Review of “Miracle on Grass”

While Americans were celebrating the 40th anniversary of the “Miracle on Ice” in February, this year marks the 20th anniversary of another unexpected USA gold medal. In 2000, the USA Olympic baseball team composed of mostly minor league players, shocked Cuba to win the gold medal. This book chronicles their adventure to get there. Here is my review of “Miracle on Grass”

Title/Author:
“Miracle on Grass” by David Fanucchi

Tags:
Baseball, Summer Olympics, championship, history

Length;
328 pages

Rating; 
4 of 5 stars (very good)

Review:

While the 1980 US Olympic Hockey team is fondly remembered for its “Miracle on Ice”, the 2000 US Olympic Baseball team deserves almost as much praise and should be remembered just as much for its own “miracle” when it won a gold medal in Sydney. This book, appropriately titled “Miracle on Grass” does just that.

While baseball may be considered America’s pastime, the US did not have much success in baseball prior to 2000, having not won the gold medal in the two previous Olympic Games when it was a medal sport. USA Baseball vowed to change that, starting with the 1999 Pan American games, where team USA had to finish in the top two in order to secure a spot in the Olympics. Led by Pat Gillick and manager Buddy Bell, that was accomplished.

But after Gillick accepted a front office job with the Seattle Mariners and Bell was named manager of the Colorado Rockies, new blood was needed. It is here, where Team USA names its new leaders, including Sandy Alderson and Hall of Fame manager Tommy Lasorda, where some of the best stories told. Whether it talks about Alderson using “Moneyball” analytics to help determine who will play for Team USA or the stories about Lasorda firing up,the team or vowing to stay in the Olympic Village with his players (that lasted one night), they make for great reading.

Following the baseball, whether it was the players and their careers to that point or stats, or whether it was the game accounts of not only The US team but also those of the other teams in the Games, they were good but read more like newspaper accounts rather than details. The best parts of these games were descriptions of the games in the medal round, especially the win by Team USA over Korea in the semi finals. That almost made the gold medal game against Cuba, both in the book and in the Games themselves, seem anti-climactic. Ben Sheets dominated the Cubans in that game and after he retired the final batter, the reader will feel the same joy Lasorda and his team felt.

Many of the players will be recognizable to serious baseball fans as most of them played in the major leagues after the Games (MLB players did not participate as MLB continued its season during the Olympics). That makes this book a good one for those readers who want to relive the “Miracle on Grass” during its 20th anniversary.