So Many Ways to Lose: The Amazin' True Story of the New York Mets - the Best Worst Team in Sports

by Devin Gordon

Overview

“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 Yoenis Céspedes 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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062940025
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	03/16/2021
Pages:	400
Sales rank:	401,508
Product dimensions:	9.00(w) x 6.20(h) x 1.70(d)

About the Author

Devin Gordon is a contributing writer for a number of publications, including the The Atlantic, New York Times Magazine, and ESPN the Magazine. He has served as executive editor at GQ Magazine and was a writer and editor at Newsweek. He lives in Brookline, Massachusetts, with his wife, two kids and their dog.

Table of Contents

Prologue: A Gift for Losing 1

Part I "Please Tell Us Only When Mets win"

1 The Original Original Met 19

2 Casey at the Mic 36

3 M Is for VRAM 50

4 The House That a Well-Connected Lawyer Built 54

Part II How to Squander a Miracle

5 Tom Terrific and the Midnight Massacre, Part 1: The Terrific Part 77

6 Who Needs Nolan Ryan Anyway? 107

7 Gilly and Yoge 115

8 The Voyage of the Clotilda 135

9 Tom Terrific and the Midnight Massacre, Part 2: The Massacre Part 153

This Call to the Bullpen Brought to You by: Mettle the Mule 173

Part III The Evil Empires

10 The Decapitated Cat 183

11 Fuck the Yankees, Part 1: Doc and Darryl in the Bronx 206

12 How Mackey Sasser Got the Yips 222

13 Bobby Bonilla Day 237

14 The Grand Slam Single and the Walk-Off Walk 254

15 Fuck the Yankees, Part 2: The Subway Series 259

Part IV #Lolmets

16 The Legend of Endy 291

17 Bernie Madoff Stole This Chapter 316

18 The Evidence Points Toward Dupe 317

Seventh-Inning Stretch: The Other Guy Who Was Conning the Mets While Madoff Was Conning the Mets 333

Part V End Times

19 A Big Sexy Day to Remember 337

20 Bring in the Exorcist 344

21 The Last Polar Bear 355

Acknowledgments 369

Index 379

Editorial Reviews

So Many Ways to Lose is, ironically, a 20-game winner. Devin Gordon’s ability to explain the Sisyphean plight of all Mets fans is truly remarkable, and I was thoroughly entertained with his stories of how coming up short can be an art form. Bravo.”
— Ron Darling, New York Times bestselling author of Game 7, 1986

 “A joyous celebration, a reminder that there’s a nobility in rooting for a sublimely hopeless team.” — Joe Posnanski, New York Times bestselling author of The Soul of Baseball and Michael Schur, creator of Parks and Recreation and The Good Place

“Devin Gordon pulls off something here that’s so hard: writing about one team in a way that makes you feel like he’s actually writing about your team. I’ve never watched a Mets game in my life, but two chapters in, I couldn’t put this book down.” — Shea Serrano, New York Times bestselling author of Basketball (and Other Things) and The Rap Yearbook

“Every child who grows up around New York knows they face a choice on which everything else depends: Mets or Yankees? But what kind of person actually chooses the Mets? In So Many Ways to Lose, Devin Gordon answers that question with a gift for jaunty fatalism and aphoristic self-abasement." — Tom Junod, two-time National Magazine Award winner

“Devin Gordon’s vivisection of the psyche of a Mets fan is brutal and hilarious. It’s a must-read for anyone who loves baseball.” — Jeff Passan, ESPN senior MLB insider and New York Times bestselling author of The Arm

“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

“As a third generation Yankee fan, I’ve always wondered why anyone would be a Mets fan. This crackling, funny, thoughtful book explained it: you’re losers." — Joel Stein, author of In Defense of Elitism

From the Publisher

As a third generation Yankee fan, I’ve always wondered why anyone would be a Mets fan. This crackling, funny, thoughtful book explained it: you’re losers."

Joel Stein

Devin Gordon pulls off something here that’s so hard: writing about one team in a way that makes you feel like he’s actually writing about your team. I’ve never watched a Mets game in my life, but two chapters in, I couldn’t put this book down.

Shea Serrano

Every child who grows up around New York knows they face a choice on which everything else depends: Mets or Yankees? But what kind of person actually chooses the Mets? In So Many Ways to Lose, Devin Gordon answers that question with a gift for jaunty fatalism and aphoristic self-abasement."

two-time National Magazine Award winner Tom Junod

Devin Gordon’s vivisection of the psyche of a Mets fan is brutal and hilarious. It’s a must-read for anyone who loves baseball.

Jeff Passan

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

A joyous celebration, a reminder that there’s a nobility in rooting for a sublimely hopeless team.

Joe Posnanski

So Many Ways to Lose is, ironically, a 20-game winner. Devin Gordon’s ability to explain the Sisyphean plight of all Mets fans is truly remarkable, and I was thoroughly entertained with his stories of how coming up short can be an art form. Bravo.”

Ron Darling

03/01/2021

Being a New York Mets fan is not for the faint of heart. First-time author Devin Gordon came of age in the 1980s, an era of soaring triumph and sordid excess for his favorite baseball team. Gordon writes as a diehard fan, keeping a healthy sense of humor in the forefront. His unpretentious, highly entertaining look at nearly 60 years of Mets history covers the team's early years as "lovable losers," the Miracle Mets of 1969 and the game in which the franchise won their first World Series, and the successive decades when the franchise seemed almost determined to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Forever New York's "other" baseball team, the Mets have their own distinctive history and culture. Always playing in the shadow of their rival Yankees, the Mets have provided their followers with endless exasperation, equally endless reasons to hope, and some of the best baseball stories. VERDICT All sports fans will recognize in Gordon's promising debut the dedication, disappointment, and pure elation that come with following their special team. A worthy companion to more comprehensive histories of the franchise, recommended for baseball collections in all public and specialty libraries.—Janet Davis, Darien P.L., CT

Library Journal