Doug Hornig dibuja una radiograf\u00c3\u00ada que llega hasta las emociones m\u00c3\u00a1s \u00c3\u00adntimas de su afici\u00c3\u00b3n por los Medias Rojas de Boston y adem\u00c3\u00a1s revela varias interioridades del juego junto a lo que pensaban y sent\u00c3\u00adan varios de sus protagonistas. Inspirado por la pel\u00c3\u00adcula de la Serie Mundial de 1975, Hornig decide escribir una especie de bit\u00c3\u00a1cora desde las entra\u00c3\u00b1as de los recuerdos m\u00c3\u00a1s apasionados de su \u00c3\u00a9poca como empedernido seguidor de los patirrojos en Cape Cod, junto a su t\u00c3\u00ado Oscar y el eterno cuento de los intentos fallidos de los bostonianos por alcanzar el Cl\u00c3\u00a1sico de Octubre.<\/p>\n
La obra desmenuza jugada a jugada los siete juegos de aquella \u00c3\u00a9pica Serie Mundial desde el aparente f\u00c3\u00a1cil triunfo bostoniano en el primer juego hasta el triste desenlance con un elevado corto al centerfield que empuj\u00c3\u00b3 a Ken Griffey Sr. Con la carrera que le dar\u00c3\u00ada la victoria a los Rojos de Cincinnati.<\/p>\n
Un box score con comentarios, gritos, olores, s\u00c3\u00b3nidos de tribuna y adrenalina, mucha adrenalina fluyendo a trav\u00c3\u00a9s de la tinta de cada p\u00c3\u00a1gina. Cada cap\u00c3\u00adtulo encierra la tensi\u00c3\u00b3n y el suspenso de cada uno de los juegos de aquella Serie Mundial, con nombres, decisiones, entrevistas, puntos de vista.<\/p>\n
Las alternativas de aquella batalla \u00c3\u00a9pica considerada por muchos como la mejor Serie Mundial de todos los tiempos nos hacen regresar a octubre de 1975. La primera gran impresi\u00c3\u00b3n ocurri\u00c3\u00b3 en el d\u00c3\u00a9cimo episodio del tercer juego. C\u00c3\u00a9sar Ger\u00c3\u00b3nimo abre la entrada con sencillo rastrero por el medio del campo. Antes de esto el \u00c3\u00a1rbitro principal cant\u00c3\u00b3 bola una sinker de Jim Willoughby que estall\u00c3\u00b3 en toda la esquina de afuera. Sparky Anderson trae a batear a batear a Ed Armbrister luego de enviar a Terry Crowley al c\u00c3\u00adrculo de prevenidos. Con el juego igualado a 5 el toque es inminente. Armbrister logra tocar la pelota y esta rebota unos metros delante del plato. Armbrister arranca, luego se detiene. Carlton Fisk debe empujarlo para tomar la pelota y lanzar a segunda, la pelota sigue hacia el centerfield y Ger\u00c3\u00b3nimo llega hasta tercera y Armbrister a segunda. La discusi\u00c3\u00b3n por la interferencia est\u00c3\u00a1 encendida. Quiz\u00c3\u00a1s por esta raz\u00c3\u00b3n el \u00c3\u00a1rbitro de tercera base, Maloney, en primera instancia decret\u00c3\u00b3 el safe, pero no se percat\u00c3\u00b3 que Ger\u00c3\u00b3nimo se sali\u00c3\u00b3 de la base cuando Rico Petrocelli todav\u00c3\u00ada lo tocaba con la pelota en el guante. El libro de reglas es muy claro al hablar de interferencias, aunque hab\u00c3\u00ada una instrucci\u00c3\u00b3n suplementaria de parte de MLB para los \u00c3\u00a1rbitros que los instaba a ignorar cualquier violaci\u00c3\u00b3n de las reglas si un c\u00c3\u00a1tcher y un bateador-corredor ten\u00c3\u00adan contacto durante una jugada camino a primera base, sentimos una vez m\u00c3\u00a1s caminar el viejo lugar com\u00c3\u00ban de las jugadas determinadas por la apreciaci\u00c3\u00b3n de los \u00c3\u00a1rbitros.<\/p>\n
Luego viene el expectante juego seis. Primero el estacazo de Bernie Carbo en el cierre del octavo episodio para igualar la pizarra. “Nunca pens\u00c3\u00a9 que iba a tomar ese turno. Tan pronto como Darrell Johnson me anunciara Sparky Anderson iba a sacar a Rawly Eastwick y traer a Will McEnaney como siempre hac\u00c3\u00ada cuando tra\u00c3\u00adan un emergente zurdo. Pero no lo hizo y tuve que prepararme para salir a batear”, dijo Carbo. Luego de parecer en desventaja ante Eastwick, Carbo logr\u00c3\u00b3 pescar una recta y la sac\u00c3\u00b3 por todo el centro. Cuando iba alrededor de la tercera base le grit\u00c3\u00b3 a Pete Rose “\u00c2\u00bfNo quisieras ser tan fuerte como yo?”<\/p>\n
