Title/Author:
“Down to
the Last Pitch: How the 1991 Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves Gave Us the
Best World Series of All Time” by Tim Wendel
Tags:
Baseball, history,
Twins, Braves
Publish date:
April 1,
2014
Length:
304 pages
Rating:
3 of 5 stars
(okay)
Review:
The 1991
World Series between the Minnesota Twins and the Atlanta Braves is considered
by many to be the greatest World Series of all time. Five of the seven games
were decided by one run, four of them in extra innings won in walk-off fashion
and all seven games were won by the home team. The Twins had the home field
advantage and thus won the Series and I have been a lifetime Twins fan. So of
course, this is going to be one of the best books I have ever read, correct? Well, this recap by Tim Wendel of not only
that World Series but also much of the 1991 season fell a good deal short of
expectations.
Given the
title, I expected this book to be about that epic World Series, the two teams
and some of the players. The format of seven chapters, one for each game, also
sounded exciting as there would be a full description of each game and maybe
some reflections on the action that took place. I was looking forward to
hearing Mark Lemke and Brian Harper describe the thrilling play that won game
four for the Braves in the 12th inning. Or maybe how Gene Larkin felt when he was
hurting when stepping into the batter’s box in the 10th inning of
game seven? Some of those types of
stories and interviews were in the book, but they were placed between a lot of
pages about players, teams and events that had nothing to do with the 1991 World
Series.
There is
more information about Ricky Henderson and Nolan Ryan in this book than there
is about many of the Twins and Braves players. This is mainly because the
author covered those two players and some other events of the 1991 season for a
brand new publication, Baseball Weekly.
While these are not bad stories (it’s always fun to read about
Henderson, especially when he talks about himself in the third person), I was
disappointed that these stories were placed right in the middle of chapters
about the game and the flow of reading about the World Series games was lost.
This was
even a problem with the passages in which Wendel DID write about the game. A brief story or bio of one of the key
players of the game was placed right in the middle of the game description,
again disrupting the flow of reading the book. I also thought that the format
of some of the chapters made the result anti-climactic. Kirby Puckett’s game
winning homer in the 11th inning of game six, or David Justice’s
game winning run in game three in the 12th inning didn’t seem as
thrilling reading about them after long passages about other topics.
At least
the fact that both the Twins and Braves went from last place to first place in
1991 is prominently mentioned. This would be appropriate, since these other
topics made the book feel more like it was about the entire season across Major
League Baseball, not just this World Series.
Being a Twins fan, I certainly wanted to relive this Series and that kept me reading, No matter how it was constructed, nothing can make me NOT enjoy reading about or watching Larkin bloop that single into left field and drive home Dan Gladden to score the only run of game seven. But as a whole, the book, while decent in the parts that does recap the World Series, was a disappointment to me.
Pace of the book:
It was a
fast moving book despite the sudden change in topics during the middle of
several chapters.
Do I recommend?
Twins and
Braves fans will enjoy the stories from this World Series, as will baseball
fans who want to relive some of the highlights of the 1991 season. Just be prepared to read about a lot of other
information not related to the two teams.
Book Format Read:
E-book
(Kindle)
Buying links:
Sorry you were disappointed but the rush of watching great games is hard to replicate
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