Book Review: Hard-Luck Harvey Haddix and the Greatest Game Ever Lost - Lew Freedman

"Hard-Luck Harvey Haddix and the Greatest Game Ever Lost"
Lew Freedman
McFarland Publishing, 2009
210 pages


This week Mark Buehrle set a Major League record for consecutive outs with 45. His tremendous feat came on heels of pitching a perfect game, followed by almost another six "perfect" innings in the next game. Without fail during the media coverage of Buehrle's streak, Harvey Haddix's flirt with perfection 50 years prior was ushered to the forefront of baseball discussion. Chicago-based sportswriter Lew Freedman recreates the events of May 26, 1959 with his new book, Hard-Luck Harvey Haddix and the Greatest Game Ever Lost, placing the reader in a box seat for all of the action.

Imagine pitching not only nine innings of perfect baseball as Buehrle did, but pitching 12 in an extra inning game, only to lose in the end. To add insult to injury, 30-something years later, a minor rule change strikes your no-hitter from the record books. Such is the story of "Hard-Luck" Harvey Haddix.

Follow Haddix as he battles flu-like symptoms to silence the bats of greats such as Eddie Mathews and Hank Aaron. Freedman keeps the reader on the edge of their seat as the game tightens with each zero placed on the board. Every inning, you receive insider commentary from Haddix's teammates as he records another trifecta. As the game goes along you hope that the Pirates can string together a few of their 12 hits off of Lew Burdette to push a runner across the plate.

You are clued into the mind of Manager Danny Murtaugh, dissecting each move as you approach the later stages of the contest. Will Murtaugh summon ace reliever Roy Face? Will a pinch-hitter appear for Haddix in the late innings? Conspicuously absent from the lineup was the injured Hall of Famer Roberto Clemente, opening the door for Roman Mejias to start. Mejias would later gain infamy on a key play during the early stages of the game. Would the result have been different with the Puerto Rican star in the lineup?

In between the description of the game's events, Freedman delivers insightful profiles of the players on the field for Pittsburgh, allowing the reader to gain a look at lesser known players that contributed that day such as: Bob Skinner, Dick Schofield, Dick Stuart, Rocky Nelson, and Smoky Burgess.

Sadly, no footage of this game exists. The Pirates were on the road and the local TV station KDKA chose to show a speech of vice-president Richard Nixon instead of the game between the Braves and the Pirates. This is why this book excels. With the recently released footage of Don Larsen's perfect game, the mystique of what actually transpired has been diminished. It is no longer a story told by only those who were there to witness it. Freedman's script of Haddix's game and its surroundings only enhance the legend of Haddix's duel with Burdette. If you want an illumination of one baseball's most magical games, Freedman serves up a winner in detailing the greatest game ever lost.

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Book Review: Going, Going ... Caught! by Jason Aronoff

"Going, Going ... Caught! - Baseball's great outfield catches as described by those who saw them, 1887-1964"

Jason Aronoff
McFarland Publishing, 2009
266 pages

On the heels of Dewayne Wise's leaping catch during Mark Buehrle's perfect game, it's only appropriate that I present a book detailing the greatest outfield catches in Major League Baseball's history.

"Going, Going ... Caught!" was originally recommended to me by former Brooklyn Dodger outfielder Don Thompson as he attempted to describe Duke Snider's nearly impossible catch of Willie "Puddin Head" Jones' smash in Philadelphia on Memorial Day of 1954. Thompson should know a thing or two about Snider's climb up the wall that day; he was standing next to Snider when he did the seemingly impossible, digging his spikes into the outfield fence after sprinting into the depths of left-center only to throw his glove hand above his head and across his body for the catch as he collided with the wall. While Aronoff provides an illustration recreating the catch, there are no actual photographs of his theatrics available. This goes for about 95% of the other catches mentioned in the book. All we have left of these grabs are the accounts from the sportswriters and players who saw them. These accounts are what make this book special. You are transported back to a time when mass media didn't cover baseball and left you to create your own picture of a great center fielder chasing down a ball that seems way out of his reach.

Aronoff has done painstaking research to uncover multiple sources detailing catches that the writers at the time described as the "best ever." There is great detail given to the dimensions of old ballparks and how their cavernous reaches allowed for these players to catch up to balls that everyone in the crowd thought were going to fall in for extra-base hits.. Unlike modern stadiums, outfielders had to travel farther distances and contend with unpadded wooden and concrete walls to haul in shots hit into the far reaches of the ballpark.

While "Going, Going, Caught!" is well researched, the reader is bogged down with redundant accounts of the same catch, and multiple catches made by the same player that were "very good" but not great. Aronoff could have condensed the accounts he relayed in order to make it more digestible. It may be a bit too intense for the casual baseball reader, or those not familiar with the players of yesteryear.

However, Aronoff's book not only further enlivens the debate between Mantle, Snider and Mays, it also brings up fielding stars that time has forgotten, such as Jimmy Piersall, Terry Moore, Jigger Statz, Dode Paskert, Bill Lange, and baseball's earliest deaf player, "Dummy" Hoy. It may even make you question your beliefs of who is the greatest outfielder of all time. While their Hall of Fame contemporaries of Keeler, Cobb, Speaker, and DiMaggio are all profiled at one point, it's the exploits of the lesser known aforementioned players that make "Going, Going ... Caught" run.

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