En el inicio del \u00c3\u00band\u00c3\u00a9cimo Pete Rose se embasa por pelotazo de Dick Drago. Ken Griffey trata de sacrificarse pero Fisk a pesar de tomar la pelota fuera de balance saca a Rose en segunda. Entonces viene Joe Morgan, en cuenta de 1-1 suelta una l\u00c3\u00adnea dantesca destinada a las gradas del right field. Dwight Evans corre y corre, justo antes de chocar contra el muro de medio metro, salta y captura la pelota sobre su hombro, de inmediato choca contra la pared y suelta un disparo tres metros desviado de primera base, Carl Yastrzemski la busca all\u00c3\u00ad y la pasa a Rick Burleson qui\u00c3\u00a9n atraves\u00c3\u00b3 todo el infield para cubrir primera, Ken Griffey estaba a mitad de camino entre segunda y tercera, el dobleplay es 9-3-6 y el p\u00c3\u00bablico estalla en aplausos. Esa jugada fue la mejor prueba para lo dicho por Don Zimmer en una entrevista con Hornig. El autor le pregunt\u00c3\u00b3 “\u00c2\u00bfQu\u00c3\u00a9 tan buen rightfielder era Dwight Evans?” Zimmer respondi\u00c3\u00b3 con otra pregunta. “\u00c2\u00bfSabes la diferencia entre un doble por reglas y la interferencia de un fan\u00c3\u00a1tico?” Hornig respondi\u00c3\u00b3 que el doble por reglas era una pelota que rebotaba hacia la tribuna luego de pegar en zona buena y que la interferencia ocurr\u00c3\u00ada si el fan\u00c3\u00a1tico tocaba la pelota antes de que esta saliera del campo de juego. Zimmer respondi\u00c3\u00b3. “Ok, el bateador se acredita un doble si la pelota rebota hacia la tribuna. \u00c2\u00bfQu\u00c3\u00a9 le corresponde si un fan\u00c3\u00a1tico toca la pelota?” Hornig respondi\u00c3\u00b3: “\u00c2\u00bfUn doble?” “No se\u00c3\u00b1or. El \u00c3\u00a1rbitro principal, de acuerdo a su criterio, coloca a los corredores donde el piensa que deben estar. Cuando Boston jugaba y hab\u00c3\u00ada una interferencia de los fan\u00c3\u00a1ticos en una jugada en el right field \u00c2\u00bfsabes que pasaba?” Hornig se encogi\u00c3\u00b3 de hombros. Zimmer se frot\u00c3\u00b3 las manos. “Le ordenaban al bateador que se quedara en primera base. El otro manager llegaba a protestar furioso. ‘Eso es un doble, hubo interferencia del fan\u00c3\u00a1tico’. El \u00c3\u00a1rbitro le replica. ‘Ah, ah. No con ese tipo ah\u00c3\u00ad”.<\/p>\n
Luego en el cierre del inning 12, Fisk en cuenta de 1-0 levanta una pelota a las rodillas y larga un largo fly por toda la raya de la izquierda que pega del poste de foul, jonr\u00c3\u00b3n , Boston gana 7-6, la Serie se iguala a 3 juegos.<\/p>\n
Lleg\u00c3\u00b3 el s\u00c3\u00a9ptimo juego. Boston lleg\u00c3\u00b3 ganando 3-0 al comienzo del sexto inning. Rose conecta sencillo a la derecha. Bill Lee domina a Morgan con elevado a la derecha y oblig\u00c3\u00b3 a Johnny Bench a rodarla por el campocorto. Burleson se la pas\u00c3\u00b3 a Denny Doyle para forzar a Rose pero Doyle envi\u00c3\u00b3 la pelota sobre la cabeza de Yastrzemski. Bench fue enviado a segunda. Lee estaba realmente enojado. Sin embargo ni el manager Johnson, ni Carlton Fisk, ni nadie del infield trat\u00c3\u00b3 de ir al mont\u00c3\u00adculo para calmarlo. Lee trat\u00c3\u00b3 de dominar a Tany P\u00c3\u00a9rez con un lanzamiento lento (Leephus), este se sent\u00c3\u00b3 a esperarlo y la desapareci\u00c3\u00b3 de jonr\u00c3\u00b3n. Boston 3 Cincinnati 2. Los Rojos empatan en el s\u00c3\u00a9ptimo. Y ganan en el noveno con hit al centro de Morgan que trae la carrera de Griffey. Hornig da su punto de vista en cuanto a que Darrell Jonson debi\u00c3\u00b3 dejar a Jim Willoughby lanzar el noveno inning dado que su sinker estaba rompiendo muy bien. Una vez m\u00c3\u00a1s el lugar com\u00c3\u00ban de lo que debi\u00c3\u00b3 hacer un manager para ganar.<\/p>\n
