Thirty years later, Mets celebrate ’86 champs

NEW YORK — “It’s not often that you get a championship team over here,” Darryl Strawberry was saying Saturday at Citi Field, speaking with the sort of wisdom that only decades can confer. “We were the last one. That’s 30 years. That’s a long time.”

To Strawberry’s right, then-manager Davey Johnson was discussing just how the 1986 Mets managed to so captivate a borough, a fan base, a city. To his left, Ron Darling and Keith Hernandez were holding court, two of the most prominent links to the current club.

Thirty years have gone by since that championship, doing little to dim what the ’86 Mets accomplished. They emerged Sunday from behind a black curtain at Citi Field’s center-field fence, walking 100 yards of red carpet to their assigned spots on the infield diamond. At one point, Ray Knight wandered from his perch to hug some old teammates. Hernandez twirled in a rough circle, capturing video with his smartphone. Most just watched, clapping and raising fists.

It has been 30 years since the Mets last won the World Series, a fact not lost on either that generation or the current one. The club has held reunions of the ’86 Mets before, a team known as much for its rambunctiousness as its success, but Saturday marked their most comprehensive meeting in a …

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