The Bad Guys Won! : 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 in baseball, baseball, baseball :-)

Nov 12, 2018 M. Apple rated it liked it

Shelves: baseball

This book was written in 2004, well before social media existed. Which means that by now, nearly all the escapades of the '86 Mets have been circulated ad nauseum across Facebook, Twitter, and so forth. (The most famous being the food fight and vomitorium plane ride after the NLCS, which Lenny Dykstra and many others have been eager to explain, accompanied by line drawings on YouTube.)

As a 14 year old living in Upstate - and no, Jeff Pearlman, you do NOT live in Upstate, you live barely north of This book was written in 2004, well before social media existed. Which means that by now, nearly all the escapades of the '86 Mets have been circulated ad nauseum across Facebook, Twitter, and so forth. (The most famous being the food fight and vomitorium plane ride after the NLCS, which Lenny Dykstra and many others have been eager to explain, accompanied by line drawings on YouTube.)

As a 14 year old living in Upstate - and no, Jeff Pearlman, you do NOT live in Upstate, you live barely north of Westchester which is only Upstate to obnoxious New York City folk who have think the world ceases to exist outside Manhattan - I had no clue that any of my favorite players were the complete and utter pricks they turned out to be. Imagine how they would have fared had Twitter existed.

The writing style does seem like an extended Rolling Stone column, but then again, what do you expect from an SI contributor? Smarmy metaphors and cliches are part and parcel of the business. The blow by blow account of the NLCS and WS are fluff; most of the players were already quoted time and time again by various newspapers and magazines of the time. No doubt the play by play was added to justify making this a book and not an SI special issue article.

But despite the interesting stories of hard drinking, fornicating, pranking disgusting excuses for human beings, I can't say I agree with the author who claims that sports would be more interesting with "characters." Sports players are role models whether they like it or not, and it's a good thing I had little notion of how these players actually behaved when I was a kid. I had my fair share of high school and college experiences with similar student athlete "characters" who thought the world revolved around them and I always infinitely preferred the more down to earth, respectful and humble players who didn't feel the need to shove everything in your face.

As a Mets fan the stories in this book came as a revelation; the Mets front office situation the past few years has been less than inspiring (thank you, Wilpons, who obviously have no clue what they're doing). But at least the Mets have managed to avoid having such a group of arrogant bastards for a while.

Do the bad guys always win? Let's hope not. ...more

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Jan 14, 2014 Brian Farrell rated it it was amazing

If you are a Met fan, this is a great book. If you are a fan of behind the scenes baseball books, this is for you. In reading it howver, you will be exposed to an "Animal House" type team (with a few very kind souls). ...more

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