baseball

Been a baseball fan living in the NY/NJ Metro area for a long time and this book brought back a lot of great memories about a unique team and a remarkable season that was unlike any in NY baseball history: The 1986 NY Mets. This book, especially for younger baseball fans, sets the stage when the Mets pretty much were THE team NY baseball fans cared about as the Yankees had not yet developed the championship forumula they'd forge into a powerhouse dynasty by the '90. The 1980s Mets were a fun, reckless, overly competitive, group of brawling misfits who knew HOW to play baseball, and played it their way! A team so far removed from today's more restrained, conservative great Yankee's that it's hard to realize there was ever a team that existed like this unrestrained bunch. But they DID exist...and for one magical season they played a style of "renegade" baseball unlike anyone had seen before in NY. In an era when there was no "wildcard" to extend the post season, these hated '86 Mets should have and could have won many more championships (they did win their division in 1988 and narrowly lost their division to the St. Louis Cardinals by perhaps a game in 1985). But what they did win in 1986, and how they won it, is the stuff of sports legend. And this is one legend that is as wild a tale today as it was almost 20 years ago.

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.

This book is priceless merely for the description of the recording session where some of the Mets try to cut a "Super Bowl Shuffle" style rap song, titled "Get Metsmerized!":

"When they need a batter filled with terror,
They call on me, Rick Aguleira!"

Look out Public Enemy!

This book is a great character study of a team full of characters, most of whom were borderline insane but were all gritty ballplayers. Jeff Pearlman makes the case that this was the last team of old school party boys to win a title before the onset of a more corporate era where the wackiest thing that ever happens is a rookie getting a shaving cream pie in the face. I don't know that his argument is entirely successful - it's more like the Mets were the last team of endearing jackasses to win - but the book is a very fun read.