A gifted athlete, Wally Backman was a fast runner and a line drive hitting second baseman and played aggressive baseball during his 14-year major league career. He quickly became a New York Mets fans favorite as a hustling platoon player and by batting a solid .280 with 32 stolen bases in 1984. The next season, 1985 Wally Backman took over as the Mets regular second baseman position, hit .273 with 24 doubles, 5 triples, stole 30 bases, scored a career-best 77 runs and posted a slick .989 fielding percentage.

Wally Backman played a major role in the Mets winning the 1986 pennant and World Series. He batted a career-high .320 with just 32 strikeouts in 124 games. An excellent bunter, he had numerous bunt hits and had 14 sacrifices during the regular season. In the 1985 NCLS against Houston he led the Mets with 5 Runs. 

In the World Series in Game 3 with the Mets losing 5-4 to the Red Sox Wally Backman led off the ninth inning with a bunt single and scored on a homer by teammate Lenny Dykstra to give the New Yorkers a 6-5 win. In Game 6 he scored a run in the fourteenth inning, and later scored in the sixteenth as the Mets won the World Championship. After 1988, Wally Backman played for four different teams in his last 5 major league seasons.