If at First: A Season with the Mets

From 1984 to 1988, the New York Mets played their longest stretch of great baseball, in large part because of heady, hard-hitting first baseman Keith Hernandez. During the 1985 season, Hernandez kept a game-by-game journal of life with the Mets. While not as famous as Jim Bouton's "Ball Four," Hernandez's "If At First" is still one of the more interesting and readable inside-baseball books out there. Hernandez fills you in about the battle of the batter's box pitch-by-pitch. He offers candid comments about his teammates and opponents. He probably leaves out the most colorful off-field stuff but does discuss frankly such matters as his drinking and pending divorce. Hernandez isn't burning bridges like Bouton was - he still had a career to protect - but it's not a book of lukewarm platitudes by a jock cashing in on his celebrity. Hernandez has things to say, and a unique way of saying them. "To ballplayers much of the writing over the game seems besides the point," Hernandez writes. "On one end of the scale is all the junk, on the other is a vision of the game too romantized or intellectualized, or both. Baseball is just baseball." Another reviewer here, Frankbif, wishes Hernandez had written another book like this one the following year, when the Mets won it all. But 1985 was a more intriguing season, for the Mets and for Hernandez. The Mets missed the championship by a single game, making for an exciting narrative of little things adding up. Hernandez himself went from NL Player of the Month in July to testifying about past cocaine use in September. Hernandez doesn't seem all that sorrowful about his mistake. He doesn't come across as a nice guy in general, but that's fine because he doesn't mince words or spin situations like a lot of other pro athletes more concerned with their image would. There's a terseness to the narrative by Hernandez and co-writer Mike Bryan that's "If At First"'s secret strength. He really isn't trying to write anything for the ages. Rather, he just tells it like it was. For the Mets in 1985, that was incredible enough. Pitcher Dwight Gooden was 24-4, the most dominant pitcher of the decade with his routine double-digit strikeout performances. Power-hitting outfielder Darryl Strawberry was never scarier at the plate. The team had not one but three steadily-firing spark plugs, infielder Wally Backman, outfielder Lenny Dykstra, and catcher Gary Carter (who was a NL Player of the Month in 1985, too). The team was also blessed with depth in its pitching rotation and on the bench, all of which Hernandez spends quality time detailing. The debit on Hernandez's game-by-game approach is that he rarely gets into a subject for very long before moving along, whether it be his annoyance with Orel Hershiser, his problems with a particular umpiring crew, or his dealings with the press. At one point he tells you a line foul in Montreal put a woman in a hospital, but he never follows up to say how she turned out. There's not a lot

A thoroughly involving read of the 1985 season. This is a detailed game-by-game review. He has an "I am the camera" type storytelling method, similar to Jim Bouton's Ball Four. However Bouton's book is focused on ballplayer personalities and the games, while Keith's book focuses predominately just on each game (BTW... Ball Four is a must read for any fan). He details how he adjusts to slumps and relating to the media. It was especially connecting for me to read about the last series with the Cardinals. I clearly remember the Gooden-Darling starting pitcher issue. The book also gives a season overview of the 1986 championship series. A season summary... not game by game. This was added into later addition. You can tell this was more by memory as opposed to the right after analysis of the 1985 season. It still adds to the book as it gives a celebration to the "Oh so close" finish of '85. Keith Hernandez does not pull any punches, including issues with himself. He is forthright about the drug trial, slumps, teammates, and a few fielding errors. A worthwhile read for any baseball fan.

If you're a Mets fan, or even a baseball fan who wants to relive a year in depth, you'll like this book. It's from a time that is as far removed from today as the pre-Curt Flood era was back in 1985. It may not seem like that much time has gone by, but it has. Hernandez' book, a diary of sorts, does a good job of recreating the mood of the mid-1980's baseball atmosphere.The 1985 Mets were a great team. Many Met fans consider the 1985 team the best of those great 1980's Mets teams (remember, there was no wild card back in those days to fall back on). This was an era when you saw the same players suiting up for your rivals year after year. Met fans knew that Tommie Herr, Willie McGee, Ozzie Smith, and Jack Clarke were going to be in the Cardinals lineup each year. There were 2 divisions in each league, no wildcard, the format that had existed since 1969. It seems like yesterday, but in reality, it was another baseball era.Hernandez' diary does a good job of talking about his ups and downs, the teams ups and downs, and the behind-the-scenes stuff (including his cocaine problems and the labor dispute that year). He talks about his batting slumps, comically disses certain players, talks about the difference in team pre-game attitudes when a star pitcher (Gooden) takes the mound versus a journey man starter, etc. Hernandez does a good job of recreating the daily atmosphere surrounding the Mets 1985 travails. My one pique was that there was not as much depth of commentary during a couple of late August and September Met stumbles, and more feedback from Keith on his emotions and the teams following the bitter 3 game season-ending series in St. Louis would have been appreciated (the Mets went to St. Louis near the end of the season needing to sweep all 3 games; they won the first two in dramatic fashion, but lost Game 3).I wish Keith had written this same book a year later when the Mets won it all. The 1985 Mets were hit by injuries (Strawberry's 6-week absence the most noted) and they finished a narrow 2nd to the St. Louis Cardinals. 1985 was the year that Dwight Gooden had his best year, 24-4 with a 1.53 ERA. Gooden never dominated again like he did that year or his rookie year the season before, and Met fans always wonder how far that team would have gone if they had made the playoffs that year when Gooden was nearly unhittable and unbeatable. The probable answer is that they would have breezed through the playoffs and the World Series, unlike 1986 when they had titanic struggles. For reasons that are still endlessly debated on talk shows and in print today, Gooden never again was the pitcher he was in 1985, 1984 (rookie season), or even 1983 (last minor league season). The strikeouts gained and hits allowed both deteriorated, and even though he was a top-flight pitcher for several more years, he never was the dominant "Doctor K" or "Doc" who electrified Shea Stadium during 1984 and 1985, when fans would rather wait on the food lines w

An excellent overview of the 1986 World Series champion New York Mets baseball team by first baseman and first-time author Keith Hernandez. He describes in detail the entire season, breaking it down game by game, citing the intricacies of each contest, leading to either victory or defeat. Hernandez also tells of personal happenings of his teammates, (i.e: young pitching phenom Dwight Gooden, and how he was able to manhandle each team he faced, and how he handled his newfound success emotionally.)and how Keith corrected himself during slumps. He also writes of how his good friend, Ed Lynch was traded away from the playoff contention Mets to the dismal Chicago Cubs. (which was especially traumatic for Lynch.) Information like this makes "If at First..." an excellent look at the grueling physical and emotional taxes pro athletes must endure.