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

Written by Devin Gordon

Narrated by Jeremy Arthur

“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 he 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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperAudio
• Release date: Mar 16, 2021
• ISBN: 9780062940056

Devin Gordon

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.

Reviews for So Many Ways to Lose

[Rob and Audrey · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The best worst book about the best worst team… ever. With wit and flair and just enough profanity aimed at the Yankees Devin Gordon delivers a masterful history of the Mets that made this life long fan fall in love all over again. #LGM

[othemts · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

So Many Ways to Lose is a history of the New York Mets by a long-time fan and writer who happens to live near me in Massachusetts. Gordon's thesis is that the Mets are a team that is known for their futility and for losing in creative ways, and yet that has only made their moments of greatness all the more endearing.Since I've read a lot about the Mets (and of course, spent most of my life watching the team), I was familiar with many of these stories.  But I was impressed with the angles Gordon took on telling the stories. I particularly liked:

• connecting Cleon Jones story to the history of Africatown in Alabama which was founded by people brought from Africa on the last known slave ship the Clotilda
• How Mackey Sasser got the yips and had trouble returning the ball to the pitcher
• While Bobby Bonilla Day has become a day to mock the Mets, Gordon explains that it was a good deal with positive outcomes for the Mets
• the greatness of the Endy Chavez catch
• How Bernie Madoff bamboozled the Wilpons, owners of the Mets, but nonetheless a somewhat sympathetic portrait of the Wilpons

The parts on the Mets success in 2006 (and subsequent flops in 2007-2008) and 2015 feel rushed.  But then again I've read about those accomplishments in other books.  This is an enjoyable sports book and a requirement for every Mets' fan's library.

[ghr4 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Devin Gordon’s So Many Ways to Lose: The Amazin’ True Story of the New York Mets - The Best Worst Team in Sports certainly ranks among the very best books ever on the Mets. With a wickedly wry sense of humor and some serious journalist chops, Gordon brings new life to the many Mets disasters both on and off the field throughout their incredible history. This is literally a laugh-out-loud masterpiece of the genre.

[sheila1957 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A dedicated Mets fan who is also a journalist recalls their history from their formation to the present day. I enjoyed this book. I learned something new. I remembered some of the scandals he writes of during the '80's. I liked his remembrance of players and how he portrayed them. I laughed at times. Shook my head other times. Wondered what were they thinking many times. It was fun reading about it all. I'm not a Mets fan, just a baseball fan but this is a book worth reading just for the fun of the game.