The Soviet Union took an unusual step today by quoting from statements attributed to President Reagan at the Iceland meeting to show that American versions did not correctly reflect his confidential talks with Mikhail S. Gorbachev. The two sides disagree over what precisely Mr. Reagan said in Reykjavik about the possible elimination of strategic, or long-range, offensive forces by 1996 and about the broader issue of abolishing all nuclear arms. At a briefing today, Aleksandr A. Bessmertnykh, a Deputy Foreign Minister, said, “The President made the following statement, and again I quote: ‘If we agree that by the end of the 10-year period, all nuclear arms are to be eliminated, we can refer this to our delegations in Geneva to prepare an agreement that you could sign during your visit to the United States.’ ” One purpose of the Iceland meeting was to plan for a visit by Mr. Gorbachev to the United States. However, the meeting ended without setting a date.
The White House today repeated its position that President Reagan and Mikhail S. Gorbachev had discussed the elimination of all nuclear weapons, but that the talks had never reached a tentative understanding on this issue. A senior White House official would not comment directly on the release in Moscow today of what a Soviet official said were direct quotes from Mr. Reagan in his meeting with Mr. Gorbachev in Iceland. The Soviet official said the quotes indicated that Mr. Reagan had agreed to the elimination of all strategic nuclear weapons within 10 years and had held out the broader possibility of eliminating all nuclear arms. The White House official said, “We don’t deny there were discussions, but they never reached the stage of any agreement.” The White House official said the only concrete proposal offered by Mr. Reagan was to eliminate all ballistic missiles, but not other strategic weapons such as long-range bombers and cruise missiles, in two five-year stages. “That proposal was in writing,” the official said. “That is what we left on the table in Iceland and that is what we hope to take to Geneva.”
The Soviet Union published infant mortality rates for the first time in 12 years in another sign of growing willingness to release data that does not necessarily reflect positive trends. The figures, compiled by the Central Statistics Board and published in the economic journal Economicheskaya. Gazeta, showed a rise in infant mortality over the past 15 years, although the rate has declined since the mid-1970s. The data showed that for every 1,000 live births, 26 infants died before the age of 1 year in 1985, compared to 27.3 in 1980 and 24.7 in 1970.
Britain called on the Soviet Union today to declare publicly its rejection of state-supported terrorism in the wake of allegations that Syria, a Russian ally, was involved in a plot to blow up an Israeli airliner. Britain broke off diplomatic relations with Syria on Friday, citing “conclusive evidence” of Syria’s involvement in the attempt to bomb an El Al Israel Airlines plane and its 375 passengers in April. The Thatcher Government told Syria to close its embassy in London and ordered its diplomats to leave Britain. Damascus responded by closing the British Embassy in Syria.
The United States has told the U.N. secretary general that it will contribute $100 million to the United Nations’ regular budget, less than half its 1986 assessment, a U.S. official said. U.S. Ambassador Vernon A. Walters informed Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar by phone of the reduced contribution and said a formal letter and the money would follow, the official said. Perez de Cuellar has said that the world body needs at least $120 million from Washington to pay fixed costs.
Johannes Rau, the Social Democratic candidate for chancellor of West Germany, pledged to halt. Bonn’s participation in the U.S. Strategic Defense Initiative if elected in January. He told an election rally that the agreement between the U.S. and West German governments to work jointly on the U.S. “Star Wars” project “is contrary to the vital interests of our people.” Rau characterized the participation of West German industry in the SDI program “probably the most serious mistake” made by Chancellor Helmut Kohl, whom Rau is facing in the January 25 national parliamentary election.
British intelligence agents were able to eavesdrop directly on conversations verifying the complicity of the Syrian Ambassador in the plot to bomb an Israeli airliner, Government officials asserted today. The intelligence gathered from this source and others was an underlying factor in the Thatcher Government’s decision to break relations with Syria on Friday and cite “conclusive evidence” that Syrian diplomats and intelligence agents were involved in the attempted bombing of the El Al jet. In taking the action, the Government implicitly disclosed how intensively the agents of its MI-5 security service have been focusing and eavesdropping on the Syrian Embassy. In another development, the Foreign Office today ordered the Syrian Embassy to close within seven days, not the 14 it originally granted. The move came after Syria’s decision on closing the British Embassy in Damascus.
