celebration after we win the 2007 WORLD SERIES as the Bronx Evils will crash and fall.
• When the Mets are on FOX-5 this season & Joe Buck is doing the announcing; the mute button will go on & WFAN will be my play-by-play.
• To borrow a phrase from Red Sox fans: From now on, the full name of the Cardinals thief that stole our '06 championship from the Mets is YADIER "BLEEPING" MOLINA!!!!

Leitner
May 24, 2007
Definitely the WORST day of my life. I was at the game in nice seats in the front row of mezzanine on the 1st base side. The game was great. There wasn't much action but it was a great game. Then the big hit. The stadium deadened in sound you could feel the betrayal... but wait... Chavez was still chasing it... leaps and makes the catch... and to make it even better he doubles up Pujols on first. SHEA WENT CRAZY. At that time you thought that there was NO WAY they were going to lose... until I saw Heilman. I knew something was up. Never gonna forgive him for that. Heilman is my all time LEAST favorite Met. Already has a couple GW HR's this year. Never liked him, never will.

Mike
May 24, 2007
It's numbing just to think or write about this game, but I think it made us better. We won 97 games in a weak division and league, destroyed the Dodgers in the NLDS, and we ran into a mediocre team that simply got hot at the right time. It showed the Mets that winning it all is never easy, and now that we have been reminded of that I expect (and hope for with every muscle I have in my body) a world championship.

Adriano
September 19, 2007
All I remember from this game is that Endy saved Willie's ass for awhile because the right move was taking Perez out in that situation. Then he shoulda gone to Mota in the 9th. Heilman has been awful all year long pitching 2 consecutive innings. As soon as I saw him out there for the 9th I knew we were in trouble and that our season would be lost because of Willie.

Menachem G. Jerenberg
August 23, 2007
I got up at about 3:00 in the morning (Israel time) to watch this on MLB.com's Gameday... very taut game... very frusrtrating, considering the Mets left 11 men on base. Jeff Suppan! We couldn't beat Jeff Freaking Suppan! Suppan and Weaver stunk during the regular season, and during the NLCS we could barely beat them (two- run shot off Weaver in Game 1) for love or money...

It was ALL there, that game... every flippin' indication of karma was swinging squarely in the Mets' direction: home game, 20th anniversary of '86 season, best slugger (and known Cardinal killer) representing last at-bat with bases loaded, and of course The Catch. The Catch, which may go down as one of the greatest in postseason history. Even the crowd favorite hobbling toward home plate with the game on the line and working a full count a la Kirk Gibson. Except that Floyd struck out. And Endy couldn't scratch out a hit with men in scoring position almost immediately after making The Catch. The Catch... Sometime later I saw a photo of The Catch, pulled back so you could see the wall too. Endy Chavez had crashed into an AIG ad, right next to the words "The Strength To Be There".

We should have won. In a million million multiverses, we're probably the only one where karma, in the end, just faded away along with Adam Wainright's curveball.

Joe Lanzisera
March 9, 2009
This was the third one in a row that I had stayed up all night to see. I was in London and needed to leave the hotel for the airport at about 7 am - the game ended about 5 am GMT! What a horrible plane ride home replaying what could have been in my head. Menachem has it right in that Chavez came up with men on right after the catch and couldn't come through. How many times does the guy make the great catch, come up and then get a big hit? It just didn't happen. Not to mention:

The Floyd pinch-hit decision?

Beltran...looking????

Heilman....why Heilman...

Jeff Suppan....Jeff Suppan?????

Yadier Molina???? - UGH!

Eman
April 23, 2012
Just what the hell is Randolph not bunting with 1st and 2nd and no one out. Just stupid. Cost them the game and the series and has brought the team in a 6 year tailspin

Shickhaus Franks
August 12, 2013
A few years back HBO aired the great documentary about the Brooklyn Dodgers: Ghosts of Flatbush. During the segment when they talked about the great 1951 NL pennant race and "The Shot Heard Around The World" they interviewed a woman from Brooklyn named Bette Bao Lord and she said that after Bobby Thompson hit the home run off Ralph Branca that she stopped following the Dodgers and baseball as well. In that case, I should of gave up on the Mets and baseball after Adam Wainwright froze Carlos Beltran and then some. But unlike BBL, I couldn't give up on the Mets and baseball and although the last few years have tested my patience (and my temper); I'm still waiting for the day when the Mets return to the post-season and hopefully take over the Tri-State area from that SATANIC OCCULT IN THE BRONX who employ a certain low life named A-Roid!!!!!

Joe R.
October 18, 2015
I was at this game in the nosebleed section.

Endy's catch was the greatest single play I have ever witnessed in person. It was the loudest I have ever heard any stadium ever and I KNEW that the Mets were going to win after that.

When the game was over, it was so quiet that I literally heard the Cardinals celebrating on the field. And, as I mentioned, I was in the nosebleed seats around 4-5 rows from the back in the RF corner. It was THAT quiet.

What hurts is that I thought the Mets were the better team and would have beaten the Tigers that year in the World Series.

Frank the Met
April 18, 2021
First of all, I am sick and tired of hearing about Endy Chavez's catch. It's not Endy's fault, but the Mets lost the game and the series, so the catch is meaningless. I can't even bring myself to watch it. Second, all this hating on Heilman is misplaced. I didn't like him either, but the game should never have come down to his appearance. The true story of this game, and this series, is that the Mets stopped hitting. The best-hitting Mets team of all time could not score but one run in nine innings in a decisive Game 7 at home. What a disgrace. This was a foreshadowing of 2007 and 2008, when the Wright-Reyes-Beltran core proved themselves the biggest chokers in baseball history. Nothing to show for a wasted era.

Glenrock
April 20, 2021
I'm with you, Frank. Chavez's catch has become the most overrated moment in Mets history. It did not lead to victory in this game, so it's not worth getting excited about.

Joe
October 27, 2023
Willie had got to put up either Woodward or Glavine to bunt in the 9th. Floyd had not played much and was hurt, lucky he didn’t hit a ground ball auto double play .. a bunt is the only play in that spot. Gives two shots with your best singles hitters (Reyes and LoDuca) to tie the game with a single. Ahhh, 17 years later. Still ticks me off lol.

Bob
April 26, 2024
Suppan once again pitches a gem against the Mets offense.

Mets offense in this NLCS made Weaver and Suppan look like Smoltz and Maddux.

That bottom of the 6th inning was just brutal, with Valentin striking out with a runner on third and one out.

And Wainwright once again uses his curveball to get out of jams by striking out hitters looking, like he did against Valentin in the top of the 8th inning in game 5, and now against both Floyd and Beltran in the bottom of the 9th inning in game 7.

Mets offense and bullpen was their strongest point in this 2006 NLCS, and both their offense and bullpen was the reason why they lost this NLCS

Game 1 = Mets scored 2 runs (but they won thanks to Glavine) on the Beltran home run-lead against Weaver

Game 3 = Mets scored zero runs against Suppan

Game 5 = Mets scored two runs against Weaver

Game 7 = Mets scored one run against Suppan

I mean, I can understand getting shutdown by Carpenter, but Suppan and Weaver??!!!!! TWICE AT THAT EACH TIME BY BOTH PITCHERS, WOW