Now he is 54, and wistful. He is recovering from a health scare — a bulging disc in his neck that pressed against his spinal cord and left him largely unable to move. After surgery, he said, he was in bed for months and spent more than a year going from a wheelchair to a walker to a cane as he regained his ability to walk. For a gifted athlete, the whole experience was a shock that left him depressed and anxious.

“I’ve never been afraid of nothing my whole life, but this scared me,” said Mitchell, who also lost a good deal of weight that he has since gained back. “I appreciate life. I didn’t know anything like this could happen to me.”

Mitchell has recently been easing back into his old routines. Although no longer using a cane, he walks slowly and with a limp and goes to physical therapy several times a week. He is a long way from returning to the golf course.

But he is strong enough to revisit the batting cage in San Diego where he has taught youngsters to hit. He is also going to fly to New York to meet up with his old teammates from the 1986 Mets as they gather for a May 28 reunion at Citi Field.

The 1986 Mets club was stocked with big names and outsize personalities. Mitchell, in contrast, was something of an unknown who was discovered by the Mets while playing in a pickup game in San Diego. He ended up being used at six positions in New York, where he hit a dozen home runs and, as every Mets (and Red Sox) fan knows, was in the middle of the team’s improbable comeback in Game 6 of the World Series, when, with two outs and no one on base in the bottom of the 10th, the Mets rallied for three runs to win the game, 6-5, and force a Game 7.

Like any number of elements of Mitchell’s career, even his pinch-hit single during that rally had a curious twist. As the bottom of the 10th played out, Mitchell was in the Mets’ clubhouse. Legend has it that he had concluded the Mets were about to lose the Series and was on the phone making plans to fly home to San Diego. And that when he was summoned to pinch-hit after Gary Carter kept the game alive with a single, he had to scramble to put his uniform back on.

At the recent lunch, Mitchell maintained that had not been the case. He was in the clubhouse, he said, but was still in his uniform. And because the team made flight arrangements for players, there would have been no reason for him to be booking a ticket.