When I heard the news of Gary Carter's passing last night while driving near Albany, I immediately engaged in a little experiment after letting out a gasp that disrupted my wife's slumber.

The experiment, which I'll ask you to repeat after this paragraph, was to briefly close my eyes and recall the visage of the Kid. While I was barely a sentient baseball fan when Carter helped carry the Mets to the 1986 World Series, I can still picture him standing behind the plate, helmet backwards with curly blonde locks of hair spilling out under the bill, blue chest protector over the racing stripe jersey, surveying the field.

You might put him in a different jersey if you can recall his Expos tenure, or perhaps swinging a bat, or might not picture him so stoic if his disastrous epilogue with the San Francisco Giants and Los Angeles Dodgers comes around, but I'd be that the simple act of recalling Carter will draw you a picture of Carter the ballplayer.

So go ahead and close your eyes. I'll be waiting for you after the jump when you open them.

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It's a very sad day for Mets fans as news of Gary Carter's death will be dominating the headlines today. Carter was among my favorite players from the 1980's Mets clubs which will always likely be the ones many Mets fans remember the most fondly of any squads the Mets have assembled. Carter's career numbers were very impressive, ranking him among the all time greats at the position.

Carter was inducted into the hall in 2003. His induction speech can be read here and watched here. Several former teammates have already had the chance to reflect on Carter's passing, Dwight Gooden, Keith Hernandez, Mookie Wilson, HoJo, and Darryl Strawberry among them. I'm sure we'll be seeing tribute to Carter all day today, but they'll all have a hard time topping Joe Posnanski's piece form early this morning. I'll always feel fortunate that Carter was a Met while I was just learning the nuances of the game.

Back in 2009, BtB took a look at the top catchers of all time by WAR. It actually surprised me to see just how highly Carter ranked when I first read that, but the more traditional "methods" of ranking players all seem to agree that Carter was among the games all time elite (some random examples of which can be found here, here, and here). The flagrant fan also took a look at the 16 best single seasons by catchers, and to nobody's surprise Carter made his way onto that list as well.

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Keith Hernandez called in to SNY's Daily News Live this afternoon to discuss the passing of his teammate and friend Gary Carter, and Keith was in or on the verge of tears for the balance of the interview. My eyes can't help but moisten at hearing one of my boyhood sports heroes in near-weeping eulogy of another.

Gary and Keith played together from 1985 through 1989, helping the Mets to an awful lot of wins in the process. They had five top-ten MVP finishes between them during that span, finishing third (Carter) and fourth in 1986 and sixth (Carter) and eighth in 1985.

Meanwhile, Wally Backman, manager of the Triple-A Buffalo Bisons and Carter's teammate with the Mets from 1985 through 1988, will wear uniform number eight in memory of his friend:

Click past the jump for video from SNY of Keith's emotional appearance this afternoon.

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After a long and courageous battle with brain cancer, Gary Carter has died at the age of 57.

Carter was originally drafted by the Montreal Expos in 1972, and after establishing himself there as one of the best all-around catchers in baseball, Mets GM Frank Cashen brought him to New York in exchange for Hubie Brooks, Mike Fitzgerald, Herm Winningham, and Floyd Youmans. Carter hit .281/.365/.488 in 1985, his first season at Shea, earning him an All-Star nod and a sixth-place finish in National League MVP voting that year.

He hit .255/.337/.439 in 1986, a drop-off from his '85 campaign, but he really shined in the postseason. Despite struggling for most of the NLCS against the Astros, his dramatic game-winning RBI single in the bottom of the 12th in Game 5 gave the Mets a 3-2 series lead heading back to Houston. And oh was he splendid in the World Series against the Red Sox, slugging .552 and belting two monster-clearing home runs to propel the Mets to a 6-2 win in Game 3, an affair played under dire circumstances after the Mets had dropped the first two games at home.

But Carter is probably best remembered for his single to left field with two outs and nobody on in the bottom of the tenth inning of Game 6 with the Mets trailing 5-3 and the dream of a championship on the cusp of complete evaporation. Visions of the glorious finish to that game have been seared into the mind of every Met fan.

Please use this thread to say goodbye to the Kid.

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