Can't Anybody Here Play This Game?: The Improbable Saga of the New York Met's First Year
by Jimmy Breslin
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Book Summary Information
Author: Jimmy BreslinEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2003-02-25
ISBN: 1566634881
Number of pages: 128
Publisher: Ivan R. Dee, Publisher
Book Reviews of Can't Anybody Here Play This Game?: The Improbable Saga of the New York Met's First Year
Book Review: Lovable Losers
Summary: 4 Stars
There have been many benchmarks for sports futility. The 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers were 0-14 in their inaugural season. The 2008 Detroit Lions were 0-16. The 1973 Philadelphia 76'ers won only nine games. But the 1962 New York Mets seem to be the standard for incompetence.
Maybe it was the carnival atmosphere surrounding this first year juggernaut. Or maybe it was the way they seemed to be laughing at themselves as they spun further into the cellar.
Jimmy Breslin has graced every type of writing he put his writing hand to, and sports is at the top. Although a thin tome (117 pages), it left this reader begging for more.
I wanted more Casey Stengell witticisms, as he oscillated between exasperation and dead on humor at his predicament. I wanted more Marv Throneberry anti-hero tales. I wanted to read more about the battered and bruised, but ultimately noble pitching trio of Roger Craig, Larry Bearnearth and Al Jackson.
The interesting thing is that this team spawned some of the great baseball minds of the generation to come. Gil Hodges managed the Mets to the 1969 World Series. Roger Craig became a pitching coach par excellance, and an excellent manager. Al Jackson was a pitching coach for many years.
This was a team that New York fell in love with. They were decent, family people, who respected and genuinely liked each other. They just weren't any good, and their creativity in finding ways to lose games was off the charts.
They were the only major league team to play .250 ball over a whole season, and more amazingly, they won 9 of 12 games in one stretch, meaning the rest of their season they went 31-117.
Breslin nails the scoundrels of the National League on how they forced the sewerage of the dregs of every organization on the Mets. His writing is hilarious at times, and this was a story that was begging to told.
Any baby boomer baseball fan would enjoy this book.
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