Heartbreakers: Baseball's Most Agonizing Defeats

Rating:
Summary: An Enjoyable Book
Review: Author John Kuenster has put together an admirable collection of heartbreaking defeats suffered by baseball teams over the past half century. The only one I was too young to remember is the Giants/Dodgers playoff in 1951. The author did a lot of research in each chapter and I found only one mistake. On page 169 is a picture of Jodi Davis and Jay Johnstone of the Cubs in which the author refers to Jay Johnstone as "Dave". The author includes a lot of statistics and play-by-play game situations which may be necessary, but I didn't especially care for. I looked for more insights such as in the first chapter where Maglie told Branca he should have thrown a curve ball to Thomson instead of a fastall. Yogi Berra was at the game but left thinking the Dodgers had it wrapped up which may have led to his quote, "It ain't over till it's over." It also was interesting to know why Stengel started Art Ditmar in game one of the 1960 Series instead of Whitey Ford and later admitting the mistake. The box score of each game is provided at the end of each chapter. The cover of Lavagetto and Branca on the steps of the Polo Grounds clubhouse could not be more appropriate for this book.

Rating:
Summary: An Enjoyable Book
Review: Author John Kuenster has put together an admirable collection of heartbreaking defeats suffered by baseball teams over the past half century. The only one I was too young to remember is the Giants/Dodgers playoff in 1951. The author did a lot of research in each chapter and I found only one mistake. On page 169 is a picture of Jodi Davis and Jay Johnstone of the Cubs in which the author refers to Jay Johnstone as "Dave". The author includes a lot of statistics and play-by-play game situations which may be necessary, but I didn't especially care for. I looked for more insights such as in the first chapter where Maglie told Branca he should have thrown a curve ball to Thomson instead of a fastall. Yogi Berra was at the game but left thinking the Dodgers had it wrapped up which may have led to his quote, "It ain't over till it's over." It also was interesting to know why Stengel started Art Ditmar in game one of the 1960 Series instead of Whitey Ford and later admitting the mistake. The box score of each game is provided at the end of each chapter. The cover of Lavagetto and Branca on the steps of the Polo Grounds clubhouse could not be more appropriate for this book.

Rating:
Summary: riviting
Review: Baseball is a game of inches, it is said, (ask Carlton Fisk!) and sometimes it is that inch that snares victory from the jaws of defeat...or defeat from the jaws of victory. Baseball is kind to the victors in such cases- Bobby Thomson in 1951, Bill Mazeroski in 1960, Kirk Gibson in 1988- but what becomes of those who lose such games? That is the focus of this gripping book by Kuenster.

Kuenster adeptly takes on 15 of the worst baseball collapses, disasters, and heartbreaks of the last 50 years and does so with a fan's enthusiasm and with the skills of the seasoned baseball writer he is. He weaves the tales of these moments- who got the teams there, how things unfolded, and the horrible emotional price paid (none worse than the suicide of Angels' reliever Donnie Moore, who never recovered from giving up the home run to Red Sox slugger Dave Henderson in 1986 that turned the series from a 3 games to 1 California lead and the Sox down to their final out, to an eventual Red Sox trip to the World Series...and heartbreak in its own right) and scars still shown by many of those teams' key players.

As could be expected, Kuenster does pay more than his share of attention to the trials and tribulations of the Cubs and Red Sox, 2 of baseball's most storied, and infinitely unlucky, franchises. The collapse of the '69 Cubs, and the infamous Black Cat incident at Shea Stadium that helped lead the Miracle Mets to the most unlikely of World Series Crowns that season, as well as the implosion of their great 1984 team that dominated the National League yet lost the LCS to the Padres, are among the great heartbreaks discussed in the book. They typlify the Cubs' monumental struggles since winning it all in 1945.

The Red Sox woes are well known. Theirs is an opera that has the fat lady singing before the final act even starts. The Babe and Harry Frazee make sure of that. The should have beens for the Red Sox are many, and several are discussed in the book- while the Impossible Dream of 1967 is not, the heartbreaks of 1975, 78, and 86 are, and in all too vivid (for Red Sox fans) detail. Heartbreak is common in Red Sox Nation, and the book deftly deals with the collapse of the 78 Sox, then Torrez'a fat pitch to Bucky Dent to help the Yankees win the 1 game playoff... The collapse of the '86 Sox in the World Series..it was more than Buckner booting the ground ball (the decision to let Buck play the 9th inning versus late inning replacement Dave Stapleton still haunts to this day)..there was also the inept pitching of relievers Bob Stanley and Calvin Schiraldi, and so much more.

The book deals with the heartbreak of the Red Sox, Cubs, the '86 Angels, the '51 Dodgers, the '60 Yankees, and others, from the losers' perspective. Kuenster's first hand sources offer incredible depth of emotion and perspective to this book. It's easy to remember the winners in baseball, but, as Donnie Moore could attest to, (God rest his soul) the losers in baseball should also be looked at and treated with the same respect as the winners. While the old addage goes that there is no crying in baseball, it's hard to not shed a tear or 2 after reading this book, regardless of who you root for. A brilliant book.

Rating:
Summary: With first-person accounts by the players
Review: Baseball's most agonizing defeats are charted in Heartbreakers, a guide which presents veteran baseball writer Kuenster's fifteen years of observing the game's most painful 'disasters'- from the loser's perspective. Chapters survey players, teams, strategies, and elements which contributed to defeat. First-person accounts by the players supplement the observations and black and white photos in this memorable presentation of baseball's bleakest moments.