Bottom of the 33rd

Hope and Redemption in Baseball's Longest Game

By: Dan Barry

Narrated by: Dan Barry

Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins

Publisher's summary

On April 18, 1981, a ball game sprang eternal. What began as a modestly attended minor-league game between the Pawtucket Red Sox and the Rochester Red Wings became not only the longest ever played in baseball history, but something else entirely. The first pitch was thrown after dusk on Holy Saturday, and for the next eight hours, the night seemed to suspend its participants between their collective pasts and futures, between their collective sorrows and joys - the ballplayers; the umpires; Pawtucket's ejected manager, peering through a hole in the backstop; the sportswriters and broadcasters; a few stalwart fans shivering in the cold.

With Bottom of the 33rd, celebrated New York Times journalist Dan Barry has written a lyrical meditation on small-town lives, minor-league dreams, and the elements of time and community that conspired one fateful night to produce a baseball game seemingly without end. Bottom of the 33rd captures the sport's essence: the purity of purpose, the crazy adherence to rules, the commitment of both players and fans.

This genre-bending book, a reportorial triumph, portrays the myriad lives held in the night's unrelenting grip. Consider, for instance, the team owner determined to revivify a decrepit stadium, built atop a swampy bog, or the batboy approaching manhood, nervous and earnest, or the umpire with a new family and a new home, or the wives watching or waiting up, listening to a radio broadcast slip into giddy exhaustion. Consider the small city of Pawtucket itself, its ghosts and relics, and the players, two destined for the Hall of Fame (Cal Ripken and Wade Boggs), a few to play only briefly or forgettably in the big leagues, and the many stuck in minor-league purgatory, duty bound and loyal to the game.

An unforgettable portrait of ambition and endurance, Bottom of the 33rd is the rare sports book that changes the way we perceive America's pastime, and America's past.

©2011 Dan Barry (P)2011 HarperCollins Publishers

The Mysticism of Baseball

This was the single best baseball book I've ever read. The level of detail for each participant in the longest game ever - from players, to owners, to listeners, to the press, to the stadium staff, and the fans who stuck it out on a cold April day - is unrivaled in any other account. I appreciate the audio effect to make the lines from the radio broadcast sound like they are from the radio itself. An amazing tour of prose and magic surrounding an otherwise meaningless minor league game if not for time standing still one Easter Sunday.

Too much fluff

I love baseball books. I was intrigued by the story. I’m fact, the part of the book about the actual game was pretty good. The problem: two thirds of this 8 hour story is unrelated - or barely related- to the game. The author goes into the minutia and minutia of minutia about any and every possible detail and side detail. And my least favorite: the author’s attempt to turn this story into a Field of Dreams type classic by piling on adjectives in a failed attempt to make the text sound like literature rather than what this is- an interesting baseball game.

So the decision to read this book is a dilemma…If you can slog your way through the painful attempts of the author to wax poetic every other sentence, and if you can get through the typically boring side stories that dominate the book with a diarrhea of details, the actual description of the baseball game and some of the directly related side stories, which are at best 1/3 I’d the book, are actually the result of a lot of research and make for an interesting and well written story.

good look at a game and minor league baseball

This book is the story of that epic 33 inning baseball game in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Even more, it is a profile of a city and its minor league baseball team. It profiles so many (players, coaches, announcers, batboys, owners, etc.) who participated in that game. And it captures the highs and lows of trying to make it in minor league baseball. I enjoyed this book, but must confess that I am the perfect reader for it. I love baseball, I am a big Red Sox fan, I have lived in Rhode Island, and I have a family member working his way up through minor league professional sports. I found every aspect of this interesting - both the sports stuff and the human interest part. It is well written. The epic game itself takes up less of this book than the backgrounds (past and future) of the people.

Too Expensive

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

I would recommend the book, but not the audio version. Maybe if I understood baseball better the audio would have been easier to follow.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Bottom of the 33rd?

humm

Did Dan Barry do a good job differentiating all the characters? How?

fiar

Do you think Bottom of the 33rd needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

no

Any additional comments?

none

A Special Baseball Story

wonderfully narrated. woven nuggets of history of each player masterfully included in the box score events of the game. well done.

Great baseball book

If you could sum up Bottom of the 33rd in three words, what would they be?

baseball, history,

What did you like best about this story?

The story, slow at first but give it time you will be hooked

Which scene was your favorite?

The reunion,

Any additional comments?

I am not a huge baseball fan, but I grew up on the Cardinals, so I appreciate the game, and its players, coaches, etc. What was important was the behind the scene story.

A great book, baseball fan or not!

This book was a pleasure to listen to from beginning to end. The format was outstanding as he would give a short narrative of the pertinent action and then go on to give short biographies of a player who figured prominently in the action of that inning. These ranged from the owner, the general manager, that manager, the publicist, the radio broadcaster all the way to some of the fans at the game, and of course Hall of Famers Cal Ripken Jr. and Wade Boggs.

My only problem with the book was that the author sometimes tried to hearken back to the 1920's-1930's style of baseball writing that was overly flowery. For example, he drifted into obsessively calling the baseball a "white orb" for stretches of the book. But this was not enough to overcome the otherwise outstanding writing.

You do not need to be a baseball fan to enjoy this book. He explains EVERYTHING (it has been a long time since I have heard an intentional walk not only described, but the strategy explained), but he was going into his writing assuming that the listener/reader does not know about baseball and I would rather have that than someone who assumes that terminology is understood if I don't know about it.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone looking for insights into a game that can too easily be thought of as a million "Trivial Pursuit" questions. It showed the diversity of the individuals involved and how their lives became intertwined by this one event that they all experienced.

Outstanding!

Whether you’re a baseball fanatic or not, you’ll find a lot to love in this beautifully written tale of strugglers and strivers chasing their dreams. It reads like a novel made up of linked short stories, but one that is backed by extensive and impeccable reporting. “We are creatures conditioned to run towards the light no matter how dim.” Yes, indeed.

Beautiful Stories

The author is a NYT reporter and nails a million different perspectives on a game in a dead New England town on a frigid night. The players- career minor leaguers, Cal Ripken Jr, bench warmers, Boggs, umpires, ballboys, owners, fans, wives, the town.. everything is covered

A Baseball Classic - entire family loved it!!!

Would you consider the audio edition of Bottom of the 33rd to be better than the print version?

Yes - hearing Dan Barry tell it, makes the story come alive… right down to his New England accent.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

Baseball Americana - heart-warming, authentic and magical - the amazing story of how the right group of people and circumstances came together in one moment in time to create baseball's longest game.

Any additional comments?

Fantastic book about a bunch of guys, their love of baseball, the reality of playing in the minors… and how their lives all intersected one evening in McCoy Stadium in Pawtucket, Rhode Island which made them famous… sort of. Heart-warming, authentic and magical. My entire family loved listening to this book.

You can hear the crack of the bat, the crowd's ups and downs throughout, and most of all, get into the minds of some great players and locals and their everyday lives.

Baseball Americana.