Customer Reviews

The Bad Guys Won! A Season of Brawling, Boozing, Bimbo-chasing, and Championship Baseball with Straw, Doc, Mookie, Nails, The Kid, and the Rest of the 1986 Mets, the Rowdiest Team Ever to Put on a New York Uniform--and Maybe the Best

5 star:		(52)
4 star:		(31)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I don't want to start a baseball holy war, I'm giving the book three stars, not the '86 Mets. In my opinion, which interestingly enough is what a review is, the book is simply average.

It basically reads like a long magazine article, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, considering that the author was on the Sports Illustrated staff. I only mention it because I payed full price for the hardback and would have liked something more than something I could have read in SI for free.

My main criticism of the book is that it is completely anecdotal. A string of stories over the course of a season which never captures the whole. Everything is breezed over; a few stories here, a few stories there. Lack of depth is the main evil of this book. He gives you enough information to interest you, then leaves you high and dry when you want more.

I don't want to draw this out too long because I have only one real problem with the book, and you probably already know what it is. It is just too short, and not in the good way where it is just so good that you wish there were more. There should have been more. Too many things were quickly glossed over.

That said, the book was entertaining and thoroughly interesting. If you are interested in baseball, I would reccommend this read, but please wait for the paperback or borrow it from a library. Paying cover price on this thing is robbery.

To sum up, it's a by the numbers account of a championship season. You won't get much depth, but you will read some funny stories about Tim Teufel.

Pearlman tells the tale of the '86 Mets, how they were put together by brilliant GM Frank Cashen, the turmoil and triumphs of the '86 season, and how this team with so much potential for dynasty status managed to win only one championship.

Pearlman begins with a bang--the near destruction of the interior of an airplane by the newly crowned NL champion Mets, returning from Houston after the classic 16 inning battle which won them the NL crown.

Much of the focus in the early part of the book is on how GM Frank Cashen built the Mets piece by piece, taking them from the no-hopers of the early 80s to the great championship team of '86.

The discussion of the regular season (since the Mets won by some 20 games, not that exciting) is livened up as we meet the individual members of the team.

We see the behind the scene tumult as well. Darryl Strawberry and Dwight Gooden display early signs of the flaws that would mar their careers. Manager Davey Johnson seems blissfully unaware of the turmoil which will eventually shatter the Mets, making the Mets of the late 80s one of the greatest teams to win only one championship.

Time slows as we reach September, with the Mets' mini-collapse that prevents them from clinching the division against the distant second-place Phillies, leading to a Tuesday night riot at Shea as Mets fans storm--and nearly destroy--the field after the Mets beat the Cubs for the division title.

Time slows further for the postseason, where the Mets meet their most severe tests, and two opponents--the Astros and Red Sox--each convinced that they can beat the Mets--and each nearly does. We get blow by blow coverage of the great Game 6 in the Astrodome, and the forever famous Game 6 against the Red Sox at Shea which ends with the famous Bill Buckner play. Pearlman questions Bosox Manager McNamara's decision to leave Buckner in the game. (shades of, though probably this book went to press before, the decision to leave Pedro Martinez in the game in Game 7 against the Yankees in 2003).

We see the anticlimactic Game 7 (in which, though Pearlman doesn't catch this, the Mets get a lead at home for the first time in the postseason) and the celebrations--for which Doc Gooden does not appear. The seeds of destruction of the team can be seen even as the city celebrates.

Well written with passion. Highly recommended.

Jeff Pearlman wasn't much older than me in 1986... deep into his junior high school years and watching the baseball playoffs on TV. While many books have been written about the 1986 Mets, most of those were from participants and first-hand observers. Jerry Izenberg and Dan Shaughnessy wrote quickly-forgotten journalistic accounts the following year, as did ghost-writers for Gary Carter and Lenny Dykstra. Of course, to say that Dykstra's book was quickly forgotten would be unjust... his book is well-remembered, but not for any of the right reasons.

Pearlman's achievement is to insert himself into the story nearly 20 years later and write an extended "Sports Illustrated"-style look at the seamy underbelly of "baseball like it oughtta be". He does this through 187 interviews, but no bibliography. Therefore, if you're keeping track of that kind of thing, it's not easy to determine which player quotes derive from fresh interviews, and which are recycled from old sources. However, his recreations of the infamous Cooter's nightclub arrests, and the trashing of the charter plane flying home from Houston after Game 6 of the NLCS, benefit from an I-was-there sardonic third-person reporting style.

