Book Review: "Bottom of the 33rd"

Shortly after 8:00 PM on April 18, 1981, the night before Easter Sunday, in Pawtucket, RI, the Rochester Red Wings and Pawtucket Red Sox squared off in what everyone thought was just another insignificant early season Triple-A minor league baseball game. About 1,700 fans showed up on this cold and windy night in decrepit McCoy Stadium, little knowing what they were in for.

Over eight hours and 32 innings later, the 2-2 ball game was suspended (why it took so long to suspend the game, is a key part of the story), long after it has passed into history as professional baseball's longest game. Two months, one inning, and 18 minutes later, the game was completed. Dan Barry writes a compelling story about "Hope, Redemption, and Baseball's Longest Game." It is not a dry play-by-play summary of the game, and thank God for that, but it is the story of all of the people who were involved in that game - the players, managers, bat boys, front office officials, club house boys, umpires, players' wives, broadcasters and reporters, and the 28 shivering fans who remained in the stadium when the came was finally suspended. The reader becomes involved with these people and becomes drawn into the surreal atmosphere that surrounded this game.

What I liked about the book is how Barry told the story of these men by reviewing both their pasts and what the future held for them. For example, three teammates on that Pawtucket team were pitchers Bobby Ojeda, Bruce Hurst, and catcher Rich Gedman. Five years later, all three played in the 1986 World Series. Baseball fans all know of the crushing nature of the Red Sox loss to the Mets in that Series, and the scene where the Sox' Hurst and Gedman went to the Mets locker room to congratulate Ojeda, now a Met, painted a most poignant scene of the bond created, not only by the 33 inning game, but by minor league experience itself.

Two future Hall of Famers played in that game Cal Ripken, Jr. (2-for-13) for Rochester and Wade Boggs (4-for 12) for Pawtucket. Players like Hurst, Gedman, Ojeda, and Marty Barrett went on to have good major league careers. Some appeared in the majors for the proverbial cup of coffee, while others never got the coveted call to The Show. One player went 0-for-13 for Rochester and one went 0-for-11 for Pawtucket. One pitcher pitched 10 innings of scoreless ball in relief. And for all you Pirates fans out there, the father of current Bucs' reliever Jason Grilli, Steve Grilli, pitched in that game.

One thing that impressed me above all else is how HARD it is to make it into the Major Leagues. This is embodied in one of the key persons of the game, Pawtucket first baseman Dave Koza. Koza was a home run hitter with one fatal flaw - he could not hit a major league curve ball. How he dedicated his life to become a big league ball player, how that call never came, and what has happened to him in the thirty years since that 33 inning game is an almost Shakespearean tale. So, when you are watching a major league baseball game, and screaming that So-and-So out there on the field stinks, be very sure that the guy you are excoriating is a very good baseball player.

(As an aside, when I read about Dave Koza, I thought about Matt Hague, the first baseman at Indianapolis who hit a lot of home runs last year and for whom many Pirates fans have been clamoring. Hague didn't get the September call up by the Pirates last year, and he is barely mentioned by the team in the pre-season ruminations. Perhaps there is a good reason for that.)

I imagine that only baseball fans will read this book, and that's a shame, because it really is about a lot more than baseball. It is a great read for everybody.

Many thanks to two Loyal Readers, both named Bill, for recommending this book too me!