Baseball's Biggest Bloopers: The Games That Got Away [Hardcover]

Dan Gutman (Author)

Book Description

A collection of baseball quotes and bloopers recounts the story of the 1912 dropped fly ball, Bill Buckner's bungling of an easy grounder in the 1986 World Series, and the most famous mistake in baseball history.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: Viking Juvenile (April 1, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670846031
• ISBN-13: 978-0670846030
• Product Dimensions: 20 x 20 x 20 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,721,234 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

This is hard. I'm a pretty regular Jersey guy who spent fifteen years trying to write newspaper articles, magazine articles, screenplays, books for adults, and just about everything else before I discovered the one thing I'm good at--writing fiction for kids. I aim for kids who DON'T like to read, and hopefully the kids who DO like to read will enjoy my stuff too. For all the gory details about me, check out my web site.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Baseball's Biggest Bloopers The Games That Got Away, February 4, 2002

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Baseball's Biggest Bloopers: The Games that Got Away (Paperback)

I read the book Baseball's Biggest Bloopers The Games That Got Away by Dan Gutman. This book was about players that blew it big time! Many of thwe games lost the World Series for the team. But somtimes it just lost the game and the team came back and won the Series. In this book there are 12 humiliating stories that will make even you, fell bad for the players. My favorite story was Herb Washington Designated Pick-Off Victim. It was about an olympic runner that was taken to the Oakland A's. When he got to the Statdium he didn't even know how to play baseball, and teh A's tought him how to paly and then n one game he got picked-off. I would recommend this book to anyone that likes baseball or any sports.

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must for baseball fans, March 29, 2000

By 

Anthony Soriente (USA/New York City/Queens/South Ozone Park) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Baseball's Biggest Bloopers: The Games that Got Away (Paperback)

Baseball is a tough sport to play sometimes. Many times players make mistakes called bloopers. These bloopers you see in almost every game. Sometimes they cost a regular game, a pennant, or to make it worse the world series! This book has tons of it. It talks about players who mess up the game so bad they have the rest of their life to think what they did wrong! You will enjoy this book so much that once you done reading, you can't stop! So buy this book. It's called Baseballs biggest bloopers the games that got away. This will be one of the greatest baseball books you will ever get!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars So, other people make mistakes, too? Not just me?, December 27, 2005

By 

Theodore (Ventura, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Baseball's Biggest Bloopers: The Games that Got Away (Paperback)

We all make mistakes and if you love baseball and if you enjoy hearing about how other people made bigger mistakes than you ever will - mistakes that cost World Series titles - then Dan Gutman has written a book for you.

"Baseball's Biggest Bloopers" is a pleasure to read, because "Biggest Bloopers" reviews the charming history of twelve (12) major league mistakes in baseball's past, provides follow-up information so that we know the mistake-makers recovered and lived a happy and productive life, and prepares us to expect mistakes in the future that could cost us and our friends a lot of money - and to not get excessively upset about it. Gutman refreshingly writes in the introduction, "Even the best in the world screw up now and then. Nobody's perfect. Mistakes are a part of life. We're only human. The greatest players in the game make mistakes" (p. x).

A person might object and say that there are only 12 mistakes reviewed in the book and the history of baseball clearly has a bunch more. My response is to say that while it is pleasurable to read about another person's major blunders and to learn how he humbly admitted his mistake and laughed it off, the chapters deal with tragic experiences that can bum a person out. So thankfully Gutman includes only twelve.

Gutman's "Biggest Bloopers" makes a perfect birthday or Christmas gift, since his book is easy to read, gives touching and personal information about the "goats" who blew major games, has a handy review of stats and baseball history at the end of each chapter and contains vintage photographs of early baseball players.