John Rocker now plays baseball on Long Island, for an independent team -- for Bud Harrelson, in point of fact. The intersection is amusing for readers of "The Bad Guys Won!", as Harrelson features in the book, and as Pearlman is the guy who in some respects helped Rocker travel the terrifying downward spiral from World Series to Central Islip. As you might expect from the author who allowed Rocker to marinate in his own oratory, "The Bad Guys Won!" also features more finger-pointing than other books. Shaughnessy's "One Strike Away" tells us that Wally Backman went bowling when Game 7 of the World Series was rained out; Pearlman is more interested in following Doc Gooden and Darryl Strawberry, and in reopening the Kevin Mitchell vs. the kitten tale, and in pointing out that some oblivious Met did some lines of coke on the way back from Houston.

Pearlman is at his best talking about the role players, whom he clearly admires: the two unnecessary Eds, Hearn and Lynch, do well here. On the other hand, George Foster, who was bounced out of baseball before the playoffs began, doesn't merit the author's sympathy; I would have expected Pearlman to defend him, simply because no-one else ever did. The playoff game accounts are authentic. Pearlman has clearly spent a lot of time with the game tapes and ESPN Classic rebroadcasts, as he takes time to describe the flight path of the toilet paper roll spiraling behind Mookie Wilson just before Bob Stanley wild pitched the tying run home.

"Bad Guys" is a short, meaty read, providing a new look at often-told tales about a bunch of players who won it all and then promptly raced into early obscurity. A few days after I finished the book, new allegations about Lenny Dykstra popped up in the media. Clearly Pearlman may have been on to something.

Even if you're not a Mets fan(which I am), this book takes you behind the scenes and then some. The team was a reflection of the times they lived in - the loud, wild, crazy "its all about me" time period. There's no denying, however, that they were one of the best teams ever. Pearlman places you along side of them and does a fantastic job (you may recall Pearlman was the Sports Illustrated Writer who did the article on John Rocker). The book focuses on the one year (1986)yet gives in-depth background where needed (e.g., Keith Hernandez' history with the Cardinals and his drug charges).

Worth every cent. A must for any baseball fan.

The 1986 Mets present a fascinating subject for any sports writer especially one as accomplished as Jeff Pearlman, who spent many years as a writer for Sports Illustrated, and is best known for his John Rocker piece. Because of his background I was expecting a hard hitting, no holds barred, expose about a team that should have been a dynasty but was destroyed by questionable management and drug abuse. This team alone carried Doc Gooden and Darryl Strawberry at the very crossroads of superstardom and tragedy, not to mention recovering, and at the time disgraced, former MVP Keith Hernandez, and constant trouble makers Lenny Dykstra & Kevin Mitchell and a slew of other colorful characters (especially the always forgettable Tim Teufel). However Pearlman fails to deliver with this book. Instead of giving us a historical perspective, an opportunity to look at the teams blemishes along with its successes, he gives us a cliche filled (even more than this review), self serving, glossing over of an entire season, from the point of view of an ex-jock, alomst as if this book had been ghost-written by Ron Darling, much similar to the 10,000 books cranked out over the past 12 months regarding the Red Sox 2004 championship. So if your a baseball fan from outside of New York City skip this one, because you won't find anything in here that you didnt already know and couldnt find on baseball-reference.com. However if your looking for a quick read that you could sit down and finish in a couple of days or are a Mets fan looking to re-live the glory days I would recommend this title.

If you're looking for a bad book about a good team, this is the book for you

I'm a die hard Mets fan. I was 16 in 1986; the best age you can be when your team has a season like that. It was truly a season of baseball like it oughta be.

Jeff Pearlman spins a fairly entertaining account of the events and characters that made up that magical Mets season, but unfortunately I found myself fighting through it 10 or 15 pages at a time. As I battled through, it occurred to me that perhaps Mr. Pearlman was just missing 3 crucial members from his project team.

1) Proofreader
2) Editor
3) Fact Checker

This could have been a good book if it had ben edited properly. Sadly it was not, and the result is a barely readable book with real live factual errors.