English Translation<\/strong><\/p>\n Doug Hornig draws a radiography that goes beyond his most intimate emotions as a Red Sox fan, and besides he shows some interiorities of the game through what the Sox players thought and felt. Inspired on the 1975 World Series film, Hornig decides to write a book from the inside of the most passionate rememberings of his years as diehard fan of the Red Sox in Cape Cod, along with his Uncle Oscar and the eternal tale of the failed efforts to win the October Classic.<\/p>\n The book shows play by play the seven games of that epic World Series, from the apparent easy victory of Boston in the first game until the sad result with a shallow fly to centerfield that batted in Ken Griffey Sr with the winning run for the Cincinnati Reds.<\/p>\n A box score with comments, shouts, smells, stands sounds and adrenaline, lots of adrenaline flowing through the ink of each page. Each chapter encloses the tension and the suspense of each one of the games of thar World Series. With names, decisions, interviews, points of view.<\/p>\n The alternatives of that epical battle, considered by many as the best World Series ever played, make the reader return to October 1975. The first great impression happened in the tenth inning of the third game. C\u00c3\u00a9sar Ger\u00c3\u00b3nimo opens the frame with a single through the middle of the infield. Before the hit, the chief umpire ruled ball a Jim Willoughby’s sinker that broke in the outside corner. Sparky Anderson brings Ed Armbrister to pinch hit after having Terry Crowley at the ondeck circle. With the game tied at 5 the bunt is imminent. Armbrister gets the bunt. The ball bounces some feet in front of the plate. “He takes a step and then stops and goes into a kind of crouch and Fisk runs into him. Fisk shoves Armbrister out of his way, fields the bunt, and elects to try for Ger\u00c3\u00b3nimo at second. He throws the ball into centerfield. When the dust has settled, both runners are ruled safe. Ger\u00c3\u00b3nimo’s on third, Armbrister is on second.” The argument about the interference is on. Maybe for this reason, the third base umpire, Maloney, makes the initial and accurate safe call, and then he apparently looks away to home plate. He misses Petrocelli making the putout.” The book of rules is very clear when talking about interferences. But in this World Series the umpires had received a “supplemental intruction” from the front office of MLB . That instruction read: “When a catcher and a batter-runner going to first have contact when the catcher is fielding the ball, there is generally no violation and nothing should be called”. Once again we felt at that old common place of the plays determined by the umpires appreciation.<\/p>\n Then it comes that cardiac game six. First the unbelievable dinger of Bernie Carbo to tie the game in the bottom of the eighth. “I was completely unprepared. I went to the ondeck circle thinking there was no way I was getting into that game. Darrell Johnson would announce me and then Sparky would pull Eastwick and bring in the lefty, McEnaney. That’s what Sparky did. Always. Which meant that I’d then be pulled for a right-handed hitter. It wasn’t until I looked over at the Reds dugout and saw Sparky standing there, not coming out. I had to pull myself together mentally in a hurry,” said Carbo. After being behind in the count, Carbo picked an Eastwick fastball and sent it out to the centerfield bleachers. Whe he rounds through third base he yells at Rose: “Don’t you wish you were this strong? Don’t you?”