The Machine by Joe Posnanski - C-

The Machine:  A Hot Team, a Legendary Season, and a Heart-stopping World Series: The Story of the 1975 Cincinnati Reds by Joe Posnanski.

I know no one will read much further than this (if they even got this far), but I digress.

If I recommended books based on nostalgia alone, you'd be looking at an A+. The summer of 1975 wasn't the best for me personally. I was 8 years old, and I spent 13 days in Children's Hospital in August. The magical season of the Reds was something that a kid that age could hold onto, though. I remember where I was when the first Reds lineup of 1975 featuring Pete Rose at Third Base was announced. You know how some people think of characters on tv as their friends? Well, Pete, Joe, Johnny, George, Tony, Ken, Davey and Cesar were my friends that summer. 1975 was special for me, and it was special for the whole city of Cincinnati.

All that being said, this isn't a good book. If you are too young to remember the Big Red Machine, you will probably enjoy the book because many of you think of Pete Rose as the guy who bet on baseball and Joe Morgan as the guy who does Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN and Johnny Bench as the a**hole he is now (and was then). You may not even know who Cesar Geronimo is or that Ken Griffey Senior was actually pretty good or that, if Sparky Anderson hadn't given George Foster some PT, Foster never would have hit those 52 HRs in 1977 when "52 home runs" really meant something.

The problem with The Machine is that there's really nothing new here. Mr. Posnanski tells a story in his Afterward about getting pulled over for speeding in Indiana while doing research for the book. The police officer sees all these books on the Big Red Machine in the back seat and asks what that's all about. Mr. Posnanski says that he's researching for a book on the 1975 Reds and got off with a warning.

Well, maybe I've read all of those books he had in his back seat. Because, again, there's nothing new here. I could have written a book ALMOST as good and comprehensive without interviewing a single person. And I, unlike Mr. Posnanski (who is the same age as I am), don't travel in sports writing circles.

Maybe there will be something new in Game Six. I had planned to read one right after the other, but I don't have the strength. Maybe after the World Series.

Remember, Reading is Fundamental.