Synopses & Reviews
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.
Review
"The Greatest Game is a spellbinding, page-turning re-creation of a great rivalry, a great season, and a great game, which makes it a great sports book. But it is also on a micro level an often moving exploration of the men who played the game and on a macro level an incisive examination of baseball in the 1970s and, to the extent that baseball is the national pastime, of America generally at a time of change -- which makes it a terrific cultural history." -- Neal Gabler, author of Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination
Review
"The Greatest Game is a rare and much-needed addition to the Yankee-Red Sox catalog. Richard Bradley's reporting is full of emotion but nonpartisan, precise but passionate. He transforms the story of a game, and the men who played in it, into the best kind of history lesson, as meticulous as it is entertaining." -- Mark Kriegel, author of Pistol: The Life of Pete Maravich; national columnist, FOXSports.com
Review
"The Greatest Game is a spellbinding, page-turning re-creation of a great rivalry, a great season, and a great game, which makes it a great sports book. But it is also on a micro level an often moving exploration of the men who played the game and on a macro level an incisive examination of baseball in the 1970s and, to the extent that baseball is the national pastime, of America generally at a time of change -- which makes it a terrific cultural history." -- Neal Gabler, author of Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination
Review
"We've seen it, the implausible Bucky Dent home run. Now we get to live it. Such is Richard Bradley's mastery of biography and baseball that I found myself hoping Dent's fly ball fell into Yaz's glove even as I hoped it disappeared behind the Green Monster. This is baseball history at its vivid best." -- Dave Kindred, author of Sound and Fury: Two Powerful Lives, One Fateful Friendship, a dual biography of Muhammad Ali and Howard Cosell
Review
"Banzai Babe deserves a spot in any baseball (or Japan) lover's library."and#8212;Robert Whiting, Wall Street Journal
Review
"Fitts, a master at depicting all of the key elements in prewar Japanese social and political life, gives the reader valuable insights into the influential moderates trying to hold the line against the army, as well as the American ballplayers taking a victory lap in front of adoring foreign fans. This book is a powerful snapshot of men from two contrasting cultures attempting to stop a slide into aggression."and#8212;Publishers Weekly
Review
"This dramatic story, equal parts baseball and history, should appeal to anyone interested in Japanese cultural and political history and the sports-politics nexus."and#8212;Library Journal
Review
"The history lessons in Banzai Babe Ruth go well beyond merely chronicling the games and the players. This is a well-researched, fascinatingly told tale of two super powers whose shared passion for baseball wasn't enough to maintain the peace, though it did help to restore it in the years following World War II."and#8212;James Bailey, Baseball America
Review
"Banzai Babe Ruth reads like a multi-stranded mystery novel . . . . Fitts has an eye for the quirky details that make historical writing vivid."and#8212;Michael R. Stevens, Books and Culture
Review
"Banzai Babe Ruth is far more than just a sports story. . . . No one could have told this incredible story better than Robert K. Fitts."and#8212;ForeWord Reviews
Synopsis
In November 1934 as the United States and Japan drifted toward war, a team of American League all-stars that included Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, future secret agent Moe Berg, and Connie Mack barnstormed across the Land of the Rising Sun. Hundreds of thousands of fans, many waving Japanese and American flags, welcomed the team with shouts of and#8220;
Banzai! Banzai, Babe Ruth!and#8221; The all-stars stayed for a month, playing 18 games, spawning professional baseball in Japan, and spreading goodwill.
Politicians on both sides of the Pacific hoped that the amity generated by the tourand#8212;and the two nationsand#8217; shared love of the gameand#8212;could help heal their growing political differences. But the Babe and baseball could not overcome Japanand#8217;s growing nationalism, as a bloody coup dand#8217;and#233;tat by young army officers and an assassination attempt by the ultranationalist War Gods Society jeopardized the tourand#8217;s success. A tale of international intrigue, espionage, attempted murder, and, of course, baseball, Banzai Babe Ruth is the first detailed account of the doomed attempt to reconcile the United States and Japan through the 1934 All American baseball tour. Robert K. Fitts provides a wonderful story about baseball, nationalism, and American and Japanese cultural history.
About the Author
Richard Bradley is the author of the
New York Times bestseller
American Son: A Portrait of John F. Kennedy, Jr. and Harvard Rules: The
Struggle for the Soul of the World's Most Powerful University. His writing
has appeared in The New York Times, Vanity Fair, Rolling
Stone, and The New Republic, and he was the executive editor of
George magazine. Bradley lives in New York City.
Table of Contents
CONTENTS
Introduction One: The Yankee Spring Two: The Top of the First Three: The Boston Spring Four: The Bottom of the First Five: The Season Begins Six: The Second Inning Seven: The Origins of a Rivalry Eight: The Third Inning Nine: Billy Martin Feels the Heat Ten: The Fourth Inning Eleven: Good-Bye for Now Twelve: The Fifth Inning Thirteen: August Fourteen: The Sixth Inning Fifteen: Massacre Sixteen: The Pope Dies, the Sox Live Seventeen: B.F.D. Eighteen: The Eighth Inning Nineteen: Sunday Night Twenty: The Ninth Inning Epilogue Notes Acknowledgments Index