Libya announced tonight that it was closing its airspace to British aircraft in support of Syria’s breaking of relations with London. The announcement, by the Libyan press agency JANA, was the sole announced support for Syria in the Arab world today. Meanwhile, the Syrian Foreign Minister, Farouk al-Sharaa, said this evening at a news conference in Damascus that “Britain has committed a big blunder for which it will be sorry.”
The military governor of a Basque province of Spain was killed along with his wife and son today when a bomb exploded moments after it was planted on top of their car at a traffic light, the police said. Two youths on a motorcycle placed a gymnasium bag on the car and then sped away seconds before the bomb inside the bag exploded in the Basque city of San Sebastian, the police said. The bomb killed Gen. Rafael Garrido Gil, 59 years old, the military governor of the surrounding province of Guipuzcoa, as well as his wife, Isabel Velasco, and their 16-year old son, Daniel. Their driver and four bystanders were listed in critical condition in hospitals tonight.
Financial deficits grieve the Vatican, which urgently needs greater contributions from Roman Catholics, according to a commission of cardinals. The Holy See suffered a shortfall of $39 million in 1985.
Heavy artillery, mortar and machine-gun battles engulfed three refugee camps in southern Lebanon in an escalating conflict between Palestinians and Shia Muslims of the Amal militia. At least nine people were killed and 25 wounded in the fighting. Palestine Liberation Organization guerrillas stormed out of refugee camps before dawn and overran Amal strongholds in bloody pitched battles around the port city of Sidon, 24 miles south of Beirut, police said. An Amal official in Beirut later said that his group regained the positions and was advancing on a large Palestinian refugee camp. The onslaught was the first time PLO guerrillas had staged large-scale attacks from Lebanon’s refugee camps since Israel’s 1982 invasion smashed the PLO’s military infrastructure in Lebanon.
Heavy raids by Iraqi bombers on Iranian oil refineries and shipping installations have reduced Iran’s petroleum exports from 1.6 million barrels a day at this time last year to 600,000 to 700,000 barrels at present, according to American and British intelligence sources and experts on Middle East oil production and exports. The series of bombings and the subsequent fall in exports has had a serious immediate effect on Iran’s internal economy and are expected to affect the war effort, the sources said. About a third of Iran’s budget is devoted to the war with Iraq, Government spokesmen in Teheran say. The timing of Iran’s “final offensive,” which these spokesmen have predicted will end the war, now in its seventh year, is also likely to be influenced by the Iraqi air offensive, the Western sources said. The Iranians suggest the delay in the offensive is based on their calculations that the coming rainy season will make the terrain unusable for Iraqi tanks and other motorized equipment in which the Iraqi Army is superior.
Mrs. Chiang Kai-shek, widow of the late Nationalist Chinese president, returned to Taiwan on today for her first visit since she left for the United States in 1975 after her husband’s death. Mrs. Chiang was welcomed at Taipei’s military airport by President Chiang Ching-kuo, who is her stepson, the official Central News Agency said. The 85-year-old former first lady came to Taipei from New York to attend ceremonies to commemorate the 100th anniversary of her husband’s birth, the news agency said. The news agency did not say how long she would stay in Taiwan or give any other details of her visit.
Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile today broke an announced agreement not to criticize President Corazon C. Aquino, telling a rally that he thought her Government was ineffective. Addressing about 5,000 people carrying anti-Communist placards, he avoided direct mention of Mrs. Aquino, but he said little had been accomplished in the eight months since she came to power because of “the problem of our national leadership.” Mr. Enrile himself is believed to have presidential ambitions. His strident agitation in recent weeks is believed here to be an attempt to destabilize and gain greater control over Mrs. Aquino’s Government.
The armed forces Chief of Staff, General Fidel V. Ramos, gave 250 c.c.’s of type-A blood on Friday at a Red Cross blood drive. Then he told troops that the secret of his health and energy, at 60 years old, was a determined set of mind, 30 minutes of daily exercise and regular blood donations to discard “some of the old stuff you have been keeping in your body for so many years.” The personal details about the low-key general are of sudden heightened interest to Filipinos because, in a struggle for Government dominance, with Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile criticizing President Corazon C. Aquino, General Ramos has emerged as clearly the man who holds the balance of power. In any confrontation that might occur between Mrs. Aquino and Mr. Enrile, political analysts here agree that a decisive portion of the military would look to their Chief of Staff for the crucial decision on where to pitch their loyalty.
