"Bottom of the 33rd is chaw-chewing, sunflower-spitting, pine tar
proof that too much baseball is never enough." --Jane Leavy, author of
The Last Boy and Sandy Koufax
From Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist Dan Barry comes
the beautifully recounted story of the longest game in baseball
history--a tale celebrating not only the robust intensity of baseball,
but the aspirational ideal epitomized by the hard-fighting players of
the minor leagues.
On April 18, 1981, a ball game sprang eternal. For eight hours, the
night seemed to suspend a town and two teams between their collective
pasts and futures, between their collective sorrows and joys--the
shivering fans; their wives at home; the umpires; the batboys
approaching manhood; the ejected manager, peering through a hole in the
backstop; the sportswriters and broadcasters; and the players
themselves--two destined for the Hall of Fame (Cal Ripken and Wade
Boggs), the few to play only briefly or forgettably in the big leagues,
and the many stuck in minor-league purgatory, duty bound and loyal
forever to the game.
With Bottom of the 33rd, Barry delivers 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. 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.
