Tales from the Mets Dugout

Tales From the Mets Dugout, a new book by Baseball Think Factory regular Bruce Markusen, is exactly what the title promises: a collection of assorted media stories and reminiscences about the New York Mets, arranged chronologically. The lengths of the tales run from “very short” to “even shorter than that.” The writing style is light and breezy. Serious analysis of any kind is deliberately lacking; this is a feel-good book for Mets fans.

An example of length: The first tale of Chapter 6, “1986 and Beyond,” is the story of how Ray Knight, who had been injured in 1985, did NOT get traded to the Cubs in 1986. The tales includes a discussion of Knight’s roster situation, the proposed trade to the Cubs, speculation on what might have happened to the season if the Mets had succeeded in trading Knight, and a footnote involving Dave Lopes. This entire tale takes one page.

An example of feel-good aiming at an audience of Mets fans: The tale Fighting Words discusses the 16th inning of the last game of the NLCS against the Astros. This was, without doubt, an exciting game to watch, but Markusen opens the tale with “The 1986 National League Championship Series between the Mets and the Houston Astros may have been the most thrilling series since the adaptation of the playoffs in 1969.” Mets fans may well believe that. I doubt that anyone else does. The series was not particularly exciting except for that last game. And, for most people except Mets fans, the question of the NLCS was whether the Astros would finally get into their first World Series, which they did not.

Another example: The tale The Buckner Game begins, “Game 6 of the 1986 World Series ranks among the top five games in Fall Classic history.” Although amusing to watch at the end, this game did not even end its series; it simply kept the Red Sox from winning in six. I would imagine that most historians can find five Game 7s that would rank higher, not to mention other games that actually ended their series. The Buckner Game ranks with such games as Game 6 of the 1985 series, commonly known as The Don Denkinger Game. Neither one is among the top five World Series games of all time.

One strong point of the book is the high level of fact-checking and research. Markusen gets his details right with very few exceptions. He does have a tale involving Rickey Henderson titled “Hendu,” which if memory serves, was the nickname for Dave Henderson, not Rickey. That, however, was the worst I found in casual reading, and it is possible that, at least in New York, Rickey inherited the nickname after Dave retired.

One weak point is Markusen’s occasional moral tirades. The worst of these is the tale Blunders on the Base Paths, which uses Game 1 of the 2000 World Series as a launching pad for a rant on the subject of running hard on every single batted ball. The tirade is embarrassing, the game itself does not really support the thesis that bad baserunning cost the Mets the game, and this is possibly the single longest tale in the entire book.

On balance, though, the errors are very few and the warm fuzzies abundant. If you’re a Mets fan, this is a fun read that will take you back to happy times. If you’re not a Mets fan, someone has probably written a similar book about your favorite team. It might even be as good as this one.