roheblius's Full Review: Jeff Pearlman - The Bad Guys Won!
Former Sports Illustrated writer Jeff Pearlman has made a name for himself lately by writing books that get inside the locker room and have players throwing each other under the bus, left and right.
While most famous for interviewing John Rocker, who showed America his backside, he's also written books recently on Barry Bonds, the Dallas Cowboys teams of the 90s, and Roger Clemens.
The Bad Guys Won! was his first foray into this type of reporting. It's the entire story of the 1986 New York Mets, a team that had character, but also had a ton of issues that weren't reported when they were happening. The team had tremendous talent, yet their two brightest stars Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry would go onto ruin their careers. One can argue that the team's easy going professional clubhouse where drinking was a must and being a square was the worst possible offense probably contributed to the demise of the careers of Gooden and Strawberry, but Pearlman doesn't go there.
His goal seemed to be to show that they were so talented that their dysfunctionality couldn't stop them. He's successful on that end. They were immensely talented. Even though I was a fan of the up and coming San Francisco Giants, the Mets were hard to take your eyes off. As a 10-year old, while the kids were writing book reports on people like George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, I was writing a book report on Dr. K, Dwight Gooden.
Guys like Gooden and Strawberry were new talents and easy to love by the young generation. The fact that they each didn't come close to reaching their potential is very similar to someone in music who blew their career because of a drug habit, or a young actor who couldn't stay straight. Reading back about how their problems started was rough for me, because I still remember how bigger than life they were in the mid 80s.
And that's where the strength in Pearlman's book is. It's in the characters, because that's what they were. They don't even seem like real people. They seem like characters in a great fictional book about baseball. You have Keith Hernandez who was an All-Star before his time with the Mets, but was the veteran presence the team needed. He smoked and drank and partied just as hard as everyone else, but on game day, he was ready. A lot of the team couldn't keep up with him.
What about Gary Carter who was the big right handed bat the team needed? I always pictured him as a likable teammate, but according to Pearlman's interviews and research, he wasn't all that likable because of his personality. Ray Knight was old vet who was fighting off the young tiger (Howard Johnson) who eventually took his job. The pitching staff included fluky guys like Ron Darling and Sid Fernandez and fiery guys who needed to prove their worth like Bobby Ojeda.
There are also characters who aren't the most known from that team, but who are intriguing characters on their own like the square Tim Teuffel, who didn't fit in with the rest of the troublemakers. He surely didn't gel with someone made up only of urine and vinegar like Lenny Dykstra. But that's the charm of the book. How did all of these divas and troublemakers fit together? They didn't really. They were just that good.
Pearlman's style is a bit over the top for my taste. You get the idea that in interviewing some of these guys, he tattles on them to get great quotes. For instance, if Keith Hernandez said something derogatory about Gary Carter, I had a feeling that Pearlman was on the phone to Carter letting him know what Hernandez said about him to see if Carter would say something derogatory back. I have no idea if that was the case, but it seems likely.
If you have an issue with that style, you may not like the book. But I was able to overlook it because the team and characters were simply too entertaining to turn away from.
Pearlman has done this style better, but this might be his best subject so far. The 1986 Mets were a one of a kind team. In today's sports, you're not going to get the same kind of group of guys like this ever again.
A team legendary for its outstanding record and its equally outstanding partying, the 1986 Mets were the last of baseball s insance, rock-and-roll, pa...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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