1. In the spirit of full disclosure, I did open up multiple packs, just in case I ended up with too many dead players. The integrity of the pack I chose remains intact—there was no mixing and matching.
1. Dick Miller, “Angel Voices Sing Mulliniks’ Praise,” Sporting News, August 20, 1977.
2. Dave Perkins, “Mulliniks Always Talked .300,” Toronto Star, March 18, 1993.
3. Hal McCoy, “Dayton’s Yeager Guides All-Star,” Dayton Daily News, July 14, 2015; Alan Greenberg, “Yeager Still Ducks When a Bat Breaks,” Atlanta Constitution, April 25, 1977.
1. Bob Oates, “Yeager: I’m Better Than Bench,” Los Angeles Times, February 9, 1975.
2. Mike Littwin, “Lasorda Sure Had That Fella Yeager Rested for Series,” Los Angeles Times, October 26, 1981.
3. Technically, the Sheik gave me three options: shoot me with his .38 Magnum, stab me with his butcher knife, or simply break my leg. Suffice to say it was awhile before I felt ready to return to the literary theme of childhood heroes.
4. Bob Oates, “Yeager’s High School Football Coach Was Impressed,” Los Angeles Times, May 29, 1983.
1. Neal Russo, “Templeton Apology Demanded,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 27, 1981.
2. Jeff Pearlman, “From Mad Dog to Mentor,” Sports Illustrated, June 26, 2000.
3. Gary Smith, “The Other Side of Second Base,” Inside Sports, June 1982.
4. Thomas Boswell, “Irate Herzog Awaits Templeton Apology,” Washington Post, August 28, 1981.
5. John Feinstein, “Teammates Back Templeton as He Returns to ‘Scene of the Gesture’; Templeton Now Has Team Backing,” Washington Post, September 23, 1981.
6. Roy S. Johnson, “A Welcome for Templeton,” New York Times, September 17, 1981.
1. Brief time travel note: the Astros actually did end up winning the World Series in 2017, beating the Dodgers in seven games.
1. Bill Plaschke, “Padres’ Ready Handles Horror of Wife’s Tragedy,” Los Angeles Times, September 30, 1988.
1. Franz Lidz, “Invincible,” Sports Illustrated, April 15, 1991.
2. Craig Neff, “In-Vince-Able Man of Steel,” Sports Illustrated, June 17, 1985.
3. Cathie Burnes Beebe, “In-Vinceable Thief Coleman Elevates Art of Stealing,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 12, 1989.
4. Rick Hummel, “‘Egotistical’ Coleman Quiets Critics,” Sporting News, August 13, 1990.
5. Juan Williams, “Jackie Robinson Fought for Justice in Baseball and in America,” Washington Post, May 3, 1987.
6. Wins above replacement (WAR) is an advanced metric that represents the number of wins a player adds to his team’s total above a replacement player at that same position; it is meant to capture the overall contribution of a player.
7. Bob Klapisch and John Harper, The Worst Team Money Could Buy (New York: Random House, 1993), 93, 258.
8. Dwight Gooden with Ellis Henican, Doc: A Memoir (Boston: New Harvest, 2013), 122.
9. Steve Serby, Miguel Garcilazo, and Corky Siemaszko, “Mets’ Coleman Tagged as Firework Hurts Fans,” Daily News, July 26, 1993.
10. Steve Marantz, “Royal Reckoning,” Sporting News, February 14, 1994.
11. Marantz, “Royal Reckoning.”
1. Jack Lang, “Lee Mazzilli: Portrait of a Loving Family,” 1981 Mets Scorebook.
2. Steve Serby, “Serby’s Sunday Q&A with . . . Lee Mazzilli,” New York Post, June 17, 2007.
3. George Vecsey, “Mazzilli’s Rude Awakening,” New York Times, August 18, 1981.
4. Dick Young, “Mazzilli Ready to Switch-Throw for Mets,” Daily News, March 8, 1980.
1. Thomas Boswell, “Heart on His Sleeve, Good Stuff Inside,” Washington Post, April 7, 1992.
1. “Vince Coleman’s Cardinals Hall of Fame Speech,” YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnPpW3KwVkE.
2. Graham Winfrey, “Judd Apatow on the Surprise Outcome of His First Documentary, ‘Doc and Darryl,’” IndieWire, June 30, 2016, https://www.indiewire.com/2016/06/judd-apatow-espn-30-for-30-documentary-doc-and-darryl-strawberry-dwight-gooden-1201701325/.