The Greatest Game - Super Fan Reading
The Greatest Game is not just a book about the 163rd game of the 1978 season played between the Red Sox and the Yankees, but a book about both teams as a whole, and more importantly, about the players themselves who made that pennant race one of the most exciting, and ultimately, most disappointing (at least for Red Sox fans). The structure of the book reminded me of one of my favorite baseball books - The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty, by Buster Olney. That book, like this one, detailed every at bat of the entire game, while intertwining stories about the teams, and especially about the players themselves, in order to provide an in-depth perspective of each play.
The details revealed here are what makes this book such an intriguing read. Having been born after this game took place (though my parents were there and had bought tickets the week before, “just in case” there was a playoff game so I was there in spirit), I, like many modern Sox and Yankees fans, know this game mostly by 3 words, Bucky Bleeping Dent. But there are a lot of other characters in this story, most of whom are much more interesting than the guy who “couldn’t hit home runs.” Some of the best stories contained within the book really show where in the history of the Red Sox this season took place. Yaz was at the end of his career, playing first base more often than left field since he was in so much pain, and Jim Rice was a 25 year old power hitter who had played in every game that season hitting 46 home runs. The ups and downs of the season are tracked vividly from the perspective of the players involved rather than the traditional media, and that is what makes the book great.
After all, both the Red Sox and the Yankees blew huge leads over the division in order to arrive at this point. A one game playoff was probably the least likely scenario anyone had imagined. The Red Sox, at one point, held a 10+ game lead on the division, and by the last couple weeks of the season, were completely written off, having to win their last 7 just to tie the Yanks.
With a season as wild as this one, and a group of characters as interesting as these players, its no wonder to see where a lot of the modern day Sox-Yanks rivalry came. Remember, this season was one of the first where free agency really mattered, and was played at a time when players didn’t typically move from team to team (though there is a particularly interesting part of the book on Mike Torrez, who was still mad at the Yankees for not resigning him and proceeded to pitch 250 innings and win 16 games for the Sox) which intensified the rivalry that much more.
For all of you who loved seeing the Sox-Yankees fights of the this decade, this book is a must read in order to give you some perspective on the guys who were behind it when the rivalry really started on October 2, 1978.
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