The Bad Guys Won! by Jeff Pearlman Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Bad Guys Won!
Book Review: A decadent stroll down memory lane
Summary: 4 Stars
A must read for any NY Mets fan with a vivid memory of their 1986 championship season. The 4-star rating I've given is probably a greater reflection of my fond memories than my opinion of the skill of the writer. Then again, this book did make for a lightning fast read so no doubt it was written adequately and perhaps even quite well. On the field of play they were amazing to watch and root for. As this book taught me, off the field they were even more entertaining. Apparently they managed to win almost in spite of themselves as their talent overrode team harmony. It seems like it was only yesterday but somehow more than 20 years have passed from now to then.Book Review: A team like no other
Summary: 4 Stars
This book is geared for the serious long time New York Met fan. Unless you know who Ed Hearn is, you can probably skip this book. But if you thought the 86 Mets were one of the greatest teams of all time, then the book is worth a shot. The story focuses on the off-field antics of the team, to include the drinking, drugs, and women. The inside scoop on what went on in the locker room was the best part of the book. The description of the actual season is average as was the writing, but it did bring back great memories from that amazing year. The last chapter tells where each member of the 86 Mets ended up, which was great for the diehard fans, but meaningless to everyone else. 4 stars if you think that a night a drinking with Mr Met sounds like fun. 3 stars if you are from New York , love baseball and are old enough the remember the 86 Mets. 2 Stars for everyone else.
Book Review: An easy read
Summary: 2 Stars
because it never goes very deep. Basically a rehash of the '86 season, with a side order of dirt.Book Review: Bad Guys, Great Team
Summary: 4 Stars
This book was fun and interesting.
In the 20 years since "Game 6", it was great to get some insite into these "hero's".
Book Review: Between the White Lines
Summary: 4 Stars
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.