The Boston Red Sox : 100 Years -- The Official Retrospective [Hardcover]

The Sporting News (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2001

100 years of incredible Red Sox history comes alive with The Boston Red Sox, an officially licensed book of Major League Baseball. FEATURES: Green Monster – The most famous fence in the Majors; The all-time starting nine; The Rivalry; The Yankees vs. the Red Sox; 1967, Yaz’s year and the wild ride to the World Series; Fenway Park; The great years: 1903 – 1918; The unforgettables, including Ted Williams’ season-ending doubleheader; Red Sox characters – Luis Tiant and Tony Conigliaro – and others; Embossed Dust Jacket, shrink-wrapped.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

There are few if any bonds in sports that weave as deeply into the fabric of a culture as the tie that binds the Red Sox and New England. It hardly suffices to call followers of the Red Sox "fans". For a New Englander, following the Red Sox is a way of life, passed from generation to generation, a father handing the torch to his son in a ritual conducted regularly at the quaint, little ballpark at One Yawkey Way. Cy Young played there, and so did the Babe, the Grey Eagle, Teddy BallGame, Yaz, Pudge, the Rocket. New Englanders don't know these Fenway heroes from the Baseball Encylcopedia; the tales are passed down in the family as first-hand knowledge. A New Englander can attest to a great grandfather who actually saw Smoky Joe Wood throw harder than Walter Johnson--or another relative who watched Willie Tasby take off his spikes while playing center field during a storm for fear of being electrocuted.

It was oh-so-easy to be a Red Sox follower in the beginning. Launched 100 years ago as part of the newly formed American League, the team won five of the first 15 World Series. The Red Sox were the best baseball team in the world, playing in a jewel of a ballpark, citizens of "the thinking center of the continent, and therefore, of the planet," according to Oliver Wendell Holmes. Only an outsider could ruin this, and indeed a New York entrepreneur named Harry Frazee bought the Red Sox, found himself in need of cash to finance a Broadway play, and sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees in 1920.

Entering the 2001 season, the Red Sox had yet to win another World Series. They have been to the Series four times since the end of World War II, and lost each time in the seventh game. Such agony and pain would drive away mere fans. But there are no fans in Red Sox Nation--only New Englanders who are carrying on a rite of passage.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: Sporting News; 1st edition (October 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0892046775
• ISBN-13: 978-0892046775
• Product Dimensions: 11.4 x 10.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #628,346 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Pretty Thin Gruel, October 20, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Boston Red Sox : 100 Years -- The Official Retrospective (Hardcover)

Nice pictures make this coffee table book attractive to flip through the first couple of times, but the writing is mostly sanitized filler that doesn't tell much you haven't read elsewhere and better and at less than 200 pages the book is a bit less than advertised. There are four or five other Red Sox books out there that give much more bang for the buck: "Fenway" has better photos, as do a number of Ted Williams' books, "Red Sox Century" has many more pictures and tells the definitive history, "Tales from the Red Sox Dugout" has all the anecdotes. Basically, a Red Sox Lite book for fans who don't like to read. If you must have all things Red Sox and already have everything else, get it, otherwise there are better choices.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The Boston Red Sox: 100 Years--The Official Retrospective, October 31, 2001

By 

Rick Z. - Diehard Red Sox Fan in Chicago (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Boston Red Sox : 100 Years -- The Official Retrospective (Hardcover)

The above review nails this book on the mark. Excellent pictures, but the writing leaves something to be desired. There are nice charts/graphs/timelines, however. Definitely NOT a definitive history of the Red Sox, but a nice addition if you have a Red Sox library of books.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Grew Up a BoSox Brat, April 4, 2002

By 

J. Peterson "Drivingjack" (Folsom, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Boston Red Sox : 100 Years -- The Official Retrospective (Hardcover)

Let me add my 2¢ (for 2 stars). The pictures are great, only it would have been nice to know WHO the pictures were of. I thought it would be a 100 year history, but I was wrong. What they wrote about was informative, heart-tugging and interesting. There just wasn't enough of it to justify the subtitle "100 years. The Official Retrospective."