Polly Hunter props up her bright pink laptop on a small coffee table beside Ms. Nesmith, announces she has a surprise and plugs in an external speaker. Out bursts the chorus to Swanee River.
From Dynasty to Disappointment
The New York Mets finished the 1989 season in second place. Six weeks into the 1990 season Davey Johnson was fired. He won 1,012 games as manager of the Mets, one World Series and two division titles. Johnson’s teams won an average of 95 games from 1984-1990. But, amidst all those wins, history defines the Mets as a disappointment.
Criminal Mind
Bo Barton has been chasing bad guys for almost 25 years. In 2005, he earned his master’s degree in criminal justice from Charleston Southern University and completed his training with the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED), making him one of 106 board certified criminal profilers in the world. But his success comes with a price tag.
Bo Barton is a criminal profiler. You could compare his work to today’s prime-time television prototypes, but don’t. Barton is the real deal, and the work is really dangerous. The latter is dipped in Hollywood, sprinkled with glitz, add model-like actors and – poof – a crime, an investigation, an arrest and a confession is recorded in a 48-minute script.
Great Arms, Sour Days at Shea
There surely must have been a support group for pitchers like Jon Matlack. Come to think of it, the original group could have been founded by the 1976 New York Mets starting rotation.
Matlack, Tom Seaver Jerry Koosman, Mickey Lolich and Craig Swan — five hurlers — each pitched their heart out in 1976. On paper, no major league team was better. The Mets team ERA was the lowest in baseball (2.94). Still, the Mets finished 86-76 in third place in the National League East, 15 games behind the Philadelphia Phillies.
Voices: The Pittsburgh Cocaine Seven
Major League Baseball has had its share of troubled times. In terms of sheer dirt, three scandals rise to the top: Shoeless Joe and the Black Sox, the 1985 Pittsburgh drug trials, and the steroid era. The former and latter have been covered extensively. Yet there has never been a book detailing the biggest drug trials in baseball history. The Pittsburgh Cocaine Seven tells the whole story in all its shocking details.
Voices: Hudgens will emphasize discipline
Dave Hudgens relationship with the New York Mets started in 1969 — as a fan. Six years later, in 1975, the Mets drafted Hudgens in the fifth round of the January draft, but he never signed a contract.
“It’s kind of ironic that I get to work for them now,” Hudgens said during a phone interview from Venezuela on Thursday. “I never really thought I would get the opportunity because I really didn’t know anyone. When Sandy (Alderson) called, I was really excited.”
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