Danny Gallagher

BLUE MONDAY by Danny Gallagher fondly recounts the 1981 Montreal Expos, the first time the franchise made the playoffs only to be defeated by LA Dodgers and Rick Monday, who hit the game and series winning home run in Game 5 of the National League Championship, keeping the Expos out of the World Series. Gallagher walks the reader through how the 1981 team got to where the are, from the five year plan that was created in 1976, to the acquisitions and maturation of the current players, and to the leadership choices that, good and bad, the resulted in having the 1981 Expos team making the playoffs for the first time.
Gallagher's book is well-researched and full of colorful tales of players, coaches, and games. It's clear that Gallagher has a strong affinity for the Expos and it shows in his writing. Gallagher does his best to find positives in every choice, every story, every person in the book, even when perhaps it/they don't deserve it. Gallagher took special care to consider as many of the controversial events from as many sides as possible; good, bad, and third party. Gallagher admitted several times that he wanted certain party's stories and they were either unavailable or unwilling to share. When carrying the reader through the season and the playoffs, the pacing at times in the book was haphazard; sometimes spending a long time on one event that might or might not be memorable and other times flying through a playoff game recap to then spend a long time telling vivid stories about events that happened between games. But it was not lost on me that everything in the book added color and texture to the entire 1981 Expos, just maybe a little more consideration regarding flow could have progressed the book more smoothly.
For a baseball nut like me, BLUE MONDAY was a fun read, full of stories and tidbits I had never heard before. There is no doubt that Gallagher know his Expos stuff and I found myself wanting to read his other books after finishing this one.
Thank you to Dundurn, Danny Gallagher, and Netgalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!… (meer)