If you are a Mets fan and can't get enough of memories of '86, pick it up for an entertaining read. If you are not a Mets fan, don't bother.

In his finest work since exposing John Rocker for the dope that he is, Jeff Pearlman helps baseball fans recall one of the most entertaining teams (both on and off the field) in baseball history.

1986 Mets were World Series Champions and partying champions. They were as much dirtbag as they were lovable and Pearlman does an excellent job of showing us both sides.

Doc, Darryl, Keith and Gary "Ivory Soap" Carter all comeback to life in this absolutely entertaining stroll down memory lane.

5 Stars for Mets fans, 4 stars for baseball fans.

An enjoyable quick read that brought back memories of a very entertaining talent rich team. At that time the Mets were available in Massachusetts on cable and I watched a lot of their games both because the National League is a better brand of ball and Tim McCarver a top notch analyst. The local Red Sox are something that I try and ignore. Thus the final match-up was a no way can the Mets lose thought. Of course without the interesting umpire calls Houston would have beaten the Mets. Mayber that is a subject for a book as there have been numerous out and out bad calls in all sports.

The sadness of exceptional squandered talent, i.e. Gooden and Strawberry along with the inside perspective on the players with their warts keeps the book both informative and entertaining.

Jeff Pearlman weaves an engrossing tale of the Mets' rise in the early 1980s from cellar dwellers to contenders under the stewardship of general manager Frank Cashen. Pearlman chronicles the team's brash, "in your face" style of play, defined by curtain calls and brawls, and their off-field tribulations during their historic 1986 Championship season. Pearlman concludes his book with a short overview of their later years in the '80s, of a dynastic team that never was. For baseball fans who rooted for a baseball team during the 1986 season, and, of course, especially for Mets fans from the New York metro area, _The Bad Guys Won!_ won't disappoint. It is a classic summer read, a great companion to pass the time at the beach or poolside.

In his prologue, Pearlman claims nostalgically, "There will never be another team like the '86 Mets, and it is sad." Pearlman argues that as baseball has become increasingly a business that follows a corporate model, the fun loving, bad old days of baseball--the excesses perhaps of the '80s itself decade--ended with the '86 Mets. I would argue, however, that just the opposite is the case. The '86 Mets epitomize the best and worst qualities of Major League Baseball. This accounts for why they were such an exciting team to watch, why to this day they still prompt Manichean reactions of love or loathing, and why their story remains compelling.

On the suggestion that the '86 Mets had the potential for dynastic heights, even as a Met fan, I have to admit to a contrary feeling. Despite an impressive regular season, this was a team that narrowly won the World Series and teetered on the brink of post-season implosion and defeat. In this sense, they seemed to have inherited certain qualities from their "Amazin'" predescessors during their early Casey Stengel years. In reality, the '86 Mets were a one season team filled with question marks and stars whose best seasons had been already realized. The team was constitutionally unlike, say, the consistent Atlanta Braves with their capacity for reinvention, the protean, deep-pocketed Yankees with their vaunted history, and more recently, the surprising Oakland Athletics who seem to win by the magic of quadratic equations.

This is a wonderfully written, fun book about a roller coaster season. It helped me to remember the '86 season and, as so often happens with memories of the nation's pastime, to relive a year in my own life.

Jeff Pearlman not only takes us inside the clubhouse of this gang of jokers, ball-busters, excessive drinkers, and wildly talented ball players, he takes us onto the plane where the team celebrated their NLCS victory with such a wild party that they destroyed the jet's interior.

We learn about all the different personalities, and get inside the sad deconstruction of two of the most talented players to ever play the game. Dwight Gooden and Daryl Strawberry simply threw their talents away. On the other end of the spectrum was Gary "the Kid" Carter. His squeaky clean image, big smile, and exuberence in front of the camera rubbed practically everyone the wrong way. Opposing players hated him and his own teammates couldn't stand him, mostly because he wasn't like them. He wasn't a drinker, a carouser, a brawler... mostly, he wasn't cool. He was a big geek and like bullies in a schoolyard, thugs can't stand a geek.

The last few pages take us to the present day, and how each of these guys are faring almost twenty years later. Undisputably, the title for most successful career from that team goes to The Kid. The only Hall Of Famer on the club, Gary Carter gives hope to all nerds getting wedgies in high schools around the country.