The Machine by Joe Posnanski
September 2nd, 2009Title: The Machine
Author: Joe Posnanski
Publisher: HarperCollins (2009)
I am going to be very upfront on this review. There was practically zero chance that I would not love this book. First, Joe Posnanski is my favorite sportswriter out there right now. In fact, I already featured him in my Great Writing series. (side note: sign up for the RSS on Posnanski’s blog…you will love it, I promise!) Second, this book is about the Big Red Machine. For those who don’t know…The Big Red Machine was the nickname for the Cincinnati Reds baseball team in the 1970’s. They dominated the league…and the 1975 team is one of the best baseball teams ever to be put together. If you are from Cincinnati (which I am) and a baseball fan (which I am)…then The Big Red Machine is legendary. So even if this book wasn’t very good…I was probably going to love it.
Fortunately for me and everyone else on Earth…this is an AWESOME book…and not only because it has the longest subtitle ever in the history of books!
The Machine: A Hot Team, a Legendary Season, and a Heart-stopping World Series – The Story of the 1975 Cincinnati Reds by Joe Posnanski is a wonderful look at that super famous 1975 season. All baseball fans are at least marginally aware of that season…and practically everyone knows what happened in Game Six of the World Series, even if only from watching Good Will Hunting. What most people don’t know however, is pretty much everything else that happened in 1975.
Posnanski does a fantastic job of making you feel like you are experiencing that season while you read it (which is excellent for Reds fans right now…at least we can read about a Cincinnati team winning. Posnanski is a baseball writer (currently working for Sports Illustrated), so he certainly is able to describe the action very well. But I think this book was far more about the people involved…and what 1975 did to them
The Big Red Machine was a team put together of superstars. Having Pete Rose, Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan, and Tony Perez on the same team was a miracle back then…and would be impossible now in the age of free agency. Reading about how those guys (and the other players…Griffey, Geronimo, Concepcion, and Foster) interacted with each other and all of the “inside” stories that I had not heard before was great. The contrast of personalities in that locker room must have been completely overwhelming to any newcomer.
Quick aside regarding Pete Rose – Being a Cincinnatian means a number of things. Near the top of that list is the requirement of your belief that Pete Rose never bet on baseball (even though he admitted it) and belongs in the Hall of Fame. It also requires that you ignore the fact that he is known as being pretty sleazy and spent time in prison for tax evasion. We let other cities worry about that stuff…here in Cincinnati he would get a standing ovation even if he got arrested for skinny dipping in the Tyler Davidson fountain. Which is probably not that far fetched now that I think about it.
Anyway – if you are a baseball fan, I DEMAND that you go to amazon.com and buy this book immediately. If you grew up in Cincinnati in the 1970’s and remember this baseball team…I DEMAND that you buy this book. You will love the writing and will love the book. It certainly would make a great gift for any Reds fan. If you do not like baseball at all…then you probably wouldn’t be very interested in this story. We also likely could not be friends.
By the way – SPOILER ALERT!!!!!! – The Reds win the World Series in 7 games!
Rating: 19.3 out of 5
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September 2nd, 2009 at 9:06 am
Baseballbriefs.com tracking back The Machine by Joe Posnanski…
Baseballbriefs.com tracking back The Machine by Joe Posnanski…
September 2nd, 2009 at 9:28 am
[...] if you think I’m not posting a review from someone who gave the book a 19.3 on a scale of 1 to 5, you’re out of your mind. Also, [...]
September 2nd, 2009 at 10:53 am
You know how people remember where they were at key moments of history? Things like: where they were when they heard about Pearl Harbor; What they were doing when JFK was assassinated; The first moon landing; Nixon resigning. Well I remember where I was and what I was doing like it was yesterday…when Fisk hit his “body english” homer in game six. What a Series!
September 2nd, 2009 at 3:49 pm
Just when you thought everything that could be said about that series had been said….your review makes it sound like there is more to be said! Think i’ll take a look……..thanks.
September 2nd, 2009 at 6:19 pm
I grew up in Cincinnati in the 70’s I love Joe P and the Reds, seriously this book could be a 20 from what I know about the content and Joe.
Dieing to read it and darn glad I was able to experience it first hand
September 23rd, 2009 at 9:51 pm
[...] review from Letters on Pages, which claims to offer “The Best Non-Fiction Book Reviews…Ever.” Unless the [...]
October 2nd, 2009 at 10:59 pm
I guess I didn’t comply with your demand, since I didn’t BUY the book, but I did sit in a book store and READ the book, and I have to agree with just about everything written in this review: Posnanski is easily one of the best sportswriters working today, and the book is tremendous. In 1975 I was one year younger than Pos (7), and while I have the vaguest of recollections about that season (I was a Red Sox fan, so I felt not-so-happy about the result, but I did have SOME inkling of the greatness of the Reds, which only grew as I got older and realized exactly how great that team actually was), this book put me squarely in the middle of it. I felt as thought I were experiencing it anew for the first time. Now I will have to read Posnanski’s other book, ‘The Soul of Baseball’.