Charles J. Pilliod, the new U.S. ambassador to Mexico, pledged to try to improve relations between the two countries that have been strained by the issues of illegal immigration, oil sales and U.S. charges of Mexican complicity in drug trafficking. Pilliod arrived in Mexico City to take up his duties, succeeding John Gavin, who resigned last spring. Pilliod, 68, former chairman and chief executive of Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., has no diplomatic experience but has worked in four Latin American countries with Goodyear.
Elections in a Mexican state are expected to focus on violence, drug trafficking and charges of corruption in the ruling party. Polls open today in Sinaloa on the Pacific coast. Shortly before Christmas last year, two teen-agers on a motorcycle passed by a bar here in the capital of Sinaloa state. Apparently irritated by the noise, a man said to be one of Culiacan’s many drug traffickers emerged from the bar and fired a machine gun at the two youths, killing them. Although parents and civic and professional groups have angrily demanded action, there have been no arrests in the murders. More recently, Odilon Lopez Urias, a journalist here known for his criticism of officials of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, was kidnapped by eight armed men. Two days later his body was found in a field 10 miles away. He had been shot three times. Many people here blame the killing on the ruling party, known as the PRI. Although the murder of the two youths and the journalist are not related, they are graphic examples of the violence that governs daily life in this northern, Pacific coastal state, which is generally regarded as Mexico’s most violent and the capital of the country’s flourishing drug trafficking industry. The violence, and the perception that the state government, controlled by the ruling party, is part of it, or at least permits it, has so agitated Sinaloans that candidates of the conservative National Action Party are given a strong chance of capturing the municipal governments in several key cities in state elections October 26.
After four days of pretrial maneuvering, a Sandinista political tribunal is now expected to spend the next 8 to 12 days judging the case against the American captured from a downed rebel plane. Political analysts inside and outside the Nicaraguan Government say they believe that if punishment is ultimately meted out, it will depend less on legal arguments in the courtroom than on a calculated political decision by the Sandinista leadership, which controls the political tribunal. The American prisoner, Eugene Hasenfus, was captured after a supply plane was shot down three weeks ago over Nicaragua while trying to drop guns and ammunition to anti-Government units. The Nicaraguan Government has treated the incident as a major political issue and as conclusive evidence of American aggression against Nicaragua.
The Reagan Administration is divided over how to spend $100 million in aid to the Nicaraguan rebels and is debating what goals can be reasonably achieved with the money, according to Administration officials. The officials said there had been disagreements between military planners, who favor gradual improvements in the rebel forces, and some senior policy makers, who see the need for more tangible military victories that could win Congressional renewal of the funding. “There is a tension between the planners and the politicians,” one Administration official said. The House and the Senate, after cutting off military aid for more than two years, narrowly approved the $100 million after a sustained lobbying campaign by President Reagan. The officials said that one issue that had been debated was whether to organize the rebels, known as contras, in traditional military battalions or as smaller, irregular guerrilla units. The battalions would be more appropriate for taking territory, a goal that officials said was beyond the immediate ability of the contras.
Peruvian Army patrols killed 39 Shining Path guerrillas last week, including an insurgent considered a top leader of the Maoist group, the state-run Andina news agency reported today. The toll of 39 rebel deaths reported late Friday by Andina was the largest number of insurgent casualties ever announced by Peru’s military. The rebel deaths occurred in five skirmishes in the last week with army patrols in the southern Andean region around Ayacucho, the stronghold of Shining Path, Andina reported. Soldiers broke up an assembly of regional Shining Path leaders Wednesday and Thursday in the village of Pomatambo, killing an insurgent leader, Claudio Bellido Huaytalla, the highest-ranking Shining Path rebel ever slain, Andina said.
South Africa and Lesotho have signed an agreement to divert the flow of some rivers in the mountain kingdom and send water flowing through tunnels to the South African industrial heartland. The project, agreed to after 30 years of negotiations, involves damming rivers that form the source of the Orange River in northeastern Lesotho, reversing part of their flow and pouring water into the Vaal River basin in the Orange Free State of South Africa. The agreement also calls for Lesotho, which is surrounded by South Africa, to get 178 miles of new roads. The $1.8-billion project is to be completed by 1995.
