Bottom of the 33rd: Hope, Redemption, and Baseball's Longest Game

by Dan Barry

Overview

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.

With Bottom of the 33rd, celebrated New York Timesjournalist Dan Barry has written a lyrical meditationon 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. This genre-bending book, a reportorial triumph, portrays the myriad lives held by the night’sunrelenting grip.

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

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062014498
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	03/27/2012
Pages:	255
Sales rank:	73,360
Product dimensions:	5.28(w) x 7.82(h) x 0.64(d)

About the Author

Dan Barry is a national columnist for the New York Times. He lives with his wife and daughters in Maplewood, New Jersey.

What People are Saying About This

Gay Talese

“Dan’s Barry’s meticulous reporting and literary talent are both evident in Bottom of the 33rd, a pitch-perfect and seamless meditation on baseball and the human condition.”

Stefan Fatsis

“A worthy companion to Roger Kahn’s classic Boys of Summer ...[Dan Barry] exploits the power of memory and nostalgia with literary grace and journalistic exactitude. He blends a vivid, moment-by-moment re-creation of the game with what happens to its participants in the next 30 years.”

Jane Leavy

Dan Barry has crafted a loving and lyrical tribute to a time and a place when you stayed until the final out...because that’s what we did in America. Bottom of the 33rd is chaw-chewing, sunflower-spitting, pine tar proof that too much baseball is never enough.

Colum McCann

“What a book — an exquisite exercise in story-telling, democracy and myth-making that has, at its center, a great respect for the symphony of voices that make up America.”

Editorial Reviews

[A] masterpiece...destined for the Hall of Fame of baseball books.

Publisher's Weekly

…despite its sometimes breathless tone and metaphorical overreaching, Bottom of the 33rd is…a worthy companion to Roger Kahn's classic Boys of Summer, about the Brooklyn Dodgers of the 1950s. While the books' subjects are baseball opposites—one bizarre minor-league game versus a historically beloved major-league team—Mr. Barry, like Mr. Kahn, exploits the power of memory and nostalgia with literary grace and journalistic exactitude. He blends a vivid, moment-by-moment re-creation of the game with what happens to its participants in the next 30 years.
—The New York Times

Stefan Fatsis

Rather than take the easy road—such as leaning heavily upon the star power of Hall of Famers Cal Ripken Jr. and Wade Boggs, both of whom played in the game but who figure only slightly in the narrative—Barry masterfully pieces together his story from the perimeter in…The book is both a fount of luxurious writing…and a tour-de-force of reportage…Barry appears to have interviewed the majority of the game's principals in person, and he describes everything from the decrepit appearance of the ticket booth to the multi-colored scribbles in the official scorer's scorebook with a perfectionist's eye for detail.
—The Washington Post

Dave Sheinin

The improbable web of coincidences that made this event possible…becomes credible once you have witnessed the scope of Barry's reporting. He seems to have talked to every­body…At his best, Barry is an uncle spinning a story by the fire, halting each time a new character enters the narrative to offer a biographical sketch or a telling anecdote.
—The New York Times Book Review

Marc Tracy

New York Times columnist Barry provides a charming, meditative portrait of a minor league baseball game that seemed to last forever. Because of a rule-book glitch, the Pawtucket Red Sox and the Rochester Red Wings played for 33 innings on a chilly Saturday night into the Easter morning of 1981. Using the game as a focal point, Barry examines the lives and future careers of many of the players, including the then unknown Wade Boggs and Cal Ripken. Barry also profiles the Red Sox team owner, the fans and workers, and even the stadium and the depressed industrial town of Pawtucket, R.I. The game gives Barry ample opportunity to explore the world that surrounds it. Not every Triple-A player becomes a Cal Ripken, and Barry gives generous attention to those who didn't make it—the powerful outfielder who can't hit a curve, the eccentric Dutch relief pitcher with the unlikely name of Win Remmerswaal, the 26-year-old who feels like an old man among younger prospects. The three decades that have passed since the game allow Barry to track the arc of entire lives, adding emotional resonance. Barry is equally adept at describing the allure of a ballpark and the boost it can give to a struggling town like Pawtucket. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

"Brilliantly rendered...The book is both a fount of luxurious writing and a tour-de-force of reportage."

Washington Post

Dan Barry has crafted a loving and lyrical tribute to a time and a place when you stayed until the final out...because that’s what we did in America. Bottom of the 33rd is chaw-chewing, sunflower-spitting, pine tar proof that too much baseball is never enough.

Jane Leavy

"[An] heroic conjuring of the past."

New York Times Book Review

"A fascinating, beautifully told story... In the hands of Barry, a national correspondent for the New York Times, this marathon of duty, loyalty, misery and folly becomes a riveting narrative...The book feels like ‘Our Town’ on the diamond."

Los Angeles Times

"An astonishing tale that lyrically articulates baseball’s inexorable grip on its players and fans, Bottom of the 33rd belongs among the best baseball books ever written."

Cleveland Plain Dealer

"[Dan] Barry does more than simply recount the inning-by-inning-by-inning box score. He delves beneath the surface, like an archaeologist piecing together the shards and fragments of a forgotten society, to reconstruct a time and a night that have become part of baseball lore."

