The 1986 Mets getting a Last Dance style story is the documentary we all want

The 1986 New York Mets are going to get The Last Dance treatment.

Everyone raved about The Last Dance when it premiered back in April for its deep dive into the end of the Chicago Bulls’ dynasty. The combination of a tremendous cast of characters, wild stories and Michael Jordan speaking candidly on the record led to a ratings bonanza.

The Last Dance’s wild success led ESPN to empty its 30 for 30 vault after that and commission a nine-part story about Tom Brady, which doesn’t have quite the same wild potential as the Bulls’ story did. ESPN does have another multi-part sports story in the works as the company announced plans to spotlight the 1986 New York Mets in an upcoming 30 for 30 project.

The films will be produced by a star-studded group headlined by Jimmy Kimmel with Nick Davis, who directed a documentary about Ted Williams, filling the director’s chair for this project. ESPN has already dipped its toes into the water of the 1986 Mets before with Doc and Darryl, a 2016 film exploring the rise and fall of Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry.

That 30 for 30 was certainly interesting but a full spotlight on the 1986 Mets could bring some wild stories out that could make the 1998 Bulls look like choir boys. Besides Gooden and Strawberry, those Mets’ teams had dynamic personalities like Keith Hernandez, Mookie Wilson, Lenny Dykstra, Davey Johnson, Roger McDowell and Kevin Mitchell.

People forget that the Mets were really good in the mid-1980s and that their team was considered one of the biggest baseball villains of all time. The 1986 Mets liked to party hard, weren’t afraid to get into fights, and could deliver tales that would rival the infamous traveling cocaine circus storyline from the first episode of The Last Dance.

The story is also fascinating because this team should have been a dynasty but only won a single World Series despite having one of the best records in baseball between 1984 and 1990. Baseball’s playoff format played a part in those failures as the Mets won 90+ games six times in that span but only made the playoffs twice due to the strength of the National League East.

If the wild card existed at that point in history, with four teams making the postseason, the Mets would have reached the playoffs every year and almost assuredly captured another championship. Add in a more detailed look at the 1986 World Series, which was one of the most memorable Fall Classics in the last 40 years, and this documentary will be a massive home run.