The Bad Guys Won!

Maybe every woman secretly loves the bad boys, but maybe it's because they're fun! 1986 was the most fun I've ever had in my life. That wild ride with that baseball team was the most profoundly satisfying baseball season I've ever experienced, and I'm sure I'm not alone.

Frankly, after years of suffering with the Mets of Grant's Tomb, the Mets and their long-suffering fans were ready to cut loose, to dance and sing and win, win, win. Where others saw obnoxiousness and arrogance, we saw exuberance and cameraderie. We saw teamwork, butt-busting effort, and hard-earned celebrations. The Sox fans often maintain that the 86 Series was lost on an error as if the Mets should NOT have capitalized on their jittery Schiraldi and Stanley, and the tough-but-fragile Bill Buckner (BTW, off Buckner, everybody-- he was a hell of a ball player and a very classy guy, and you guys sure are doing a lot better in the post-season than we are recently!)

It was pure, unadulterated joy, the kind of joy only amazing baseball can afford, and for that, I can never think of those guys as bad. The Mets are a good, contending team now, but when I see the DVDs of the '86 Series, I remember really transcendent baseball played by really vivid personalities. I just loved them.

I loved the book for granting a reader the real behind-the-scenes look at how the 1986 Mets were assembled, how they managed to execute so well for one season, and how it could never last. Really, the epilogue is almost unnecessary since Met fans and most baseball diehards know how it played out in the subsequent years. The beauty and quality of the book is in the background material: it explains what the beat writers have always know, what real insiders just assume as common knowledge amongst themselves, and confirms some of the best and worst suspicions I've always had about the players and management.

See, I loved watching Gooden pitch, I tried to emulate that easy motion as much as I could, but I never had the talent, not even close. I knew something was wrong in 1986 but hey, they won it all... but in 1987, it could no longer be ignored. His waste of talent, the mismanagement of his ability, all there to be seen as early as 1986, 1987. There was enough time to rectify the situations, really, but the sad truth is all too common: many of us lack the kind of courage and will to overcome our problems, much less face them.

As sad as Gooden's decline was, Staweberry's was irrevocably tinged with meanness that almost made it a just outcome. Still, talent wasted is common and always tragic.

What I liked most about the book, then, was the confirmations of my opinions about most the crew that I'd considered, and the revelations I did not. For example, I always admired Keith Hernandez and the book gave him additional depth of character that made him my favorite Met again (Sorry Edgardo Alfonzo). For another example, that Gary Carter was really all about himself was a bit of a surprise to me, because he played a selfless position on-field. I could see it, I admit its truth, but it's still a bit of a dichotomy.

In all, a terrific book and a quick read. I withheld the fifth star because clearly, the author dislikes Strawberry intensely and it showed in the depictions. True or not, I could see the author's contempt and while I agree with it, I tried to view and evaluate the book as a historian might, so I put the ding there.

This is the kind of sports writing I would love to see published daily/ weekly. It's too bad you can only read about what really happened in 1986 in 2007, when enough time has passed to expire the statute of limitations on any kind of material consequence.

-C

Chronologies of sports teams, especially in the great(est) game of baseball, can't miss. This was a wonderful book from start to finish, replete with anecdotes, stories, commentary and introspection. Pearlman simply does a magnificent job, especially for someone who was a teenager in 1986.

As a lifelong Cincinnati Reds fan, my hatred of the 1986 Mets began during that season with a game on July 22, which was covered in the book, when then-Mets third baseman Ray Knight sucker punched Eric Davis, after a hard slide into third base. It was clear even then that this was a team you did not want to take to Sunday Mass.

Remarkably, in between the drugs, womanizing, copious consumption of alcohol, animal mutilation, gambling, and barroom brawls, the '86 Mets were able to play good enough baseball to win a World Series championship. And it was not just that they won, but how they won that made this team so memorable. First, by defeating the Houston Astros in dramatic fashion to win the NLCS, and then the Boston Red Sox in what has to be one of the greatest World Series ever played, especially Game 6. When you read Parlman's account, it is amazing this team did not fold under the pressures so many of its players inflicted upon themselves. Of course, they did not collapse, in spite of themselves, and they won simply because they were that good of a team.

You also wonder how great this team could have been had so many of its players not self destructed. It is a question we will never know the answer to, but we know what happened in 1986, and Pearlman's in-depth coverage of the Mets that year gives a baseball fan useful insights into this troubled team's foibles and complexities.

Real interesting book about the 86 Mets. Read it while I was on vacation in the Florida Keys. You will enjoy it if you like baseball.