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(More customer reviews)This book would be a PERFECT GIFT for a ten-year old boy who might need prodding to read more. That's not to say that it is not also a fine read for a grownup, but just that it occurred to me it is an engaging intro to sports writing from somebody who is a great storyteller.
New England baseball fans are in special league, since the winters are so long the people need something to do. And so there is this element of passing the time by sharing sports stories which get magnified more and more as the winter progresses. I think this has a lot to do with the special lore of the Red Sox - for many years the Red Sox may not have been associated with winning, but at least they were associated with *summer*, at times a distant memory for the six-state region.
The author of this book has been a sports announcer with a regular radio show in Fitchburg, Massachusetts for many years. Listeners in that area will recognize his baritone voice and his sense of humor along with a passion for baseball trivia. He's a very straightforward interviewer Mr. Pallotta has interviewed many of the current Red Sox players (after all, Fitchburg is firmly part of Red Sox Nation) over the last twenty years and he replays the radio pieces over the winter ( New England has what is called the Hot Stove League, we can't play baseball year round up there!)
Anyway, the premise of this book is simple: a dozen or so major league games which were nothing special at the time, or at least expected to be a typical game, and then something strange happened that put that game, and the players who were there, into the record books. In some cases the players involved may have had only one or two games in the Bigs, but left something in the record books. In that respect, "One Day in Mudville" is a sort of "Ripley's Believe it or Not" of baseball.
For any true Red Sox fan, Mr. Pallotta included the story of the pitcher whose errant toss effectively ended Tony Congliaro's career in 1967, a dark day in the history of Boston.
Mr. Pallotta did some research for this book which involved finding the players involved, in some cases many years later, and interviewing them about the events. His story of tracking them down, and learning about their lives in the intervening years, is part of the fun.
I have read many of the memoirs of ball players or umpires, some written by the player them selves, others ghost written, and this stands up there with the best of them, I think it would have been a mainstream best seller if the author had been a major league player himself, because the style is very engaging. Anyway, its a great way to look at baseball trivia without getting into derivative statistics, and I recommend this book.
Click Here to see more reviews about: One Day In Mudville: A Look at Some of the Most Unique Baseball Games of All Time
When you read "One Day in Mudville" you realize that in baseball, history occurs when you least expect it. "One Day in Mudville" is a book that details some of the most unique games in the history of baseball. In 1965, a legendary player came out of retirement at the age of 59 to play a game in the majors. Learn who he was in this book. Find out why a baseball legend hit a home run and decided to run around the bases backwards! Who was the pitcher who once struck out 21 batters in one game? And how about the pitcher who hurled a no-hitter and hit two home runs in the same game? There was once a home run hitting outfielder who came into a game to pitch, and then won the game! And an owner who made himself the manager one day. Not to mention a 33 inning game. And so much more. The book chronicles 22 games, all of them unique in some way. The fans who saw these games, could never have predicted the history they would see. Some of the games are funny, some tragic, some poignant. All of them are unique. Box scores and play by play included. "One Day in Mudville" is your box seat to some of the most interesting games in baseball history.
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