Bottom of the 33rd

Hope and Redemption in Baseball's Longest Game

De: Dan Barry

Narrado por: Dan Barry

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

I love baseball

Oh, what a game! It was fun to listen to the details of this game, played by 3A teams from Rhode Island and New York in 1981. It was very interesting to learn a little bit about the lives of some of the players, some who made it to major league, and more who did not. I grew up with a father and brothers who were crazy about baseball, so I learned a lot about it at an early age. Some people stake their whole life's dreams on making it in professional sports, but when it comes right down to it, it is a game. There are lots of really great things to spend your life doing other than pro sports. Yeh, the money one could make from playing pro sports would allow you to help a whole lot of people, but really, you are not a failure if the highest rung you ever achieve in baseball is 3A. How many people even get that far?

Anyway, I liked it a lot and learned a lot too. Me, I'm a Cubbies fan. As soon as they are in the pennant race, I am going to Chicago to watch the games. It sure won't be this year, though. Why am I a Cubbies fan? Because I figure they need at least one fan who doesn't HAVE to be a fan. They'll come out on top someday. Hope I'm still alive. (Update: The Cubbies won the World Series in 2016 against the Cleveland Indians, 108 years after the last time they won it. I did not get to go to Chicago, but I watched every game on TV. Ohhhh that game 7! It was perhaps the best game in baseball ever.)

This book was read by the author, not usually the best choice for narrator. Dan did ok, but it is pretty obvious he is not a professional narrator. He was not annoying like many authors who read their own works are, but hint to authors who think they can read: let the pros do it.

Lots of Baseball . . .

I purchased this book on a whim--don't remember exactly why. But I truly enjoyed it for many reasons.

The basic story line follows a minor-league baseball game in the Spring of 1981 that just would not end! But the story tells so much more--every person involved with this historic game was a part of this narration. It could be daunting for those who do not enjoy tons of detail, but I found so much of it very interesting. Some of the players involved in the game went on to become big names in the majors (Cal Ripkin Jr. and Wade Boggs to name just two), and it was interesting to get an insight of them at the beginning of their careers.

The book is read by the author, and he did a wonderful job. I am very glad I chose this book to listen to.

Pawtucket

This is a very interesting book not only for baseball fans, but also for those who enjoy hearing how people and lives evolve over time. The author, who is also the narrator, skillfully sets the scene for us in 1981, and then switches seamlessly to events prior and subsequent to the longest baseball game ever played.

Dan Barry does Dan Barry

and, what could be better? The author narrates this story with all the irony, wit, and compassion of the person who created the tale, as he did.But,from history, and boy, does Barry do his homework. Barry's tone is somewhat deadpan, but he knows how to render the longest game in history, with the right amount of inflection. Sometimes I literally laughed out loud. If you like baseball, which i do, you just might get caught up in the flow of the story of unlikely characters; ball players, managers, bat boys, announcers, writers, their families.. At times even suspenseful, the narration moves you along with human interest stories that catch you by surprise. You ache for these (mostly) young men as the rawness outside, the wee hours of the morning in this interminable game, all make you feel for their plights. Some have a happy ending. Most do not. I ended up buying book versions of "The Bottom of the 33rd" for at least 3 people this holiday season. Only because they don't do audible.

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.

A writer's writer telling an epic story

Would you listen to Bottom of the 33rd again? Why?

I'd rather read it. Dan Barry's narration is really good. But his prose is so rich that there is more to get than I at least can from just listening, which I guess might be one of the reasons people started writing stories down.
I know this might be seen as overwrought, but the stories I love most are the ones meant for singing around campfires, like the Iliad. The thing about those stories is sometimes the singer says something so good that you're left saying, "What? What? That was really good. Tell me again." And so the singers started writing things down for people like me.
There is a lot here, in the people, in the narrative drive, in the reporting, in the deft turning of a phrase and in the longer arc of the story, in how they are woven together. This is a really, really good story.
I wonder whether Barry thinks about the parallels between being a writer and a ballplayer. He is far too disciplined ever to speak of that in so many words, but the loneliness and wonder, the moments when it really does all come down to one person, are there. So is the silence, the sense of what it means to stand there alone, while people wait. But without any elitism.
Reading Barry is to know what it's like to step out onto the wrestling mat while the gym thunders around you, and then, all the sudden, how the gym goes silent -- not because people have stopped yelling but because you can't hear them any more, because all you know and hear and see is that other wrestler and what you have to do.
Years ago, my newspaper had the incongruous idea of sponsoring a series of writing seminars. It was incongruous because this was a paper that had very little understanding of, or regard for, the written word. But I did get one of the one-on-one meetings with the writer leading the seminars. He asked me who I read and I said Homer. Even though I'm a lifelong journalist, it didn't occur to me to cite journalists.
Gently, he said, "Ok, but what about newspaper writers?" I couldn't name anyone besides Edna Buchanan. I've been looking ever since.
Today, I'd certainly name Barry. This is what I went into this business to do. He's done it. Homer? No. But he's really, really, really good.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Dave Koza. Anne Koza. Ben Mondor. Wade Boggs, Michael Kinch, Thomas P. McCoy. The book is full of them.

What does Dan Barry bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

I heard a writer reading a book he'd poured his heart into, and that meant a lot to me. He's disciplined, which means as much.
But the book is much bigger than Barry. Read it on paper. Get mustard on it. Fall asleep with it. That's what Barry would want you to do.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

Obviously, I did have a strong reaction. I think it was the way that Barry talked about the ideals we all strive for.
He did it modestly, matter-of-factually. He did it with the clarity of a line drive disappearing into a shortstop's glove, that straight white line, that certainty.
I work hard as a writer. Barry made me want to work harder. He has strengthened my love for the English language and my commitment to my trade.

Any additional comments?

Read this book. Help Barry pay his bills so he can keep writing. Read this book.

For anyone that ever played a sport, get this book

It's great when the author narrates their own work. This book is great. You won't be disappointed.

The people who were there.

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Only to baseball fans. This book is not too kind to the uninitiated. But to those who love the game, this is a great get. You will hear about the longest game and how it relates to other games, feats, and players.You will hear about the hard work and the heartbreak of trying to make it to the majors.And You will hear about the spirit and attitude of Pawtucket.

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

The book does a great job of making you feel the players fatigue and frustration. At one point, it seems like the game is finally going to end, but it comes to nothing and the game has to keep going.

What aspect of Dan Barry’s performance would you have changed?

Overall nothing. A little too Just-The-Facts for my taste; but then again this is Baseball, so meh.

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

Is anybody still with us?

A great baseball book

Well narrated by the author. It almost invites you into the meditative state of that forever game, drifting sleepily between innings and biographies, histories and statistics. It's the kind of book that makes you fall in love with baseball all over again.