Book-a-Day Review: Ten Innings at Wrigley

Ten Innings at Wrigley: The Wildest Ballgame Ever, with Baseball on the Brink, by Kevin Cook (Henry Holt, 2019)

Wildest ever?

Baseball on the brink?

It’s this type of hyperbole that has made a skeptic out of a trusting young lad.

Wild, certainly, the way this 1979 contest between the Philadelphia Phillies and Chicago Cubs went back and forth from the very first inning, when the visitors scored seven, a number that might dishearten their opponent. Brink? Certainly there were labor issues, but that happens from time to time.

The courageous Cubbies stormed back from that early deficit with six tallies of their own in the bottom of the frame. And so it went, improbably going into extra innings before the Fightin’ Phils prevailed, taking the contest 23-22 in 10. Both teams combined for 50 hits, including 11 home runs, three by Chicago slugger Dave Kingman.

But the actual game is just part of the story. Cook — whose previous baseball title, Electric October: Seven World Series Games, Six Lives, Five Minutes of Fame That Lasted Forever, is similarly hyperbolic — follows several key players from that May game over the latter parts of their careers, and most do not have happy endings, such as Kingman’s rocky relationship with the media; Bill Buckner’s blooper against the NY Mets in Game Six of the 1986 World Series; and doomed Donnie Moore, who gave up a game-losing homer to Buckner’s Boston Red Sox in the ALCS that year.

Think of Ten Innings as a newspaper story on steroids, which, of course, is the beauty of books: there’s ample opportunity for a deep dive into the thoughts of the participants as they call up fond (for the winners) and not-so-fond (losers) memories. But just taking part in that entertaining and frustrating game.

Tagged as: Chicago Cubs, Chicago Cubs Philadelphia Phillies