Pedro, Carlos, and Omar: The Story of a Season in the Big Apple and the Pursuit of Baseball's Top Latino Stars (Hardcover)

by Adam Rubin (Author) "FRED AND JEFF WILPON HELD their secret rendezvous with Omar Minaya in a conference room at a small airport west of downtown Montreal the morning..." (more)
Key Phrases: team brass, meaningful games, series finale, New York, Red Sox, Shea Stadium (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Hardcore New York Mets fans will be thrilled by this in-depth look at the team's 2005 season by the Mets beat writer for the New York Daily News. Rubin captures all the highlights of what became a memorable winning season, but he focuses on what was the biggest Mets story in years: new general manager Omar Minaya's signing of two major players, pitcher Pedro Martinez and outfielder Carlos Beltran, after the 2004 season. Rubin's exploration of the impact that the three Latino men made on a team that soon became known as "Los Mets" is entertaining; the author is a skilled sportswriter who knows how to deliver a wealth of detail in an exciting way, using telling quotes, such as Minaya's admission that before he joined the team "it looked somewhat dysfunctional." Yet Rubin's observations, however true, sometimes read like a Mets press release: Minaya "had handed Pedro a four-year, $53 million contract, and the ace had done everything to justify the commitment." Overall, though, Rubin is fair in his judgments, calling Beltran a "disappointment" who was not "the commanding presence his $119 million salary suggested he ought to be." (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Omar Minaya earned his baseball "props" throughout the nineties through his scouting and signing of outstanding Latin players for the financially strapped Montreal Expos. When the Expos eventually moved to Washington, D.C., Minaya was hired as the general manager of the New York Mets. Money alone doesn't guarantee success for a baseball franchise; teams must spend wisely, and to do that they must be able to identify talent. The Minaya-Mets collaboration seems made in heaven. Rubin, the Mets' beat reporter, tracks Minaya's first season with Mets, chronicling the high-profile signings of celebrated free agents Pedro Martinez and Carlos Beltran as well as documenting the charges by another player that Minaya exploits his ethnicity in dealing with Latino athletes. In addition to the off-field drama, Rubin also tracks the team's on-field fortunes in the past year. An enjoyable, informative book that will appeal to baseball junkies, particularly those with an affection for the Mets. Wes Lukowsky
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 248 pages
• Publisher: The Lyons Press (March 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1592288758
• ISBN-13: 978-1592288755
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #994,667 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Must Have for Die Hards!, March 3, 2006

By	Dan M. (New Hyde Park, NY USA) - See all my reviews

Just got the book today and I can't put it down. A few friends commented to me about how strange it was for a book to be written about an unremarkable 2005 team... but if you're a die hard Mets fan, you won't think it's an unremarkable season. The hiring of Omar Minaya began the overhall, along with the signings of Pedro Martinez and Carlos Beltran.

Adam Rubin writes well, as anyone who reads his Daily News pieces can attest to. His inside look at the season provides information even the biggest Mets fans probably don't know, such as Carlos Beltran getting stuck in a Shea Stadium elevator on the way to his press conference.

I'm looking forward to finishing the book, but I can already recommend it to everyone who loves the Mets.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Pedro, Carlos, Omar, Willie, Marlon Anderson and Mike DeJean, September 21, 2006

By	Jason A. Miller (New York, New York USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

"Pedro, Carlos and Omar" is essentially an extended compilation of Daily News articles about the 2005 Mets. The book is edited well and tells a coherent story about how Omar Minaya was lured back into the Mets' fold by an ownership group tired of three straight losing season, with the promise of complete autonomy over the roster. The Wilpons fired two managers, Bobby Valentine and Art Howe -- each of whom had recent playoff experience, Valentine in the World Series -- and replaced him with Willie Randolph, who'd never managed in the big leagues before but who did have four Series rings as a Yankees coach. What contributions could Minaya and Randolph bring to the team?

Plenty, as it turns out. The Mets went out and did something they'd never done before -- signed a high-profile slugger under the age of 30 to a long-term, multi-million dollar contract. Say farewell to the shameful days of George Foster and Mo Vaughn. Along with Carlos Beltran came Pedro Martinez, fresh off his shutout in Game 3 of the World Series, with the hopes of getting Manny Ramirez right behind. Could Beltran bear up under big-market pressure? Could Pedro keep his sometimes whimsical, sometimes antagonistic attitude in check for a full year? Could he beat the Yankees?

The Mets don't make the playoffs in 2005. That has to wait for a thus-far glorious 2006 campaign that will probably be summarized in an afterword to the paperback edition of this book. However, they did finish third, at four games over .500 -- their best finish since the 2000 World Series season. They re-energized the fan base, capitalized on Fred Wilpon's promise to play "meaningful games in September", and gave a full year's experience to two youngsters who'd energize Queens in '06: David Wright and Jose Reyes. Best of all, they got rid of Braden Looper.

One caution: this is not hard-hitting investigative journalism. Apart from a few glimpses into the future, "Pedro, Carlos and Omar" is told one day at a time, in straight chronological order, and only with quotes taken from game-day articles. No-one is interviewed after the end of the season to provide perspective or commentary. This is not so much the untold story of the 2005 Mets, as a retelling of what we already knew from Rubin's Daily News articles from that year.

However, read in the run-up to the '06 playoffs, this book is a nice training montage showing how the Mets started to put it all together a year ago.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Non-Mets Fan, April 19, 2006

By	Baseball Fan "Baseball Fan" (New York) - See all my reviews

Not being an avid Mets fan, I was not sure about reading the book. However, any baseball fan would enjoy this read.