Bad Guys Won
by Jeff Pearlman
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Book Summary Information
Author: Jeff PearlmanEdition: Paperback
Format: Bargain Price
Published: 2005-05-01
ISBN: N/A
Number of pages: 304
Book Reviews of Bad Guys Won
Book Review: Interesting account of the dynasty that never was
Summary: 5 Stars
The 1986 Mets will go down in history as the team that had it all, won it all, and just as quickly lost it all. Jeff Pearlman's book, while containing material that had been previously discussed, hashed and rehashed, really shines when it gets into the dynamics and characters behind the 1986 team. Whether it's talking about the infamous "Scum Bunch", or Bobby Ojeda's seething hatred toward the Red Sox, or the entire league's hatred of Gary Carter, Pearlman's book opens some doors and shines some light on stories that were not previously discussed (for obvious reasons).
The book is basically a chronological history of the Mets' rise to prominence in the early to mid-80's, beginning with Fred Wilpon and Nelson Doubleday's purchase of the club, to the hiring of Frank Cashen as the club's General Manager, to the jettisoning of of malcontents and has-beens and acquisitions of Keith Hernandez and Gary Carter, all the way through the 1986 season and the dismantling of the championship team. And while it could have been another treatise on "how NOT to run a ballclub", Pearlman for the most part avoids that and delves into the interpersonal relationships between the players and the dominating baseball team that it created.
It is THIS aspect of the book that drives the narrative, and turns it from merely a decent book to a good one. Everyone knows who the players on that 1986 team were. But not everyone knows who they WERE. And that is, a collection of ragtag men who gelled at the right time and at the right place. Which is not to say that it was perfect. For every nice guy on the team, like an Ed Hearn or Tim Teufel, you had a guy like Darryl Strawberry, who is described by one teammate as the nicest guy on the ballfield, but when liquored up, perhaps the most miserable SOB on the planet. In one anecdote, Pearlman describes a scene between Strawberry and pitcher Bruce Berenyi that is sure to make some cringe at the ruthlessness and disrespect with which Strawbery treats a teammate and fellow human being. You had guys like Kevin Mitchell, who came from a rough gang-infested neighborhood, and who had no problem bringing that rough attitude on the field and nearly killing a player during one of the team's (many) bench-clearing brawls. You had guys like Bob Ojeda, whose brashness and outspokenness put him on bad terms with ownership and his fellow teammates in Boston in 1985, who gets traded to the Mets in the offseason and literally foams at the mouth at the prospect of facing the Red Sox in the World Series. And who could ever forget Gary Carter? To the casual observer "The Kid" was the driving force behind the 1986 Mets, but to his teammates he was as phony as a $3 bill, a shameless self-promoter who didn't see a camera he didn't like and a guy who was the main reason behind at least one of the bench-clearing brawls.
These character studies are what REALLY get to the heart of the team, and reveal why, however unstoppable they were in 1986, by 1987 they were already a team on the decline and, despite their return to the playoffs in 1988, the Mets were a franchise on the verge of collapse heading into the 1990's. Whether it was the ill-advised trade of Kevin Mitchell (shipped out because management feared that he would be a bad influence on Dwight Gooden and Strawberry, despite the fact that those two were already heavily into drugs and alcohol) or the constant tinkering with Gooden's mechanics and pitch selection in order to make him a "better" pitcher (despite his coming off a 1985 in which he dominated NL hitters en route to the Cy Young Award), you get a firsthand view of just how the 1986 Mets were destined to be a team for the ages and then fizzle out just as quickly.
Some fans may be shocked when they hear some of the stories and realize just how flawed those Mets were (and how some STILL are), but for anyone who lived through the summer and fall of 1986, this book is required reading.
Summary of Bad Guys Won
Once upon a time, twenty-four grown men would play baseball together, eat together, carouse together, and brawl together. Alas, those hard-partying warriors have been replaced by GameBoy-obsessed, laptop-carrying, corporate soldiers who would rather punch a clock than a drinking buddy. But it wasn't always this way ...
In The Bad Guys Won, award-winning former Sports Illustrated baseball writer Jeff Pearlman returns to an innocent time when a city worshipped a man named Mookie and the Yankess were the second-best team in New York. So it was in 1986, when the New York Mets -- the last of baseball's live-like-rock-star teams -- won the World Series and captured the hearts (and other select body parts) of fans everywhere.
But their greatness on the field was nearly eclipsed by how bad they were off it. Led by the indomitable Keith Hernandez and the young dynamic duo of Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry, along with the gallant Scum Bunch, the Amazin's won 108 regular-season games, while leaving a wide trail of wreckage in their wake -- hotel rooms, charter planes, a bar in Houston, and most famously Bill Buckner and the eternally cursed Boston Red Sox. With an unforgettable cast of characters -- Doc, Straw, the Kid, Nails, Mex, and manager Davey Johnson (as well as innumerable groupies) -- The Bad Guys Won immortalizes baseball's last great wild bunch of explores what could have been, what should have been, and thanks to a tragic dismantling of the club, what never was.
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