Pirates vs. Yankees, October 13, 1960, by Jim Reisler (Carroll & Graf)
I thought I had addressed this book when it came out, but evidently I was think about Reisler’s previous book, A Great Day in Cooperstown: The Miraculous and Unlikely Beginning of the Baseball Hall of Fame.
To me, “Best” is on a par with “Greatest” and one should be careful in its use. Sure, the seventh game of the ’60 series was one for the books, dramatic and exceedingly happy for a town that had not enjoyed such success in many decades. And I’m sure there are many who witnessed the come-from-behind victory and did decree it as the “best game ever,” a conceit that has been popping up more and more of late.
To be honest, I read this one when it first came out and do not remember details, other than looking at it with suspicion based on Reisler’s previous work. My problem is in the craftsmanship more than the title.
As he did in A Great Day, Reisler makes several egregious factual errors. In A Great Day, the largest commission was attributing a quote to a player purported to be at the opening of the Hall who had been deceased long before the event.
Several reviews I’ve read on this book forgive Reisler and his editors the typos and over-sentimentality, but my philosophy is that if these are errors we’ve caught, what have we missed? What are we taking on faith versus what is not true (see the dead man’s quote above)? Perhaps I’m being overly harsh? I must be, since it was deemed worthy of consideration as a finalist for Spitball Magazine‘s Casey Award, but that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Other reviews for The Best Game Ever:
- PopMatters.com
- Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Nov. 11, 2007
- From the NY Times Papercut blog, Feb. 4, 2008, on the whole “greatest/best” debate
is available on Amazon.com,
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