Associated Press Staff

"Whether you’re a baseball aficionado or a reader who just enjoys a good yarn, you’ll love this book."

Minneapolis Star Tribune

"Meticulously researched and tremendously entertaining!"

Columbus Dispatch

"What a book — an exquisite exercise in story-telling, democracy and myth-making that has, at its center, a great respect for the symphony of voices that make up America."

Colum McCann

"Dan’s Barry’s meticulous reporting and literary talent are both evident in Bottom of the 33rd, a pitch-perfect and seamless meditation on baseball and the human condition."

Gay Talese

Winner of the 2012 PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sportswriting

Dan Barry has crafted a loving and lyrical tribute to a time and a place when you stayed until the final out...because that’s what we did in America. Bottom of the 33rd is chaw-chewing, sunflower-spitting, pine tar proof that too much baseball is never enough.

–Jane Leavy

What a book — an exquisite exercise in story-telling, democracy and myth-making that has, at its center, a great respect for the symphony of voices that make up America.

–Colum McCann

Dan’s Barry’s meticulous reporting and literary talent are both evident in Bottom of the 33rd, a pitch-perfect and seamless meditation on baseball and the human condition.

–Gay Talese

A fascinating, beautifully told story... In the hands of Barry, a national correspondent for the New York Times, this marathon of duty, loyalty, misery and folly becomes a riveting narrative...The book feels like ‘Our Town’ on the diamond.

–Los Angeles Times

An astonishing tale that lyrically articulates baseball’s inexorable grip on its players and fans, Bottom of the 33rd belongs among the best baseball books ever written.

–Cleveland Plain Dealer

Meticulously researched and tremendously entertaining!

–Columbus Dispatch

[Dan] Barry does more than simply recount the inning-by-inning-by-inning box score. He delves beneath the surface, like an archaeologist piecing together the shards and fragments of a forgotten society, to reconstruct a time and a night that have become part of baseball lore.

–Associated Press

Whether you’re a baseball aficionado or a reader who just enjoys a good yarn, you’ll love this book.

–Minneapolis Star Tribune

A worthy companion to Roger Kahn’s classic Boys of Summer ...[Dan Barry] exploits the power of memory and nostalgia with literary grace and journalistic exactitude. He blends a vivid, moment-by-moment re-creation of the game with what happens to its participants in the next 30 years.

–Stefan Fatsis

Brilliantly rendered...The book is both a fount of luxurious writing and a tour-de-force of reportage.

–Washington Post

[An] heroic conjuring of the past.

–New York Times Book Review

Barry tells the story of the longest game in baseball history, an eight-hour and 25-minute affair between two Triple-A teams in the spring and early summer of 1981. He explores the lives of the players (many career minor leaguers but also such future stars as Wade Boggs and Cal Ripken Jr.) on the Pawtucket Red Sox and the Rochester Red Wings, along with others associated with the game, focusing more on the Pawtucket team as the game was held there. He tries, not entirely successfully, to show special spiritual meaning in the game's progression from Holy Saturday to Easter Sunday. Unfortunately, Barry does not write well enough to make the topic of a very long game deserve a long book, additionally because the 33rd inning of victory did not in fact take place until more than two months after the other 32 innings. Still, it may appeal to some baseball fans, notably of the Red Sox or Orioles.—R.L.

Library Journal

New York Times columnist Barry (City Lights: Stories About New York, 2007, etc.) delivers an all-angle take on the longest, and surely the strangest, game in baseball history.

On a frigid evening in April 1981, 1,740 Pawtucket, R.I., Red Sox fans settled into their seats for a game with the Rochester Red Wings of the AAA International League. With the score tied 1-1 at the end of regulation, the teams played on. And on. On past 12:50 a.m., when the curfew provision, mysteriously missing from that year's edition of the rule book, would have suspended the contest; on past the 21st inning, when each team maddeningly scored a run; on past the 29th and record-tying inning; on past 4:00 a.m., the bottom of the 32nd, when the league president was finally reached and ordered the umpires to suspend the contest. Wittily and gracefully, Barry works out his Easter themes of hope and redemption, providing, of course, an account of the game, but most memorably capturing the atmosphere of the city and the stories of the people who shared this weird moment in baseball's long history: the players, two headed for the Hall of Fame, a few who would establish substantial major league careers, scrubs who would never make it, others only on their way to or back from the proverbial cup of coffee in the bigs; the dutiful umpires and the team managers, baseball lifers both; the hardy double-handful of fans who stayed the course, including a father and son bound by their promise never to leave a game; the clubhouse attendants, batboys and devoted player wives; the makeshift radio broadcasters and jaded newsmen sentenced to cover the game; the millionaire, blue-collar PawSox owner and the dismal team and decrepit stadium he inherited; the burned-out but still-defiant city of Pawtucket, where baseball would, indeed, eventually rise from the dead. When play resumed two months later, the entire baseball world descended upon the stadium, eager to participate in the historic game's conclusion, prefiguring the enthusiastic attention Barry's wonderful story richly inspires.

Destined to take its place among the classics of baseball literature.

Kirkus Reviews