A conference of the international movement of the Red Cross voted today to oust the South African Government delegation to protest what one African delegate called Pretoria’s “evil and inhuman” policy of apartheid. The move, which marks the first time a government delegation has been excluded from a Red Cross conference in the organization’s 123-year history, was described by Western countries and Red Cross officials as endangering the 137-nation organization’s policies of impartiality and neutrality. The Pretoria Government retaliated by ordering Read Cross representatives to leave South Africa as soon as possible, The Associated Press reported from Johannesburg. Conference observers and Western delegates said the vote to exclude South Africa would create a “very bad” atmosphere at the weeklong meeting, which is also considering changing Red Cross statutes and examining compliance with its conventions.
An estimated 1,200 people marched to a park across from the White House to protest U.S. military aid to Nicaraguan rebels and other Reagan Administration policies. The protest by the Coalition to Stop the U.S. War on Nicaragua brought participants from six states, Joanne Heifel, a coalition spokeswoman, said. “We believe Nicaragua should be given the right to self-determination, just as any country in the world…,”she said.
American voters want more women to serve in Congress and as governors but believe the White House remains the domain of men, a poll released by U.S. News & World Report showed. The magazine said the nationwide poll conducted by the Roper Organization showed 55% would like more women in statewide offices, but 21% said they would not vote for a woman running for vice president and 36% would not vote for a female presidential candidate.
“Nationalizing” the 1986 campaign is a strategy that Republicans are trying by invoking President Reagan’s record, while Democrats, having some success with their own national theme of economic trouble, stress individual candidates’ strengths.
President Reagan makes a radio address to the Nation on economic growth. President Reagan, in an upbeat pre-election talk about the nation’s economy, said today that America “is solid and accelerating again.” In his Saturday radio address from the Oval Office, the President said that those who did not share his optimistic forecast desired a return to the “days of malaise.” Citing the annual 2.4 percent growth rate recorded last summer, Mr. Reagan said the nation’s current economic expansion “will be recorded as one of the most remarkable peacetime expansions in the 20th century.”
President Reagan places a call to Brad Curl, National Director of Morality in Media.
The passage of the landmark immigration bill has created confusion and apprehension among illegal aliens and among employers, who for the first time will have to check the citizenship status of all new workers. Employers will be forbidden to hire illegal aliens, and some illegal aliens can obtain legal status, or amnesty. But the Justice Department and other agencies must issue regulations to clarify many of the details after President Reagan signs the bill. Mr. Reagan has indicated that he will sign the measure. He will probably not receive the final bill, printed on imitation parchment, until late next week, so he is not expected to sign it until after the election November 4.
Bombings declined 10% and killed fewer people in the first six months of 1986 than in the same period last year, the FBI said. The report said six people died, 122 were hurt and property damage totaled $1.4 million in 377 explosions across the United States and its territories. During the first six months of 1985, 10 were killed and 44 injured. Residential property was the most frequent target, accounting for 32% of the attacks. None of the bombings were attributed to terrorists.
The Education Department said it is sending out more than 27,000 “fraud alert” brochures to help educators and bankers detect phony applications for federal student aid. “The purpose of this brochure is to stop the fraudulent use of student financial aid before it happens,” said Education Secretary William J. Bennett. The brochure spells out the basic eligibility requirements for federal aid and provides a checklist of telltale signs of a fake application. More than 5 million college students are getting $12 billion in aid through the department’s loan and grant programs this year.
The House Judiciary Committee has refused to start impeachment proceedings against three Federal judges, ruling explicitly for the first time that a judge cannot be subjected to impeachment for a judicial decision, even an erroneous one. The ruling came in response to petitions from 100,000 residents of Georgia demanding the impeachment of three Federal appellate judges who granted a new trial to the convicted killers of six members of a south Georgia family. The Judiciary Committee referred the petitions to Representative Robert W. Kastenmeier, chairman of the Subcommittee on Courts, Civil Liberties and the Administration of Justice, which has jurisdiction over judicial discipline. The Wisconsin Democrat’s formal ruling, issued last month, has been endorsed by the Judiciary Committee’s chairman, Representative Peter W. Rodino Jr. In his ruling, Mr. Kastenmeier said: “Federal judges should not and cannot be impeached for judicial decision-making, even if a decision is an erroneous one.”
