Book Review: "The Bad Guys Won!" by Jeff Pearlman (2004)

One of the reads I took down to the beach with me last week was this look at the 1986 New York Mets. Subtitled "A Season of Brawling, Boozing, Bimbo Chasing, and Championship Baseball with Straw, Doc, Mookie, Nails, the Kid, and the Rest of the 1986 Mets, the Rowdiest Team Ever to Put on a New York Uniform - and Maybe the Best", it follows the destiny of Davey Johnson's crew as they brought the World Series trophy to Shea 17 years after the amazing 1969 season.

It's all here: the braggadocio, the womanizing, the appetite for substances of all kinds, and the petty jealousies among the teammates (Gary Carter in particular comes off looking like a chump). Life as a major league athlete in the 1980s was pretty much everything you thought it was if Pearlman's tale is any guide, and besides the lifestyle, one thing that I'm sure has changed over the last twenty years is how much the average player competed to win (on a $200,000 salary, no less) as opposed to now when crowning glories are the press conferences which accompany contract extensions and two million bucks won't even get you a half-decent long reliever.

Fun.

Overall rating: 8/10