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The Greatest Game: The Yankees, the Red Sox, and the Playoff of '78 | 
 enlarge | Author: Richard Bradley
Publisher: Free Press
Category: Book
List Price: $25.00
Buy New: $14.08
You Save: $10.92 (44%)
New (24) Used (11) from $12.49
Avg. Customer Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 6138
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6 x 1.3
ISBN: 1416534385
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.357640974
EAN: 9781416534389
ASIN: 1416534385
Publication Date: March 18, 2008
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Product Description
In this spellbinding book, Richard Bradley tells the story of what was surely the greatest major league game of our lifetime and perhaps in the history of professional baseball. That game, played at Fenway Park on the afternoon of October 4, 1978, was the culmination of one of the most tense, emotionally wrought seasons ever, between baseball's two most bitter rivals, the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees. Both teams finished this tumultuous season with identical 99-64 records, forcing a one-game playoff. With a one-run lead and two outs, with the tying run in scoring position in the bottom of the ninth, the entire season came down to one at-bat and to one swing of the bat. It came down, as both men eerily predicted to themselves the night before, to the aging Red Sox legend, Carl Yastrzemski, and the Yankees' free-agent power reliever, Rich "Goose" Gossage. Anyone who calls himself a baseball fan knows the outcome of that confrontation. And yet such are the literary powers of the author that we are pulled back in time to that late-afternoon moment and become filled anew with all the taut sense of drama that sports has to offer, as if we don't know what happened. As if the thoughts swirling around in the heads of pitcher and hitter are still fresh, both still hopeful of controlling events. That climactic game occurred thirty seasons ago and yet it still captures our imagination. In this delightful work of sports literature, we watch the game unfold pitch by pitch, inning by inning, but Bradley is up to something more ambitious than just recounting this wonderful game. He also tells us the stories of the participants -- how they got to that moment in their lives and careers, what was at stake for them personally -- including the rivalries within the rivalry, such as catcher Carlton Fisk versus catcher Thurman Munson,and Billy Martin versus everyone. Using a narrative that alternates points of view between the teams, Bradley reacquaints us with a rich roster of characters -- Freddy Lynn, Ron Guidry, Catfish Hunter, Mike Torrez, Jerry Remy, Lou Piniella, George Scott, and Reggie Jackson. And, of course, Bucky Dent, who craved just such a moment in the sun -- a validation he had vainly sought from the father he barely knew. Not a book intended to celebrate a triumph or lament a loss, The Greatest Game will be embraced in both Boston and New York, with fans of both teams recalling again the talented young men they once gave their hearts to. And fans everywhere will be reminded how utterly gripping a single baseball game can be and that the rewards of being a fan lie not in victory but in caring beyond reason, even decades after the fact.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
 Terrific April 3, 2008
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
Longtime Red Sox fan here.I remember all too well the '78 season and that agonizing playoff game.The book is well written and researched and to get Carl Yastrzemski to talk as much as he did is a coup.I did find two mistakes,one factual and one grammatical.Reggie Cleveland of the Red Sox was a pitcher,not an outfielder (p.51),and on page 253 when writing about the death of Thurman Munson the text reads "to low" when of course it should be too low.Beyond that though I loved reading this book,even if the end was not to my satisfaction. :)
The Last Great Pennant Race March 31, 2008
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
This is a very enjoyable book which all baseball fans will find gripping and thrilling, much the way the 1978 race shaped up. The book does a very good job at shaping the cultures and idiosyncrasies of both the Red Sox and Yankees and how that helped to shape a tumultuous pennant race. The author does a great deal of painting baseball's changing landscape and how this was impacting both teams as well as the game at large. Also, the book does a great job of shaping the final game around these events as the Red Sox /Yankees playoff game was as dramatic and exciting as the season, coming down to the final batter.
Obviously Red Sox & Yankees fans will find this book more interesting then other fans but regardless the book is worth the read for the moments of excitement and the feelings of nostalgia it is bound to bring up for a simpler time in the national pastime.
 how did you miss..... March 31, 2008
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
the fact that the game was played on the holiest of days for jews... yom kippur
my father was ballistic that my brother and i and two friends went crazy over dent's home run and the final result, on a day when we weren't supposed to be watching television
great account otherwise
The Best Book On The Late 70s Rivalry In A LONG While! March 18, 2008
9 out of 11 found this review helpful
Every time a new book comes out on the Yankee teams of the late 70s, which were the first ones I experienced as a child, I keep hoping that it will be a book with some fresh, new insights. Most of the time, the results are very disappointing. Roger Kahn, Maury Allen and Phil Pepe have weighed in with books of their own in recent years and I have found them lacking because for the most part these authors are either too much rooted in the nostalgia for 50s baseball to do justice to the subject of the late 70s (when you read Kahn and Allen you end up seeing more digressions about the 50s than about the later years for the most part!) or they just rehash stuff that was written in books that came out years ago (Pepe's new book was a letdown because there wasn't a single thing I hadn't already read in the autbios of Nettles and Reggie, not to mention the Bill Madden/Moss Klein book from 1990).
That's why Richard Bradley's book was such a breath of fresh air. *Finally* I felt like I was getting the story of 1978 told from a new angle and with some fresh insights on the players, and the race pennant race preceding the game. The alternating chapters of PBP of the game with the background details is not a new feature in baseball books (done with Game 7 of the 60 WS, and Buster Olney with Game 7 of the 01 WS), but it works magnificently here. It makes for a very entertaining and brisk read that I was sorry to see end.
My only tiny nitpick involves the fact that since Bradley did have access to the original telecasts of the game, it would have been nice if some more of the comments of the announcers had been interwoven into the narrative of the game action. And there are also some interesting stories about the broadcasts themselves too (Howard Cosell for instance, was officially part of ABC's baseball broadcast team, but deemed the playoff game taking place on a Monday insufficient reason to miss that evening's meaingless early regular season "Monday Night Football" broadcast). Also priceless was the moment where Phil Rizzuto found himself lingering in the Boston press room after finishing the 6th inning on radio, before heading back to the TV booth and letting out a burst of "Holy Cows!" when Dent homered....only to forget that he was still in the Boston press room, and telling Bill White on-air later that "I thought Frank Malzone was going to bite me on the ankle!" showing how much the Yankee-Red Sox rivalry played itself out in all corners of the ballpark that day!
Thanks again to Mr. Bradley for enriching the baseball literature on the Yankees-Red Sox of the late 70s by taking things to a new level. It gets my vote for what I know will be the best baseball book of the year for me.
Speaking as the author.... March 17, 2008
7 out of 9 found this review helpful
Thanks very much for that nice review, G. Haneke. You also give me a chance to mention that something did indeed go awry with that flap copy! So chalk that up to a production error, and the good folks at the Free Press will correct it ASAP.
Never fear--the facts are right in the book itself.
And thanks again for the compliment. I'm glad you enjoyed The Greatest Game.
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