The Bad Guys Won! by Jeff Pearlman
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Book Reviews of The Bad Guys Won!
Book Review: Really Entertaining Little Baseball Story
Summary: 4 Stars
So good, it almost seemed like it wasn't about real people. But then, baseball players seldom behave like normal people, right? There's a good bit of stuff about the actual 1986 season on the field, but mostly this was a really fun book about a whole group of large boys. I really liked this book, and will definitely keep it around to read again sometime. It will always remind me why my Mom told me to stay away from professional athletes and movie stars.Book Review: Good read, worth a paperback purchase
Summary: 4 Stars
The author does a good job keeping you interested. As an anti-BoSox fan, this was a good, light read to make you smile about the eventual outcome of the 86 series. Pearlman is well informed and put a solid amount of time into researching this book. Best if read in small doses - the ending doesn't change if you put it down for a couple weeks and decide to read read about "Dr K," Hernandez, mitchell and the team's antics during that season.Book Review: Bad Guys, Great Team
Summary: 4 Stars
This book was fun and interesting.
In the 20 years since "Game 6", it was great to get some insite into these "hero's".
Book Review: These guys weren't robots
Summary: 3 Stars
According to former Mets first baseman Keith Hernandez, who played on the 1986 New York Mets squad, today's baseball players are "robots" who dress nicely and lack emotion. Jeff Pearlman, author of "The Bad Guys Won!", goes even further, claiming athletes in the major leagues these days are mostly dullards who listen to their iPods, play their video games and hole up in their hotel rooms on the road as if the outside world doesn't exist. Though it's probably not as cut and dry as that, it is true that the 1980s and the decades that preceded it were periods when professional athletes were considerably more rough around the edges, less exposed by the media and less influenced by the almighty dollar and the marketing bonanza that follows big-money contracts. To be sure, players like Dwight Gooden and Daryl Strawberry capitalized big-time on the endorsements that came their way, but as Pearlman points out, the `86 Mets symbolize a more free-for-all time period for athletes that is refreshing to recall and all but extinct nowadays.
The `86 Mets might not have been as crazy as, say, 1980s-era Motley Crue, but they were definitely a wild bunch of in-your-face ruffians. During the season team brawls took place on the field and in bars; planes got trashed; ridiculous team rap songs got recorded; peppy drugs erased yesterday's hangover; womanizing took place on the road; crazy, intricate pranks happened during games; and an all-for-one cocky mentality defined this never-say-die team -- those were the things that made this group of Mets so interesting, memorable and despised by many. Amazingly, manager Davey Johnson, himself no teetotaler and a very bright man with a wide range of interests outside of baseball, let his players do their thing off the field. As long as the Mets were winning, which they did with consistency nearly the entire season, Johnson let the "boys will be boys" mentality reign supreme. Undoubtedly, Johnson was the right manager at the right time for the right team.
Some of the players' shenanigans were serious and had consequences, however. The drug use by Gooden, for example, though slyly hidden from the public and even from team members, was very real and a sobering reminder of how the mighty can slowly descend to addict oblivion hell. Yes, Gooden may have had several more solid years with the Mets after `86, but his longevity, star power and overall performance faded bad as his substance abuse problems continued. Unfortunately, Gooden's downward spiral seemed to start in earnest during the `86 season. And Strawberry, Gooden's seemingly on-and-off buddy, was hardly better in the "just say no" department. In fact, he may have been worse.
This was a team of diverse, offbeat characters -- not all of them complete party animals, either -- and Pearlman does a good job of relating what went on during the unforgettable `86 season. Unfortunately, the author inserts his sarcastic opinions and unfunny comments a bit too much, and his overly enthusiastic descriptions of the mayhem at times sound fawning, envious and a bit adolescent, no different from the grown men he's covering. On the field, though, it's great to read about the Mets' willful trek through the playoffs, where the National League Championship Series with the Houston Astros was almost as fascinating to read about as the classic seven-game World Series against the forever cursed Boston Red Sox (at least at the time). All in all, if you want the dishy scoop on this colorful Mets team, Pearlman's book is a great place to find it.
Book Review: THE "I WASN'T THERE" SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM
Summary: 3 Stars
The 1986 Mets were the "dynasty" that wasn't. In Jeff Pearlman's book about the Mets 1986 season the emphasis is on the "nasty". This account of the Mets second championship season recounts the carousing that highlighted this hated team. That the Mets were, for a brief time, more hated than the Yankees seems like an abberation.
Pearlman follows the Jimmy Breslin rule of reporting. He talks to the guys on the scene getting paid the least. Never have I seen more a baseball book related by the equipment and clubhouse personnel. These provide insights that have not been related elsewhere.
This journalistic approach serves as both the books strength and it's undoing. Jeff Pearlman is searching for a baseball Rosebud. He wasn't there, but he is trying to cover these events as if he were. The unreliability of this technique is exposed by two things. First, the opening chapter describes the Mets Roman orgy airplane flight after defeating the Astros in the National League playoffs (disclaimer:I hate the term "league championship series or "LCS"-as far as I'm concerned, post season games leading up to the World Series are Playoffs.). Trying and purporting to give an accurate account when none of the individuals could ever be expected to remember many specifics gets the book off on a titillating, but false, note.
This would not be so bad if Pearlman could earn our trust by at least getting his facts straight, but every so often he throws in a factoid that makes a close Met follower like myself react with the "huh" word. Ed Lynch did not pitch the most games for the Mets between 1982-1985 (he did have the most "Games Started"). Mike Scott is "credited with having the National Leagues highest earned run average in 1982, when it was in fact none other than Tom Seaver. Granted, these are small details, but that is the point. If we can't trust Pearlman with what can be verified, has he earned our trust with what can't be verified? This is the second thing that undermines Pearlman's "You Are There " approach.
The book is worthwhile for the coverage of the lesser lights, and the competent recap of the Met's postseason. This book would be better served by someone with Pearlman's ambition who was there.