Can't Anybody Here Play This Game?

Rating:
Summary: The Met Mystique
Review: For years author Jimmy Breslin claimed that "Can't anybody here play this game?" was an actual quote from New York Met manager Casey Stengel. Then several years later in another book that he wrote, Breslin admitted he had made up the quote. When I read his book "Can't Anybody Here Play This Game," I got the impression he used this same approach in writing it. Not that the book isn't mostly true, but what he wrote was for effect. It appeared to me that he wanted to inject a lot of humor and light-heartedness and not necessarily provide a well-rounded description of the season where that would detract from his intended perspective.

That the first run that the 1962 Mets allowed in a regular season game was scored on a balk makes for a great story and is so in line with the Mets image of whimsical ineptness. Breslin?s description of how the balk occurred- who was pitching, who was on base, that the pitcher dropped the ball while trying to pitch- made me believe that that was what happened. But that wasn?t what happened. Later I read on the Internet (and I confirmed it by listening to the original audio broadcast of the game) that the first run scored off the Mets was on a bloop single by Stan Musial. Sometimes fact is not stranger than fiction.

I admit when I read the book I was disappointed- particularly during the first half of the book. I was hoping to read a book providing lots of insight and information about the Mets first season of baseball- such as what Stanley Cohen's wonderful book "A Magic Summer" does for the 1969 Mets. But that's not with this book is all about. It's really more about the Met mystique of the early years as lovable losers. And that mystique is something special about Met history.

The point of this book review isn't to recommend the book or not (it is a very popular book), but it is to help the potential reader avoid having erroneous expectations.

Rating:
Summary: The Met Mystique
Review: For years author Jimmy Breslin claimed that "Can't anybody here play this game?" was an actual quote from New York Met manager Casey Stengel. Then several years later in another book that he wrote, Breslin admitted he had made up the quote. When I read his book "Can't Anybody Here Play This Game," I got the impression he used this same approach in writing it. Not that he made up anything in the book, but what he wrote was for effect. It appeared to me that he wanted to inject a lot of humor and light-heartedness and not necessarily provide a well-rounded description of the season where that would detract from his intended perspective.

I admit when I read the book I was disappointed- particularly during the first half of the book. I was hoping to read a book providing lots of insight and information about the Mets first season of baseball- such as what Stanley Cohen's wonderful book "A Magic Summer" does for the 1969 Mets. But that's not with this book is all about. It's really more about the Met mystique of the early years as lovable losers. And that mystique is something special about Met history.

The point of this book review isn't to recommend the book or not (it is a very popular book), but it is to help the potential reader avoid having erroneous expectations.

Rating:
Summary: Great Baseball Book
Review: I agree that this book needs to be reissued. It's a gem. Jimmy Breslin writes story after hilarious story about the inept, hopeless but lovable '62 Mets. Marvelous Marv, Choo-Choo Coleman - they're all there, including the great one-liners of Casey Stengel. Please, Please, Please reissue this book. It would sell a million copies.

Rating:
Summary: Great Baseball Book
Review: I agree that this book needs to be reissued. It's a gem. Jimmy Breslin writes story after hilarious story about the inept, hopeless but lovable '62 Mets. Marvelous Marv, Choo-Choo Coleman - they're all there, including the great one-liners of Casey Stengel. Please, Please, Please reissue this book. It would sell a million copies.

Rating:
Summary: It's ABOUT TIME They Republished This Jewel!
Review: Jimmy Breslin, really, wrote only one book which ought to be required reading for anyone, even if they do not appreciate immediately the sublime, ridiculous, and surreal that was the 1962 New York Mets. Of every page and paragraph I have ever read of that wonderfully absurdist gathering of once-upon-a-times and never-would-have-beens known as the Amazin' Mets, none strikes with quite the humour and humanity of Mr. Breslin's gracefully murderous review of that first season. He gave all the heavies - Casey Stengel, Marvelous Marv Throneberry, Roger Craig, Elio Chacon, Harry Chiti (read: the only player in major league history to be traded for himself), Frank Thomas (the Big Donkey, not the Big Hurt), et. al. - both their just desserts and their poetic justice. He writes with the proper distribution of sympatico toward both the Mets' befuddled opponents and their bewildered observers. And he reminds baseball fans that sometimes the most transcendent joy of the game is when the name of the game is pure madness.

Those who believe baseball needs to improve its sense of humour should adore this book. Those who cannot believe the 1962 Mets existed but in the warped imaginations of New York sportswriters and sociopolitical commentators trying to make sense of the unsensible should disabuse themselves with this book. Each will likely do one of two things, by the time Mr. Breslin's lyric prose completes its song of the broken road: Either you will empathise with their very real soulfulness amidst the months of Barnumesque deconstruction that was Original Met Baseball; or, you will simply rub your eyes, ponder how it could have been and who could have possibly conceived such bedlam, and, even when it makes sense, and you realise it was all of it true and none of it likely to ever pass our way again, just purr along with Perfesser Stengel: "Amazin'!"

