Baseball’s Grand (and not-so-grand) Finales, by Bill Chuck and Jim Kaplan (Acta Sports, 2008).
Interesting in concept, but falling short on execution, the authors no doubt wanted to convey the feelings of exhilaration (for the winners) and agony (for the losers).
Chuck and Kaplan (no relation) lead off with a chapter on pennant races and, to be sure, include the memorable down-to-the-wire battles. But others don’t seem to belong. For example, they note, albeit briefly, the three-game sweep of the Orioles over the Twins in the 1969 AL Championship Series (the first scheduled post-season affair to decide the pennant winner), but make no mention of the Mets-Braves games. Since the Orioles were such heavy favorites throughout the post-season, one might imagine the NLCS, in which the New Yorkers appeared after a “lifetime” of ineptitude, would be the source of more drama. Even after they defeated the heavy-hitting Braves, there’s no mention of their underdog victory over the Orioles in five games for the World Championship. And four years later, the Mets improbably beat the Big Red Machine (again, no mention) to face the Oakland A’s in the Fall Classic. The series went the full seven games, but there’s barely a mention of it, other than to note that reliever Darold Knowles appeared in each game, a fact that merits all of two sentences. Why bother? Knowles’ feta was not particularly heroic or dramatic.
The comments about the 2004 Yankees-Red Sox ALCS bears examination. After pinch runner Brian Roberts stole a base in the bottom of the ninth, they write, “Red Sox Nation knew their team would become the first to rally from three games down in a postseason series and go all they way.” Really. They collectively “knew” the team, which had been a colossal disappointment for almost 90 years, with numerous heartbreaking defeats along the way, would win eight consecutive games. Or did they mean four straight against the Yankees? Either way….
Further, the reader is told he “can’t imagine the joy, the elation throughout New England, maybe the world” this event engendered. More than, say, the end of World War II or man walking on the moon? It’s this kind of hyperbole that reduces otherwise serious sports content to the category of children’s literature.
They also include chapters on perfect games, being sure to list the batter who made the final out in each to fit into their theme, and the circumstances surrounding the end of various streaks, including Joe DiMaggio’s hitting streak, Orel Hershiser’s scoreless innings mark; and Cal Ripken games-played. (They also feel compelled to note pitcher Doug Minton’s homerless games, Darren Lewis’ errorless game, Joe Sewell’s strikeout-free at bats, Cecil Fielder’s games without a stole base, among others; absent is Anthony Young’s consecutive losing game mark.)
A nice feature is the final game played in all the defunct major league stadiums, but in the same “Final Outs” section, they discuss “Final Goodbyes” — the deaths of ballplayers during the season.
Walkoffs walks off with “Hall of Fame Farewells” and the appropriately-named “The Last Chapter,” in which they offer the answers to what are several trivia questions (and you have to admit, “the only” by definition includes “the last,” if a semantical).
Overall, this book — well-meaning and with quality authors — is a disappointment. Rather than writing detailed accounts of some of these major events, they go for quantity rather than quality, dropping in information that doesn’t necessarily work (Larsen’s perfect game in the ’56 World Series, although one of the highlights of the sport, was does not fit in the title’s “mission statement.” Chuck and Kaplan try to be too much to too many and will probably end up being too little to too few.
is available on Amazon.com,
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