Game 7, 1986 - Ron Darling

   2016; 226 pages.  Full Title: Game 7, 1986 – Failure and Triumph in the Biggest Game of My Life.  New Author? : Yes.  Genres : Sports; Non-Fiction; Autobiography; Baseball.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

 

    The 1986 World Series was a baseball fan’s delight.  The Boston Red Sox, a team stocked with veteran players, were trying to erase “The Curse” (aka “the curse of the Bambino”) that had plagued the organization for more than sixty years.  Wikipedia has a page about it; the link is here.

 

    Their opponent, the New York Mets, were a cocky bunch of youngsters trying to win it all for just the second time in franchise history, seventeen years after the “Miracle Mets” in 1969.

 

    What everyone who follows baseball remembers about this series is when Red Sox first-baseman Bill Buckner muffed an easy grounder that would’ve given the Red Sox the championship.  Alas, the ball dribbled through his legs into right field and the Mets rallied to win the game.

 

    What most people forget is that that happened in Game *6*, and although the Mets won, it just meant they’d evened the series at three games apiece.  There was still Game 7 to be played, for all the marbles, a chance for redemption for Buckner and the Red Sox, a chance to complete the miracle comeback for the Mets.

 

    The starting pitcher for the Mets in the series finale was Ron Darling.  This book is his story of that game.

 

What’s To Like...

    Game 7, 1986 was published in 2016 to commemorate the 30^th anniversary of the Mets’ 1986 championship year.  The book is divided into 11 chapters, plus an introduction, with the themes of each section being:

    Introduction: Overview

    Ch. 1: A rainout of Game 7.

    Ch. 2: Growing up a Red Sox fan.

    Ch. 3: The Red Sox batting order.

    Ch. 4: Darling’s the starting pitcher.  First inning.

    Ch. 5: Interlude.  Drug and Booze and After-Hours Partying.

    Ch. 6: Second inning.  Boston leads 3-0.

    Ch. 7: Third and fourth innings.  Darling pulled from game.

    Ch. 8: Fifth inning.  The lonely walk to the clubhouse in mid-game.

    Ch. 9: Sixth and seventh innings.

    Ch. 10: Eighth and ninth innings.  Mets rally to win 8-5.

    Ch. 11: After-game celebration and ticker-tape parade.

 

    The book gives a nice “feel” for what it’s like to be a major league baseball player:  the highs, the lows, the pressure to produce, the camaraderie, and the obsessive analyzing of the opposing team’s roster to gain some edge, no matter how small.  Darling acknowledges that drug-usage was commonplace: cocaine was a favorite, and there was a jar of uppers in the locker room if you knew where to look for it.  Yet this is not a “tell all” book.  He claims to have never witnessed any actual usage, and he doesn’t name names.  That’s his story and he’s sticking with it.

 

     He does a lot of name-dropping, and I thought that was a big plus, since it brought back many childhood sports memories for me.  Richie Allen, Mel Stottlemyre, Gary “Kid” Carter, Dennis “Oil Can” Boyd”, Mickey Mantle, Whitey Ford, Carl “Yaz” Yastrzemski, and many, many more.  He gives detailed analysis of a couple players he especially admired: Keith Hernandez and Lenny Dykstra, and a somewhat less-than-glowing analysis of Darryl Strawberry.

 

    I learned a lot of fascinating things about Ron Darling as well.  He received a death threat after he was named the starting pitcher of Game 7, which meant added stress and dealing with security personnel.  He went to Yale, which is hardly a baseball powerhouse.  Players routinely receive “provocative mail” from admiring female fans.  And he once got arrested and thrown in jail, during the season, for sucker-punching a bouncer at a bar.

 

    The final chapter serves as an effective ending to the book.  There’s the aforementioned celebrating, but there’s also a “savoring the moment” aspect.  The Mets have never won another championship, although they’ve come close, losing in the World Series twice: in 2000 (to the Yankees) and in 2015 (to the Royals).   Ron Darling closes in poignant fashion by looking back on the past 30 years, and musing about “what if” scenarios.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Solipsistic (adj.) : of or characterized by the theory that only the self exists, or can be proved to exist.

Others: Balletic (adj.).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.5/5 based on 101 ratings.

    Goodreads: 3.68/5 based on 379 ratings and 55 reviews

 

Excerpts...

    When you’re young and stupid and on top of your game, you find ways of convincing yourself you’ll always be young and stupid and on top of your game.  You stick your chest out, you strut, because you’ve been conditioned to stick your chest out, to strut.  You move without thinking, make a lot of decisions you’d like to take back, tell yourself the baseball part can be switched to autopilot while you and your teammates find a bunch of new ways to enjoy the ride.  (pg. 1)

 

    Lenny [Dykstra] was the strangest, most interesting teammate I ever had.  He used to give off this manic Hunter S. Thompson vibe—without the hallucinogens.  You never knew exactly where he was coming from, and the thing of it is, Lenny himself never seemed to know exactly where he was coming from.  He was a bundle of frenetic energy, a freak of human nature.  He moved about the field, the clubhouse, the team bus like a windup toy on tilt.  (pg. 183)

 

I worried.  And then I worried some more.  And then I worried that I was worrying.  (pg. 69)

    There’s not much to quibble about in Game 7, 1986.  As you’d expect in any book about life in a baseball locker room, there is some cussing, although I didn’t find it excessive.

 

    I have nothing but admiration for the author writing about a game where, as the starting pitcher, he was less than phenomenal.  Yes, the Mets staged an exciting comeback, but it is telling that Ron Darling still carries some pain with him about his subpar performance.

 

    In the end, the worst I can say is that it has to be incredibly difficult to write 200+ pages about one baseball game, no matter how important that game was.  Hats off to Ron Darling, along with NY Times bestselling collaborator Daniel Paisner, for doing a creditable job of making the book interesting and enlightening from start to finish.

 

    8 Stars.  Add 1 star If you happen to be nutso about the New York Mets.  Add another star if you paint your face, wear a weird team-colors wig, and wave a giant Styrofoam hand while attending MLB games in your area on a regular basis.