A 6 o’clock curfew will be in effect for children under 18 years old for three nights next week in an effort to eliminate a seasonal surge in arson in the city of Detroit. The city will also deploy additional police and firefighter patrols and is planning school assemblies and neighborhood group meetings to publicize its effort further, Mayor Coleman A. Young announced Friday. In recent years the night before Halloween, known here as “Devil’s Night,” has brought a spate of arson to the nation’s sixth-largest city. In a 71-hour period over the last three days of October last year, 479 fires were set, including 64 in occupied buildings and 153 in rubbish. The number of fires was down 41 percent from the same period of 1984, which Mayor Young attributed to “the help of Police and Fire Department personnel, citizen volunteers and other city employees.”
An Indiana pastor seeks a House seat. Donald Lynch, a Republican whose top issues include AIDS and abortion, is waging an uphill battle against the Democratic incumbent, Philip R. Sharp.
Defense attorneys in the manslaughter trial over three deaths in “Twilight Zone: The Movie” have repeatedly charged that fire officials tried to cover up their department’s role in a fatal helicopter crash. They argued this week that a county fire safety officer who was on the set the night of the crash, July 23, 1982, had predicted the disaster to his supervisor but that the superior failed to act on the warning and the department then covered up its role. “If the fire safety officers thought it was dangerous and didn’t do anything, how could they expect the defendants to know it was dangerous,” said Leonard Levine, an attorney for one of the five defendants, Dan Allingham, the film’s production manager.
A murderer was the object of an intensive manhunt around East Chicago, Indiana, after he escaped while being transferred from a hospital back to prison. Police Sgt. Gilbert Diaz described the convict, David J. Roberts, 42, as armed and “very, very dangerous.” Roberts, who was serving six life sentences for kidnapping and killing a couple and their infant daughter, pulled a hidden gun on his two guards, handcuffed them, took their weapons and drove off in their car during the trip back to Indiana State Prison, at Michigan City, on Friday night. The guards later got away and fled on foot.
Eight people, including five children, were killed and seven were injured, one critically, in a fire early this morning in a two-story duplex here, the authorities said. Four children and their mother, Abigail Patton, escaped the fire when the woman threw three of the children from a second-floor window and then leaped to safety with the fourth, her relatives said. The woman and two of her children were listed in satisfactory condition at Hennepin County Medical Center. Two of Ms. Patton’s children were not injured.
A school soccer team in Seattle has been removed from a Catholic Youth Organization league for the rest of the season because one of its top players is a 7-year-old girl. Officials of the organization had threatened to hold games in which the girl, Marisa Monroe, played as forfeited by St. Joseph’s School. When she continued to play, games left on the school’s schedule were canceled by the group’s all-male commission. However, the team played its regularly scheduled opponent today in an unofficial match, arranged by the coaches of St. Joseph’s and St. Anne’s School. St. Joseph’s won 2–1. Marisa’s mother, Linda Monroe, has filed a sexual discrimination complaint against the Roman Catholic organization with the State Human Rights Commission. A hearing is set for November 18. Terry McGrath, athletic director for the C.Y.O. sports program, said the decision had been made on the basis of a “longstanding policy.” Mr. McGrath said the group had been a leader in promoting sports programs for girls but that if the most talented girl players were allowed to compete in the boys’ programs it would “undermine the girls’ program and leave it high and dry.”
Koreans are part of Texas culture. More and more of the border businesses serving a predominantly Mexican clientele are run by Koreans, whose presence is worrying some longtime businessmen. From the ever-present Border Patrol cars to the the shops selling used clothes, the southern end of downtown El Paso is the ultimate Texas border strip: part Mexico, part Texas, part Texan-Mexican hybrid. The supermarkets advertise mayonnaise as Mayonesa Kraft and lunch meat as Treet carne para lonche. The Woolworth’s store calls itself a “cinco y diez” rather than a five and ten. And these days the proprietors are often buckaroos like Hochan Kim, Sang Lee and Chong H. Yi.
