From Publishers Weekly
Sportswriter Shaughnessy, whose bestselling
Curse of the Bambino chronicled the Boston Red Sox's interminable World Serie drought, now follows the team's happy trails, portraying its colorful characters, false starts, stumbles and eventual triumphs during the 2004 season. The story keeps rounding back to the relationship between the Red Sox and the Yankees, which Shaugnessy compares to the relationship of the "USA-USSR, circa early 1960s." But there's more to the story than just the team's rivalry with the Yankees, and the book maintains a nice balance of on-the-field reports and behind-the-scenes drama. Shaugnessy, a
Boston Globe columnist who gained access to the team's players and managers, focuses on some of the main actors in this soap opera: Theo Epstein, the boy-genius general manager; Pedro Martinez, the enigmatic pitcher; Manny Ramirez, the talented-but-lackadaisical outfielder; and Johnny Damon, the "Jesus action figure" center fielder. Shaughnessy's top-notch reporting and dry wit put this honest, entertaining work near the top of the list of this spring's baseball books. Two eight-page photo inserts not seen by
PW.
(Mar. 30) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Book Description
For nearly a century, the Boston Red Sox played the underdog to the indomitable New York Yankees in what ESPN named the number-one sports rivalry of all time. But in 2004 the snakebitten Sox finally got their revenge. After Aaron Boone's history-making Homeric blast, which sent the Red Sox packing in October 2003, and the infamous deal that put A-Rod, baseballs highest-paid player, in pinstripes, the age-old rivalry escalated to dizzying new heights. The result was a season in which a plucky team of comeback kids improbably brought down the House That Ruth Built and went on to right eighty-six years of jinxed history by winning Boston's first World Series since 1918. From right on the frontlines, from the front office to the bleachers, Dan Shaughnessy goes inside to chronicle this unforgettable journey, revealing how a self-described band of "idiots" was able to accomplish what eighty-five teams before it couldn't -- or didn't. We witness the colorful antics of baseballs best-known stars, the dramatic play on the field punctuated by bench-clearing brawls, and the cold war-style battle being waged behind the scenes. We sit alongside young Theo Epstein as he tries to settle in to one of baseball's most scrutinized jobs. We watch with the Red Sox brass into the wee hours of the night as the Yankees come almost unbearably close (again) to squashing Sox dreams. We join the players on the wild ride to redemption, replete with Jesus in the outfield, a lunar eclipse, and a bloodied sock on the mound. We also come to understand in an intimate way what its like to be caught up in all of this as a fan. With lively reporting, penetrating insight, and a keen sense of history, Shaughnessy brings the 2004 season alive in all its glory, drama, and euphoria, definitively recounting a sports saga that will long be etched in the minds and hearts of baseball fans around the world.
See all Editorial Reviews
(9)
(58)
(38)
