What Bill Buckner Said 19 Days Before Game 6 of the 1986 World Series

In the early morning hours of May 27, 2019, former MLB player Bill Buckner passed away at the age of 69 after battling Lewy Body Dementia. "Bill fought with courage and grit as he did all things in life," Buckner's wife, Jody, told ESPN's Jeremy Schaap. "Our hearts are broken but we are at peace knowing he is in the arms of his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."

Buckner, who played for more than 20 years, had a storied career: He made his debut with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1969 at the age of 19, was traded to the Chicago Cubs in 1977, then moved on to the Red Sox from 1984 to 1987. He spent time with the California Angels and the Kansas City Royals before making his way back to Boston in 1990 as a free agent; it would be his final season.

Though he logged more years with the Dodgers and Cubs, Buckner's time with the Red Sox is the period he's most remembered for—specifically because of a fielding error that cost the Red Sox a game during the 1986 World Series.

On October 26, 1986, New York Met Mookie Wilson's routine ground ball passed right through Bill Buckner's legs, forcing a Game Seven that the Mets would also win.

You've seen the clip and heard the call, but did you know that Buckner himself laid out the scenario weeks before the fateful play?

On October 6, 1986, Buckner was interviewed by WBZ-TV's Don Shane about the pressures of postseason play. In a quote that later appeared in ESPN's Steve Bartman documentary Catching Hell, Buckner eerily explains his worst case scenario:

"The dreams are that you're gonna have a great series and win. The nightmares are that you're gonna let the winning run score on a ground ball through your legs. Those things happen, you know. I think a lot of it is just fate."

According to Dan Shaughnessy's 1997 book At Fenway: Dispatches from Red Sox Nation, the footage didn't resurface until 1995, when intern Maggie McGrath spent two weeks looking through old tapes after a viewer said he remembered the interview.

When Buckner returned to Boston as a free agent in 1990, the city made it clear that there were no hard feelings. "Opening Day I got a great ovation," Buckner told ESPN in 2006. "Fans in Boston are really good. They really are. They liked me and they were always good to me, and I think they just got caught up in the media. Overall, they were good. That was probably why tears came to my eyes, and it was pretty emotional."

Buckner, too, eventually came to forgive himself. "I have come to the understanding that it is here to stay, so I try to look at it in a positive way," Buckner told ESPN in that same interview. "Everybody still remembers me, they say, 'Yeah, he was the guy that made the error, but he was a pretty good player.' So I guess that is a positive about it."

Eventually, even Buckner was able to poke fun at his own mishap. In 2011, he appeared in an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm where he redeems himself by catching a baby whose mother throws it from a burning building.

This story has been updated for 2019.