6 heirs of $240 million remain unsure about why they received the money. A Beverly Hills oil heiress left the bequests of $40 million each to 4 schools, a hospital and a clinic when she died last year. When Liliore Green Rains died last November at the age of 76, representatives of four California colleges, a Los Angeles hospital and a psychiatric clinic in Topeka, Kansas, gained $40 million each. To this day they are not sure why. “Some of us knew her well, but I understand that there were others who had never heard of her,” said Ted Gibbens, a development officer at Pomona College. “She did not explain herself. I was astounded.”
Grass-roots efforts nationwide are helping win the war against pornography, leaders of the movement said in Chicago at a breakfast featuring words of support from President Reagan via satellite. Pornography is “vicious and dangerous” and “harms women and children,” Reagan said in the address to the breakfast sponsored by Chicago Statement, an anti-pornography advocacy group, in observance of National Pornography Awareness Week. In the brief address broadcast live via satellite to 50 cities, Reagan praised plans by Attorney General Edwin Meese III to “break the back” of pornography.
Major League Baseball, World Series, Game 6:
The greatest game. But maybe not if you were a Red Sox fan.
Trailing 5–3 with 2 out and no one on base in the bottom of the 10th inning, New York rallies to win game 6 of the World Series 6–5 and force a deciding 7th game. The series returned to Shea Stadium for Game 6 with the Mets facing elimination. Bob Ojeda, the winner of Game 3, returned to the mound for New York. The Red Sox countered with Roger Clemens, who despite the team’s victory in his Game 2 start did not factor into the decision as he was pulled from the game in the fifth inning. The game was briefly paused in the top of the first, with Bill Buckner at bat, as actor and Mets fan Michael Sergio parachuted onto the field wearing a flag reading “Go Mets”. He was immediately arrested by security after landing. In the first two innings, Boston took a quick 2–0 lead on RBI base hits from Dwight Evans and Marty Barrett. Those would be the only runs Ojeda allowed in six innings. The Mets tied the score in the fifth inning on a single from Ray Knight and a run-scoring double play by Danny Heep, in his last at-bat as a Met. After the Mets left the go-ahead run on base in the sixth, the Red Sox came to bat in the top of the seventh against New York reliever Roger McDowell. Barrett started off the inning by drawing a walk, then advanced to second on a groundout by Bill Buckner. Jim Rice then hit a ground ball to third that Knight misplayed, putting runners on the corners with one out. McDowell then got Evans to ground out to the left side, but since Boston had called for a hit-and-run, the Mets were unable to convert a double play and get out of the inning; Barrett scored on the groundout to give the Red Sox the lead. The Mets avoided further damage, though, as Rice was thrown out at home after trying to score from second on a single by Rich Gedman for the third out.
In the top of the eighth, McDowell walked Dave Henderson to start the inning. After Spike Owen laid down a sacrifice bunt, advancing Henderson to second, the pitcher’s spot was due next. Although Clemens had struck out eight Mets batters and had only allowed one earned run to this point in the game, manager John McNamara decided to call for a pinch hitter. Despite having power hitting veteran Don Baylor on his bench, McNamara chose to send up rookie Mike Greenwell as he felt the matchup against McDowell favored him. Greenwell responded by striking out on three pitches. After intentionally walking Wade Boggs next, McDowell walked Barrett to load the bases. Jesse Orosco came in to face Buckner, inducing a first-pitch fly out to end the inning. It was initially said that Clemens was removed from the game due to a blister forming on one of his fingers, but both he and McNamara dispute this. Clemens said to Bob Costas on an MLB Network program concerning the 1986 postseason that McNamara decided to pull him despite Clemens wanting to pitch. McNamara said to Costas that Clemens “begged out” of the game. Regardless of who was really telling the truth, the Red Sox had been warming up closer Calvin Schiraldi in the prior innings and, with him ready, McNamara brought him in to pitch the eighth.
Pinch hitter Lee Mazzilli, batting for Orosco, led off the inning with a single. Lenny Dykstra then reached on an attempted sacrifice to put two runners on. Wally Backman followed with another bunt to move Mazzilli and Dykstra into scoring position, and Schiraldi intentionally walked Keith Hernandez to load the bases for Gary Carter. Schiraldi ran up a 3–0 count on Carter, but Carter swung at the next pitch and flied to left, deep enough to score Mazzilli and tie the game. With Dykstra now on third, Darryl Strawberry stood in with a chance to drive in the go-ahead run, but flied out to end the inning.
