The Man Who Hit the Most Famous Ground Ball in Mets History Is Opening a Barbecue Joint in Albany

Forty years ago, Mookie Wilson hit a ground ball that changed a World Series. Now he wants to feed the people who still talk about it. The former New York Mets center fielder is opening his first sit-down barbecue restaurant in the former War Room Tavern in Albany, turning the mobile family business he has run for two years into a brick-and-mortar smoke joint in the shadow of the state Capitol.

The news, first reported this week, hands one of baseball's most beloved figures a permanent kitchen for the first time. Wilson has been cooking for crowds off a trailer since 2023. A storefront changes the game, giving Legacy Catering a home address instead of a schedule of stops.

That is the whole hook here. A player remembered for a single unforgettable at-bat is now chasing something slower and steadier, a room where the brisket runs all day and the name over the door means something to anyone who watched baseball in the 1980s.

The Restaurant, and the Room It Is Taking Over

The address carries its own story. Wilson is building the restaurant as a partnership with Todd Shapiro, who owned the War Room Tavern, the downtown Albany bar that sat at 42 Eagle Street, directly across from the New York state Capitol. For years it was the watering hole where lawmakers, lobbyists, and staffers landed after work, a fixture of the capital city's dinner-and-deals scene.

That chapter closed earlier this year. The War Room Tavern served its last customers on March 4, 2026, after three years in business, with Shapiro stepping away to focus on a new venture, the Greenhouse Social Club at La Serre. The Eagle Street space went dark, and a well-known corner near the Capitol sat waiting for its next act.

Its next act is barbecue. Rather than let the room stay empty, Shapiro is teaming with Wilson to reopen it as a barbecue restaurant, swapping a lobbyist bar for a smoker. The turn is a neat one. A place built on backroom talk becomes a place built on low heat and long hours, and a capital-city corner known for politics becomes known for pork.

Who Mookie Wilson Is

For anyone who needs the credential, it is a big one. William Hayward Wilson, known to everyone as Mookie, played twelve Major League seasons, spending 1980 through 1989 with the Mets and finishing with the Toronto Blue Jays in 1989 through 1991. He was a switch-hitting center fielder built on speed, and the numbers back it up: a .274 career average with 67 home runs, 438 runs batted in, and 327 stolen bases across 1,403 games.

One at-bat made him permanent. In the bottom of the tenth inning of Game 6 of the 1986 World Series, with the Boston Red Sox one strike from their first title since 1918, Wilson dodged a wild pitch that let the tying run score, then hit a slow roller up the first-base line that skipped under Bill Buckner's glove, scoring Ray Knight with the winning run. The Mets took Game 7 two nights later and won the World Series. The play is replayed every October, and Wilson has said his own speed is what rushed Buckner into the error.

The affection outlasted the box score. Wilson stayed in the Mets family as a coach and ambassador long after he stopped playing, and he remains one of the franchise's most-loved figures, the good soldier whose one wild moment delivered a title. He has called that swing the best at-bat of his life, and Mets fans have never stopped agreeing. That goodwill is exactly what a restaurant with his name on it is built to draw on.

Legacy Catering, a Wilson Family Affair

The food is not a celebrity licensing deal. Wilson and his four brothers, along with their sisters, wives, daughters, and nephews, run Legacy Catering, a barbecue business the family started only about two years ago. The menu runs to ribs, brisket, chicken, sausage and more, the full spread of a serious pit. It grew out of the way the brothers had always cooked together, a habit they inherited from their mother and turned serious during an annual fishing trip. Most of them were nearing retirement age, they decided they wanted something to build together, and the cooking they already loved became the thing.

Wilson is not a name on the letterhead. He told the story of the business by describing himself at the pit, apron on, utensils in hand. The best place to find him is tending the smokers and grills, not lending his name and famous No. 1 from a distance, he said, and he takes the timing seriously: the brisket, he noted, takes about thirteen hours. On the field he was known for speed. At the smoker, he said, slow is the way to go.

The operation has been proudly mobile. Legacy Catering brings its own power, hot water, and refrigeration to every job, cooking everything on site rather than storing it, and it has towed that setup to Mets Fantasy Camp in Florida, to Minor League ballparks in Norfolk, Syracuse, and Hudson Valley, and, fittingly, to Citi Field. Over Memorial Day weekend the family brought the barbecue to Cooperstown for the Hall of Fame's East-West Classic at Doubleday Field, where Wilson also suited up as an honorary player. "We cook and serve," he said. "We don't cook and store for a rainy day."

From a Trailer to a Front Door

The Albany restaurant is the next rung, and a meaningful one. A mobile crew lives or dies by the calendar, chasing events and hauling equipment to each one. A permanent room flips that. It lets the family cook every day, build regulars, and put down the kind of roots a trailer never can, while keeping the hands-on, cook-in-front-of-you style that has been the whole pitch.

It also fits a pattern bigger than one ballplayer. Athletes have long lent their names to restaurants, but the ones that last tend to be the ones where the person actually cares about the food, and Wilson has spent two years proving he does. A retired center fielder who talks about thirteen-hour briskets the way he once talked about stolen bases is not renting out his fame. He is chasing a second thing he loves.

Why This One Matters

Barbecue keeps widening its map, and this is one of the ways it grows. Not every new smoke joint arrives from Texas or the Carolinas. Some arrive when a famous name with real love for the craft decides a shuttered corner in a Northern capital deserves a smoker, and turns a room full of history into a room full of smoke.

There is a symmetry worth savoring. The man remembered for the fastest, luckiest ninety feet in Mets history is settling into the slowest food there is, the kind you cannot rush, the kind that rewards patience. Game 6 was over in seconds. A brisket takes all day. Wilson seems to like both.

For Albany, it means a beloved corner gets a second life and a Hall-of-Fame-weekend caliber pitmaster in the bargain. For everyone who remembers 1986, it means the little roller up the first-base line has a new ending: a plate of ribs, served by the man who hit it. "You have to experience it," Wilson said of the family's cooking. Soon, in Albany, you will be able to.

Sources

• Mets legend Mookie Wilson to bring barbecue to former War Room Tavern (Times Union Table Hopping, via syndication, Sept 17 2026: Wilson's first dine-in restaurant at the former War Room Tavern, partnership with owner Todd Shapiro, Legacy Catering as the family barbecue brand)

• Albany's War Room Tavern closes as owner focuses on new venture (CBS6 Albany: War Room Tavern at 42 Eagle Street closing, owner Todd Shapiro pivoting to the Greenhouse Social Club at La Serre)

• War Room Tavern in Albany closing after 3 years (News10: the tavern's March 4, 2026 final day after three years across from the state Capitol)

• Mookie Wilson to serve BBQ in Cooperstown (MLB.com: Legacy Catering as a Wilson family business started about two years ago, the mobile setup, Citi Field and Minor League stops, the East-West Classic at Doubleday Field, and Wilson's own quotes on cooking)

• Mookie Wilson (Wikipedia: twelve MLB seasons, 1980-89 Mets and 1989-91 Blue Jays, the Game 6 sequence)

• Mookie Wilson career statistics (Baseball-Reference: .274 average, 67 home runs, 438 RBI, 327 stolen bases in 1,403 games)

• The best at-bat of my life: Game 6 winner in 1986 (amNewYork: the wild pitch, the roller under Bill Buckner's glove, Ray Knight scoring the winning run)

Images courtesy the New York Mets / Legacy Catering and file photography of Mookie Wilson.