{"id":498,"date":"2008-07-09T00:01:18","date_gmt":"2008-07-08T23:01:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/?p=498"},"modified":"2009-09-30T20:05:01","modified_gmt":"2009-09-30T19:05:01","slug":"the-bad-guys-won-by-jeff-pearlman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/?p=498","title":{"rendered":"The Bad Guys Won by Jeff Pearlman"},"content":{"rendered":"

(HarperCollins, 2004). <\/strong><\/p>\n

The rich history of Major League Baseball is full of colourful teams and great games.\u00c2\u00a0 It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s impossible to pick out one team or game that tops the rest, but the 1986 New York Mets and game six of that year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s World Series would be strong candidates worthy of consideration.\u00c2\u00a0 Jeff Pearlman\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s book brings them to life, making you laugh and making you shake your head in bewilderment in equal measure.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Bad Guys Won!<\/em> documents the Mets\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 championship year in \u00e2\u20ac\u02dc86, charting how the team was put together, how they won it all and what became of them when the group was abruptly split up.\u00c2\u00a0 Many good books are character driven and with this cast your attention keeps being grabbed from one direction to another as the next oddball is introduced.\u00c2\u00a0 Bad guys?\u00c2\u00a0 You better believe it.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/p>\n

The 1986 New York Mets walked with a swagger, performed with supreme confidence and spoke with unconfined arrogance.\u00c2\u00a0 Loveable they were not, but that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what made them a great team on the field and what makes them such a great source of hilarious stories.\u00c2\u00a0 Pitcher Bobby Ojeda sums them up: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We were just a nasty bunch of guys \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d go into a town and we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d say, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcWe\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re gonna drink their beer, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re gonna beat their team, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re gonna kick their asses, and then we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re gonna leave and do it to someone else\u00e2\u20ac\u02dc\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.<\/em>\u00c2\u00a0 As Pearlman states: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153they usually succeeded\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.<\/em><\/p>\n

They were an unholy rabble of undesirables, a group of people from varied backgrounds with different characters and levels of ability.\u00c2\u00a0 Together, they were unstoppable.\u00c2\u00a0 Pearlman plunges us headfirst into the carnage by opening with the Mets on a victory flight having beaten the Astros to book their place in the World Series.\u00c2\u00a0 Their boozing, drug taking, food throwing and general hell-raising caused thousands of dollars worth of damage.\u00c2\u00a0 Upon landing, the Mets\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 travel secretary read the riot act to a sheepish clubhouse.\u00c2\u00a0 Manager Davey Johnson promptly took the bill for the damage and ripped it up, much to the delight of his players.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Pitcher Doug Sisk, part of the so-called \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcScum Bunch\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 clique, reasoned that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t win a World Series drinking milk\u00e2\u20ac\u009d,<\/em> which on the evidence of the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dc86 Mets appears true enough (the Mets in fact did sometimes drink milk, but only to recover from over-doing it on the amphetamines).\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 They drank (and drank, then drank some more) and they won.\u00c2\u00a0 It must have been a living nightmare for everyone else and indeed there are more than a few comments from rival players as evidence that the Mets were hardly a popular winner.\u00c2\u00a0 Not that they could care less about that, mind you.<\/p>\n

The fact that they did win sometimes seems to get overlooked (perhaps no coincidence?).\u00c2\u00a0 History is normally written by the victors; nobody remembers who finishes second.\u00c2\u00a0 These things are true in most cases, but not with the 1986 World Series.\u00c2\u00a0 Partly thanks to the Red Sox\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s recent World Series triumphs and the ending of the \u00e2\u20ac\u2122curse of the Bambino\u00e2\u20ac\u2122, the story of the \u00e2\u20ac\u212286 series has often been told as the story of the Red Sox losing rather than the Mets winning.\u00c2\u00a0 More specifically, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the story of Bill Buckner losing it for Boston.\u00c2\u00a0 An impressive and well-respected Major Leaguer throughout his distinguished career, Buckner has had to live with his many accomplishments being put in the shade by Mookie Wilson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hit that somehow went past his glove in game six of the Fall Classic.<\/p>\n

What made the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcBuckner moment\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 so dramatic is that it had seemed inevitable that the Red Sox would win.\u00c2\u00a0 Leading 5-3 in the bottom of the tenth, all hope for the Mets looked lost.\u00c2\u00a0 Like a scene from a slap-stick comedy, the building blocks are slowly built up one-by-one, waiting to come crashing down .\u00c2\u00a0 The champagne, the Mets\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 champagne no less, was wheeled into Boston\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s club house, while the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcWorld Champion Boston Red Sox\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 T-shirts and caps were being hastily arranged in the players\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 lockers.\u00c2\u00a0 The Video Scoreboard at Shea even briefly flashed out a \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcCongratulations\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 message for their rivals.\u00c2\u00a0 If it was tempting fate then the Mets\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 employees responsible for the above may have initiated the greatest jinxing in living memory.<\/p>\n

In the prologue, Pearlman states that when friend and fellow writer Michael Lewis read an early draft of The Bad Guys Won!,<\/em> he complained that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153except for Ed Hearn, all these guys are assholes\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.<\/em>\u00c2\u00a0 So why is it that by the time you reach this turning point, the reader is somehow rooting for this gang of \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcassholes\u00e2\u20ac\u02dc?\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bobby Ojeda helps.\u00c2\u00a0 Having been ousted from the Red Sox in a manner that left him admitting he would \u00e2\u20ac\u0153have rather eaten shit than lose to the Red Sox\u00e2\u20ac\u009d,<\/em> it\u00e2\u20ac\u02dcs natural to want to see him getting his own back on them. More than anything, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the fact that we now live in a world of bland, inoffensive sporting brands.\u00c2\u00a0 In the face of such \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcnice\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 corporate images, what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s better than reading of a gang that broke all the rules, flipped the finger to the authorities and walked off as champions?\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe they turn out to be loveable after all?<\/p>\n

Maybe not, but they are certainly entertaining and The Bad Guys Won!<\/em> captures that brilliantly.\u00c2\u00a0 Any baseball fan, regardless of their allegiance, will love this book even if they don\u00e2\u20ac\u02dct grow to love the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dc86 Mets.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Have you read \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Bad Guys Won!”?\u00c2\u00a0 Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section below. Can you recommend any other similar books? If so, let us know.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(HarperCollins, 2004). The rich history of Major League Baseball is full of colourful teams and great games.\u00c2\u00a0 It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s impossible to pick out one team or game that tops the rest, but the 1986 New York Mets and game six of that year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s World Series would be strong candidates worthy of consideration.\u00c2\u00a0 Jeff Pearlman\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s book brings […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[76,553],"class_list":["post-498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-baseball-books","tag-book-reviews","tag-mlb-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=498"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4932,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498\/revisions\/4932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}