After the Red Sox failed to score against Rick Aguilera in the top of the ninth, the Mets came up with a chance to win the game. Knight started the inning by drawing a walk off Schiraldi. Mookie Wilson was then asked to lay down a bunt to try to move the runner up to second. The bunt landed directly in front of home plate and catcher Gedman saw he had a play at second and threw there to try and get the lead runner. His throw was high, however, and pulled shortstop Owen off the base long enough for Knight to slide in safely. Owen, Barrett, and McNamara argued that second base umpire Jim Evans made the wrong call, with McNamara saying he could not have seen Owen’s foot land back on the bag, but television replays showed that Knight’s hand touched just before Owen got his foot back down.
With a runner now in scoring position and still nobody out, Howard Johnson came on to pinch hit. Mets manager Davey Johnson had been expected by the Red Sox to call for a bunt in order to move Knight to third base, where he could score on a deep fly ball, but the play was not called and Johnson struck out. Schiraldi then got Mazzilli out on a fly ball to left, failing to advance Knight to third, and followed that up with another fly out off the bat of Dykstra to end the inning and move the game to extra innings.
In the visiting tenth, Henderson hit Aguilera’s second pitch of the inning out of the park for a 4–3 Boston lead. After getting Owen to strike out, the first of two opportunities for McNamara to utilize his bench, where he had several pinch-hitting options including Baylor still available, came up with the pitcher’s spot now due. McNamara, however, sent Schiraldi to the plate despite having both Joe Sambito and Bob Stanley, the latter having not recorded a single earned run in the postseason to that point, in the bullpen ready to go. Aguilera retired Schiraldi on a strikeout for the second out. Boggs then followed with a double, and Barrett drove him in with a single to give the Red Sox an insurance run and a 5–3 lead. The second chance for McNamara to use his bench followed. The veteran first baseman Buckner was the next batter, and in many cases where Boston would be leading late in games McNamara would take Buckner out and replace him with Dave Stapleton at first base, as he had done in all three previous Red Sox victories in this series. This time, he did not, even after Aguilera drilled the veteran first baseman in the hip with a pitch. Rice, the next batter, ended the inning with a flyout to Mazzilli.
When asked later about his decision to leave Buckner in the game, McNamara initially said that he felt that he deserved to stay on the field for the potential final out to preserve the victory and the championship. Buckner, after all, was the third-oldest Red Sox player behind Baylor and Tom Seaver (who was not on the postseason roster), and was an 18-year veteran who had only seen action in one prior World Series, which came when he was a member of the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 1974 World Series. Years later, McNamara changed his story and said that the reason why had nothing to do with sentimentality and instead said that Stapleton, who said McNamara’s decision cost the Red Sox the series, was not a reliable defender and that his teammates had taken to calling him “Shaky” as a result; in spite of McNamara’s assertion, Stapleton had only committed one error at first base since Buckner joined the Red Sox in 1984 and, in his last two full seasons at first base, had recorded fielding percentages of .991 and .992 respectively.
Needing to rally for the second time in three innings, and now having to overcome a two-run deficit, the Mets’ first two batters in the tenth went quietly against Schiraldi. Backman flew out to left, and Hernandez flew out to center. With Carter now New York’s last hope, the words “Congratulations Boston Red Sox, 1986 World Champions” briefly and accidentally flashed on the scoreboard. The celebration, however, was put on hold as Carter singled to bring the tying run to the plate. Had he not come out in the ninth inning, Strawberry would have been the next batter. However, Mazzilli had taken his place in the field when Aguilera was brought in to pitch the ninth inning; as a result of the double switch, the pitcher’s spot was now due and Johnson called for utility man Kevin Mitchell to pinch hit for Aguilera, who stood to lose the game as the pitcher of record unless the Mets somehow rallied to at least tie the game.
An anecdotal story about the sequence of events that followed, which has been relayed several times over the years and denied by Mitchell in the years following, says that Mitchell had left the dugout and gone back to the Mets’ clubhouse after Hernandez flew out in order to book a flight home after the game and had taken his uniform off. Hernandez, who had himself gone to the clubhouse after recording the second out, later said on a 2023 episode of The Rich Eisen Show that the story was half true; Mitchell was in the clubhouse with him, but was still in uniform when he was called to pinch hit. Despite the rush, the rookie utility man came through with a single of his own, advancing Carter to second and putting the tying runs on base with Knight, now the potential winning run, coming up.