Rating:
Summary: A timely reprint!
Review: Last week, the Dodgers came to Shea Stadium. There's not a ballplayer left alive, except Jesse Orosco, who was born before the Dodgers left Brooklyn, but the residual anti-Dodger resentment which inhabits the ugly orange, blue, green and red seats at Shea still makes these games interesting. The score was tied, 1-1 in the 6th, and LA had runners at first and third, with one out. The batter hit a ground ball to Mets SS Rey Sanchez, less known for his .179 batting average than for reportedly getting a haircut in the clubhouse while the Mets getting clobbered in another loss. Sanchez needed to do just two thing with that grounder, which was too slow to turn into a double play. He needed to A) look the runner back to third and prevent the go-ahead run from scoring, and B) throw the batter out at first.

Sanchez, of course, failed to do either.

The runner on third scored (the winning run) and the batter was safe. Sound familiar?

Jimmy Breslin's 1963 magazine-feature-length rumination on the woeful 1962 Mets (who lost 120 games -- more than the 1985 and '86 Mets lost *combined*) has fallen out of the baseball consciousness for a while. But it's still hilarious. The book is both a celebration of the underdog, and a scathing review of the National League's expansion process, which allowed for the creation of a new team full of players who simply couldn't play.

It takes a while for Breslin to actually get into game descriptions. He talks at length about the building of Shea Stadium (which, true to Mets form, was completed a year late, and way, way over budget) -- "which they are building... for Marvin Throneberry". He talks about original Mets owner Joan Whitney Payson (be warned that, since this book was written in 1963, she's still referred to as Mrs. Charles Shipman Payson without any sense of irony), and reprints some of manager Casey Stengel's unforgettable monologues. He talks about the business of baseball, even in 1963 lamenting that too many were in it for the money, and not for the love of the game.

Finally, Breslin gets to his recap of the Mets season, and gets it wrong from the very first inning. He repeats -- actually, he creates -- the myth that the first run scored against the Mets in their first game, in St. Louis, came in when pitcher Roger Craig balked with runner Bill White on third. Well, that never happened. It happened, but it was already 1-0 at that point and White wasn't on third. Since Breslin makes a big fetish of his scorecard later in the book, I have to assume this is dramatic license.

Breslin's book is now 40 years old, but if you went into a time capsule in '63 and came out again this April, you'd never realize that, for most of their history, the Mets were not actually this horrible. When I have the choice of watching the Mets (who, in mid-May have already lost 60% of their games), or re-reading the epic saga of Pumpsie Green... well, just give me some more Pumpsie!

Rating:
Summary: A timely reprint!
Review: Last week, the Dodgers came to Shea Stadium. There's not a ballplayer left alive, except Jesse Orosco, who was born before the Dodgers left Brooklyn, but the residual anti-Dodger resentment which inhabits the ugly orange, blue, green and red seats at Shea still makes these games interesting. The score was tied, 1-1 in the 6th, and LA had runners at first and third, with one out. The batter hit a ground ball to Mets SS Rey Sanchez, less known for his .179 batting average than for reportedly getting a haircut in the clubhouse while the Mets getting clobbered in another loss. Sanchez needed to do just two thing with that grounder, which was too slow to turn into a double play. He needed to A) look the runner back to third and prevent the go-ahead run from scoring, and B) throw the batter out at first.

Sanchez, of course, failed to do either.

The runner on third scored (the winning run) and the batter was safe. Sound familiar?

Jimmy Breslin's 1963 magazine-feature-length rumination on the woeful 1962 Mets (who lost 120 games -- more than the 1985 and '86 Mets lost *combined*) has fallen out of the baseball consciousness for a while. But it's still hilarious. The book is both a celebration of the underdog, and a scathing review of the National League's expansion process, which allowed for the creation of a new team full of players who simply couldn't play.

It takes a while for Breslin to actually get into game descriptions. He talks at length about the building of Shea Stadium (which, true to Mets form, was completed a year late, and way, way over budget) -- "which they are building... for Marvin Throneberry". He talks about original Mets owner Joan Whitney Payson (be warned that, since this book was written in 1963, she's still referred to as Mrs. Charles Shipman Payson without any sense of irony), and reprints some of manager Casey Stengel's unforgettable monologues. He talks about the business of baseball, even in 1963 lamenting that too many were in it for the money, and not for the love of the game.

Finally, Breslin gets to his recap of the Mets season, and gets it wrong from the very first inning. He repeats -- actually, he creates -- the myth that the first run scored against the Mets in their first game, in St. Louis, came in when pitcher Roger Craig balked with runner Bill White on third. Well, that never happened. It happened, but it was already 1-0 at that point and White wasn't on third. Since Breslin makes a big fetish of his scorecard later in the book, I have to assume this is dramatic license.

Breslin's book is now 40 years old, but if you went into a time capsule in '63 and came out again this April, you'd never realize that, for most of their history, the Mets were not actually this horrible. When I have the choice of watching the Mets (who, in mid-May have already lost 60% of their games), or re-reading the epic saga of Pumpsie Green... well, just give me some more Pumpsie!