The Bad Guys Won!
by Jeff Pearlman
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Book Summary Information
Author: Jeff PearlmanEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2005-05-01
ISBN: 0060507330
Number of pages: 304
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780060507336
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Book Reviews of The Bad Guys Won!
Book Review: The Scum Bunch
Summary: 4 Stars
THE BAD GUYS WON has all the charm of Kitty Kelley's tabloid biography of Frank Sinatra, His Way, which is to say it has a seedy eye-at-the-keyhole quality which we all admit is objectionable even while we secretly revel in it.
I don't know if author Jeff Pearlman (who gives a nod to his cousin "Dan" in the acknowledgements---is this the late journalist Daniel Pearlman?) is right in his assertion that the '86 Mets were the GREATEST team ever to play in New York (either the '27 Yankees, the '52 Brooklyn Dodgers, or the '98 Yankees with their 125 wins, could contend for this honor), but they were certainly the LOUDEST. The '86 Mets were a brawling, obnoxious, sociopathic, and preeminently dynamic group of guys who won big on the basis of sheer ROCKS. They fit their time, the Ivan Boesky Era, hand in glove, a time when excess flowed as readily as vodka and material wealth was as dispensable as the cocaine that was disappearing up Darryl's and Doc's noses. Things were so bad that more than one airline banned the Mets from travel after the team returned to them planes soaked in rum, vomit, urine, feces, and Animal House buffet-style menu offerings. Sexual harassment suits abounded. " 'F' 'em!" the Mets shouted happily and moved on to their next target.
In the midst of the season-long orgy of booze, blow, broads, bar fights that Pearlman recounts with such glee, this team of two-fisted drinkers happened to win just a few (108) ball games. They had 16 innings of trouble in one day with the Houston Astros (whose pitcher was doctoring the ball by everyone's non-admission), and they nearly lost the World Series to the resurgent Boston Red Sox who had them down to their last out when the ball dribbled ever-so-slowly between Bill Buckner's legs . . . dooming the Sox to another eighteen years of egg salad baseball.
Sadly, the '86 Mets were broken up right after their Championship. They were deemed "unmanageable" by the ownership, which deemed the costs of supporting the team's bail, property damage, and tort suit costs just too high, despite the fact that the Mets had reinvigorated New York baseball (and baseball in general) in a way not seen since The Era of The Giants', Yankees' and Brooklyn Dodgers' 1950s annual contests. But, for this fan, it was glorious while it lasted.
Summary of The Bad Guys Won!
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 Yankees were the second-best team in New York.
It was 1986, and the New York Mets won 108 regular-season games and the World Series, capturing the hearts (and other assorted 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 left a wide trail of wreckage in their wake -- hotel rooms, charter planes, a bar in Houston, and most famously Bill Buckner and the hated Boston Red Sox.
With an unforgettable cast of characters -- including Doc, Straw, the Kid, Nails, Mex, and manager Davey Johnson -- this "affectionate but critical look at this exciting season" (Publishers Weekly) celebrates the last of baseball's arrogant, insane, rock-and-roll-and-party-all-night teams, exploring what could have been, what should have been, and what never was.
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