Schiraldi got two quick strikes on the Mets’ third baseman, who had already driven in one run so far. However, with his team within one strike of that elusive championship, he could not finish the job as Knight singled to left-center. Carter scored from second standing up and the speedy Mitchell advanced to third. Finally, McNamara decided his closer had seen enough and called for the veteran Stanley to try to close out the game. Some later speculated as to why Stanley, who had been warmed up by the time the tenth inning began, had not been called upon earlier instead of McNamara asking for a third inning out of Schiraldi, who had already blown the save in the eighth.
The Mets’ next batter was Wilson, who had recorded one hit and reached on a fielder’s choice after the bad throw by Gedman in the ninth. Six pitches into the at-bat, with the count even at two balls and two strikes, Stanley threw a breaking ball that broke sharply inside and bounced in front of Wilson, who fell down trying to avoid it. Gedman tried to field the ball but could not, and it rolled to the backstop. From his knees, Wilson signaled to Mitchell to come down from third and he scored easily, tying the score at five.
Knight advanced to second on the wild pitch. Several times during the ensuing series of pitches, second baseman Barrett realized that Knight was straying too far from the base and that if he could get Stanley to turn and throw to him, he would have an easy pickoff play and the inning could have ended there. Despite his best attempts, Barrett never was able to get Stanley to hear him as the sellout crowd at Shea Stadium was drowning him out, and Stanley instead chose to focus on getting Wilson out.
On the tenth pitch of the at-bat, Stanley finally got Wilson to put the ball in play, forcing a ground ball to first base. Buckner had been playing near the foul line to give himself a better chance to get the speedy Wilson out on a ground ball, but when he went to field the ball it went under his glove and through his legs into right field. Knight scored from second, completing the rally and giving the Mets a 6–5 victory to tie the series and force a seventh game.
In the 2011 ESPN Films documentary Catching Hell, Buckner explained how, years after the event, he realized from watching a television replay how he had missed the ball. He said, when he played in the field, he liked to wear a very loose glove – i.e. one that was floppy. When he moved to his left to try to field Wilson’s grounder and then stopped, the momentum of the leftward-moving loose glove caused the glove to close. The ball then went just past the right side of the glove. In his 2023 appearance with Rich Eisen, Hernandez remarked that, because Buckner had spent a significant part of his career playing in the National League, he was more than familiar with Wilson and his baserunning speed. As such he took his normal position near the line to give himself the best chance to get the out at first; Hernandez said that if it was any other hitter in the Mets lineup but Wilson, Buckner would have been able to get the out.
After the top of the tenth, NBC began setting up in the visiting clubhouse for what they believed was the inevitable postgame victory celebration. The Commissioner’s Trophy had been brought into the Red Sox clubhouse along with several bottles of champagne, team co-owner/president Jean Yawkey and pitcher Bruce Hurst (who had already been named the series MVP by the sportswriters) with Bob Costas ready to preside over the presentation. However, after Stanley’s wild pitch in the bottom of the tenth, everything was quickly struck and removed from the room before the Red Sox returned. Costas later recalled the removal of all the equipment for the postgame celebration as being “like a scene change in a Broadway musical. In, out, gone, not a trace.”
In 2011, MLB Network ranked this as the third greatest game of the preceding 50 years. It was the last World Series game to end on an error until Game 4 of the 2020 World Series. In the years that have followed, many fans regardless of team allegiance consider Game 6 of the 1986 World Series to be one of the greatest games ever played in the history of professional baseball.
Boston Red Sox 5, New York Mets 6
Born:
Kyle Moore, NFL defensive end (Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Buffalo Bills), in Schweinfurt, West Germany.
Jeremy Horne, NFL wide receiver (Kansas City Chiefs), in Albany, New York.
Garret Siler, NBA center (Phoenix Suns), in Augusta, Georgia.
DJ Webstar [Troy Ryan], American disc jockey and record producer (Chicken Noodle Soup), born in Harlem, New York, New York.
Died:
Forrest Tucker, 67, American actor (“F-Troop”; “Dusty’s Trail”; “The Crawling Eye”), of lung cancer and emphysema.
