This is a baseball book by Charles Euchner. It’s the story of the last nine innings of the 2001 World Series between the New York Yankees and the Arizona Diamondbacks. Each chapter is an inning unto itself. Baseball people love baseball for what it has to offer in the spaces in between the action. Non-baseball people say the game is too slow. I’m a baseball guy, sometimes I find myself muttering, “baseball, baseball, baseball” under my breath. But this book is slow, long, & drawn out. There are problems with the facts, the author places rightfielders Paul O’Neill & Danny Bautista in leftfield and at least five typos I found. If the author had read his own book, I’m sure Euchner would have caught his errors. I had a problem with Euchner referring to Randy Johnson as a stud, while saying Scott Karl was a dud. Any player who makes it to the majors is not a dud! There was one theory the author brought to the forefront that there was no difference between balls put in play off Randy Johnson and Scott Karl, that more balls are put into play off Karl, and that’s why Karl allows more basehits than Johnson. Ridiculous! Good pitchers also control the balls put in play by where the balls come off the bat. On the upside, this book is an easy read and I found myself turning the pages to find out what happened. I recently turned 50 and sometimes have trouble remembering details. I also enjoyed learning about Steve Finley’s conditioning routine, it was far from the same old, same old.
I enjoyed the book, even though I noticed the same errors you did. I wrote a review on my baseball blog site and sent you a trackback ping to it.