Game Six

Game Six

Eleven years before the famous “Game Six” between the New York Mets and Boston Red Sox in 1986, there was another “Game Six,” still considered by many to be the greatest World Series game ever played. Now writer Mark Frost tells the on-the-field and behind-the-scenes stories of this remarkable contest. Boston, Tuesday, October 21, 1975. The Red Sox and the Cincinnati Reds had endured an excruciating three-day rain delay, before finally taking the field in the sixth game of a World Series that Cincinnati’s “Big Red Machine” was leading three games to two. What followed was baseball drama at its finest—full of clutch hitting, heart-stopping defensive plays and dramatic shifts of momentum, climaxed by one of the most famous home runs in baseball history. Game Six provides a gripping inning-by-inning, batter-by-batter account of this great game, and introduces us to its cast of some of the biggest names in baseball history—including Johnny Bench, Luis Tiant, Sparky Anderson, Pete Rose and Boston legend Carl Yastrzemski. Frost captures the human drama that played out on the field that night, giving us the back stories of many of these legends, from George Anderson’s beginnings as a bat boy for the USC baseball team and his days as a minor leaguer (where his feisty temperament earned him the nickname “Sparky”) to the humble beginnings of All-Star pitcher Luis Tiant, whose first games as a boy in Cuba were played with a ball made out of a stone that was wrapped in newspaper, surrounded by a smashed cigarette box, and then covered in Band-Aids. In Game Six, we also meet the large cast of supporting players—including sportscasters and network executives, cameramen, groundskeepers, umpires, politicians and, of course, fans—who gathered at Fenway Park on that historic night. We get a healthy dose of baseball history, including the origins of the two leagues and these two storied franchises. And we learn how this World Series marked the end of an era: baseball’s reserve clause was about to be struck down. Frost explains in detail the history and function of the clause, a restrictive, almost medieval provision that allowed teams to retain their rights to any player for a year after their contract expired. This meant one-year contracts, no bargaining power for the players and an average major-league salary in 1975 of $45,000. But two months after the ‘75 Series, an arbitrator ended the century-long reign of the reserve clause, giving birth to free agency and changing American sports forever. Drawing on numerous interviews with those who were there, Game Six tells the compelling story of an unforgettable Fall Classic on the brink of the modern, multi-million-dollar-salary era of our national pastime.

Hardcover: 416 pages

Publisher: Hyperion, Walt Disney ( September 22, 2009 )

Item #: 14-2915

ISBN: 9781401323103

Product Dimensions: 6.125 x 9.25 x 0.98 inches

Product Weight: 20.0 ounces