Aside from the obvious play on words, I was interested in this book as it is a recap of a season I remember well, even if my favorite team had a bad year in 1980. Here is my review of "Phinally!"
Title/Author:
“Phinally! The Phillies, the Royals and the 1980 Baseball Season That
Almost Wasn’t” by J. Daniel
Tags:
Baseball, history, Royals, Phillies
Publish date:
November 8, 2018
Length:
220 pages
Rating:
5 of 5 stars (outstanding)
Review:
The 1980 baseball season was memorable for many reasons, both on and off
the field. The two biggest stories were
the labor troubles that nearly resulted in a strike during the season in May
and the first championship in the history of the Philadelphia Phillies. Those stories and many more are captured in
this excellent baseball history book by J. Daniel.
Something that sets this book apart from other books that tell the
history of one year or season is that while the best teams from that year like
the Phillies, Kansas City Royals and Houston Astros get their share of space, every
other team is covered as well. Teams
that struggled that year such as the Minnesota Twins and Toronto Blue Jays are
also mentioned. For example, the Twins
had a player enjoy a 31 game hitting streak (Ken Landreaux) that was covered as
well as the resignation in August of long time major league manager Gene
Mauch. Even noteworthy items such as
these for losing teams are often ignored in similar books and including them in
this one gave it an aura of completeness.
Of course, even with this coverage of all teams, the Phillies and Royals,
the two teams who met in a competitive World Series that year, received the
most amount of ink, and Daniel does a good job of covering both teams. He included not only their team accomplishments
and a game-by-game recap of their postseason results, but also includes
individual accomplishments such as Phillies pitcher Steve Carlton winning his
third Cy Young and Royals third baseman George Brett winning the American
League batting title by hitting .390 – which today is still the highest average
for a player since 1941.
The writing is crisp and easy to read, the information comprehensive but
not too densely packed and the stories range from very serious to downright
funny. In short, this book has
everything a baseball fan interested in that season or that era would want to
know or relive. Phillies fans would
especially enjoy this book as they either remember the joy they felt when they
saw their team “phinally” win it all or will learn about that joy from this
book if they are too young to remember.
I wish to thank McFarland and Company for providing a copy of the book in
exchange for an honest review.
Book Format Read:
E-book (PDF)
Buying Links:
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