Game Six by Mark Frost - B+++

Now THAT'S a baseball book.

After the disappointment that was The Machine, I was wary of Game Six.  Why did I read The Machine before Game Six?  I assumed that The Machine was about my Reds (and was written by a former Reds beat writer) and that Game Six was written more about the Red Sox (having won Game Six--if I spoiled the ending, this is not the book for you).  Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Listen, I've been reading books on The Big Red Machine since 1975.  Even my wife said to me, "Haven't you read enough about that?"

I gave Game Six a B+++ because I'm never going to get a non-baseball fan to read it.  But if you're a baseball fan, I can't recommend this book highly enough.  Frost packs an incredible amount of history into this book, along with a pitch-by-pitch account of game six of the 1975 World Series.  He discusses the origin of baseball, the world series and the current American and National leagues; labor strife; the advent of free agency; mini-biographies of all of the major and minor players involved in Game Six (Luis Tiant gets much deserved attention); mini-bios of the two managers, Sparky Anderson and Darrell Johnson; and much more (how about how Dick Stockton met his wife, Leslie Visser?).


In addition, Frost shies away from dwelling on some of the more provocative story lines taking place after 1975--like Pete Rose's banishment from baseball.  Like all of the other significant players, Pete's post-1975 life is chronicled (his 44 game hit streak in 1978, becoming the hit king and, yes, his gambling and banishment), but Frost doesn't make Pete's future "the story."

And, if you ever asked yourself the question, "Hey, whatever happened to Pat Darcy?"--the answer is here.

Again, I strongly recommend this book to any baseball fan--young or old, Reds fan, Red Sox fan, fan of neither team.

It may be a couple of weeks before I finish my next book, "Under the Dome."  I started it last night after finishing Game Six, but it is almost 1,100 pages.  I'll find some filler to blog this week.

A good book is better than a stick in the eye.