Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
A seasoned journalist and editor offers a humorously provocative look at the "best worst team" in professional sports, the New York Mets.
There is a difference between being bad and being gifted at losing, and this distinction holds the key to understanding the true magic of the New York Mets.
Plenty of teams have longer and stronger records of championship futility than the Mets--after all, since their inception in 1962, they've reached the World Series five times and won twice, in 1969 and 1986. But when it comes to losing in spectacular fashion--when they're dead from day one or they're one base hit from the World Series--no one's ever done it better. That's why the New York Mets are the best worst team in sports, their true secret ingredient, the thing that distinguishes the Mets from all the so-called bad teams who stink without charm or interruption. Mets fans are capable of a bottomless optimism even when it's at odds with all available evidence. Every spring with the arrival of Opening Day, we keep coming back, convinced that this year will be our year.
Sometimes it is. It's probably not.
In So Many Ways to Lose, Devin Gordon takes a clear-headed, fascinating look at the Mets to understand how one team above all others has perfected the art of losing--yet remains beloved by millions. Each chapter tells the story of the franchise's history through the prism of the Mets' singular gift. This version of the Mets' history isn't about the miraculous '69 team or the dominant '86 team--it's about what happened next.
Featuring exclusive interviews with beloved Mets including Mike Piazza, Ron Darling, Todd Zeile, Frank Viola, and Mackey Sasser, longtime Mets broadcaster Gary Cohen, and long-suffering Mets fans like Jimmy Kimmel, Gordon offers fresh insight into winning, losing, and what it means to be a sports fan.
Synopsis
The Mets lose when they should win. They win when they should lose. And when it comes to being the worst, no team in sports has ever done it better than the Mets.
In So Many Ways to Lose, author and lifelong Mets fan Devin Gordon sifts through the detritus of Queens for a baseball history like no other. Remember the time the Mets lost an All Star after he got charged by a wild boar? Or the time they blew a six-run ninth-inning lead at the peak of a pennant race? Or the time they fired their manager before he ever managed a game? Sure you do. It was only two years ago, and it was all in the same season. The Mets have an unrivaled gift for getting it backward, doing the impossible, snatching victory from the jaws of defeat, and then snatching defeat right back again.
And yet, just ask any Mets fan: amazing and/or miraculous postseason runs are as much a part of our team's identity as losing 120 games in 1962. The DNA of seasons like 1969, the original Miracle Mets, and the 1973 "Ya Gotta Believe" Mets, who went from last place to Game 7 of the World Series in two months, and the powerhouse 1986 Mets, has encoded in us this hapless instinct that a reversal of fortune is always possible. It's happened before. It's kind of our thing.
In this hilarious history of the Mets and love letter to the art of disaster, Devin Gordon presents baseball the way it really is, not in the wistful sepia tones we've come to expect from other sportswriters. Along the way, he explains the difference between being bad and being gifted at losing, and why this distinction holds the key to understanding the true amazin' magic of the New York Mets.
Synopsis
"This is a weird, wonderful, and essential book about both America and its pastime. It's about a place as vast as New York City and as intimate as the human heart. Fred Exley meets Richard Ben Cramer--a funny, wild, heartfelt, and keenly observed portrait of yearning itself."--Wright Thompson, New York Times bestselling author of The Cost of These Dreams
"Mr. Gordon's ability to explain the Sisyphean plight of all Mets fans is truly remarkable. Bravo "--Ron Darling, New York Times bestselling author of Game 7, 1986
The Mets lose when they should win. They win when they should lose. And when it comes to being the worst, no team in sports has ever done it better than the Mets.
In So Many Ways to Lose, author and lifelong Mets fan Devin Gordon sifts through the detritus of Queens for a baseball history like no other. Remember the time the Mets lost an All-Star after he got charged by a wild boar? Or the time they blew a six-run ninth-inning lead at the peak of a pennant race? Or the time they fired their manager before he ever managed a game? Sure you do. It was only two years ago, and it was all in the same season. The Mets have an unrivaled gift for getting it backward, doing the impossible, snatching victory from the jaws of defeat, and then snatching defeat right back again.
And yet, just ask any Mets fan: amazing and/or miraculous postseason runs are as much a part of our team's identity as losing 120 games in 1962. The DNA of seasons like 1969, the original Miracle Mets, and the 1973 "Ya Gotta Believe" Mets, who went from last place to Game 7 of the World Series in two months, and the powerhouse 1986 Mets, has encoded in us this hapless instinct that a reversal of fortune is always possible. It's happened before. It's kind of our thing. And now we've got Steve Cohen's hedge-fund billions to play with What could go wrong?
In this hilarious history of the Mets and love letter to the art of disaster, Devin Gordon presents baseball the way it really is, not in the wistful sepia tones we've come to expect from other sportswriters. Along the way, he explains the difference between being bad and being gifted at losing, and why this distinction holds the key to understanding the true amazin' magic of the New York Mets.