<\/p>\n In the top of the eleventh Pete Rose gets hit by Dick Drago. “Ken Griffey bunts toward third, but not far enough. Fisk barehands the ball, and a bit off balance, guns a throw to second. Maybe he’s better when he hasn`t fully set himself, because the throw is perfect. Rose is forced.” Then Joe Morgan wait Drago’s fastaball and smacks a line drive that flies toward the rightfield fence. “Back goes Dwight Evans. Back, back, running full tilt. He reaches the warning track, leaps into the air, and over his shoulder, somehow, improbably, makes an unbelievable catch just before the ball falls into the first row of seats. He comes down and bangs into the wall. He’s made the Catch, the play of the game and of the Series, but he knows his job isn’t done yet. Immediately he pushes himself off the wall, whirls, and pegs the ball back to the infield. The throw is ten feet off the line,toward the dugout. It doesn’t matter. Yastrzemski is there, and Burleson has come all the way across the infield to cover the bag. With Griffey basically in denial, he was halfway to third, Yaz flip the ball to Rick to complete the double play.”<\/p>\n That play was the best proof for what Don Zimmer told Hornig in an interview for the book. “Just how good right fielder was Dwight Evans?” Zimmer repliedd with another question. “Let me ask you something. Do you know the differnece between a ground- rule double and fan interference?” Hornig said that a ground-rule double was one that bounced into the stands and that it was interference if a fan touched the ball before it left the playing field. “Right,” Zimmer said. “So a guy gets two bases if the ball goes into the stands on its own. What’s he get if the fan interferes?” Hornig wasn’t sure. “A double?” “Wrong,” said Zimmer. “The home-plate umpire, with his best judgment, places the runners where he feels they oughtta be. So… when Boston was playing and there was fan interference on a ball hit down the right field line, guess what?” Hornig shrugged. Zimmer clapped his hands together. “The hitter would be awarded first base. Period. Well, the other manager would always come storming out, screaming bloody murder. ‘Thats a double! Fan interference! Should be a double!’ And the home-plate umpire would just smile and point to right field and say, ‘Uh, uh. Not with that guy out there.’ Meaning that unless you hit it over his head, Evans always held you to a single. If you tried to stretch it, he threw you out at second.”<\/p>\n In the bottom of the twelfth, “Fisk takes ball one. Then he goes down and swipes at a Pat Darcy’s fastball on the inside part of the plate at the knees. He launches a long, high fly to left. If it stays fair… Carlton waves his hands and jumps up and down like a little kid, trying his damnedest to persuade that tiny sphere to stay fair. It does, of ocurse, although just barely. Pudge wills it. But it’s as close as you can get. It hits the left field foul pole an bounces back onto the playing field. Home run. Fisk thrusts his arms into the air, claps his hands together, and skips joyfully around the bases as fans stream past the police and onto the field.”<\/p>\n It arrived the seventh game. “Boston wins 3-0 in the top of the sixth. Rose threads a single through the right side of the infield. Bill Lee gets Joe Morgan on a fly to right. Then Bench hits a two-hopper to Burleson for the inning ending double play. But it doesn’t happen. Burleson flips to Doyle, who steps on second, then turns and… sees Rose, Pete’s face a twisted malice mask, barreling as fast as he can down the base path, fully intent of breaking the fielder’s legs. Denny leaps out the way and his relay throw flies over Yastrzemski’s head, over the dugout. Bench is awarded second base, and the inning is suddenly not over. Lee is upset, very upset. He thought he’d pulled his escape act again, and now he had to pitch to Tony P\u00c3\u00a9rez.” When Hornig interviewed Lee, he said that he “wished Darrell Johnson or pitching coach Stan Williams had realized his distress and come to the mound, just to talk for a couple of minutes, to calm him down. And when nobody emerges from the dugout, there’s nothing preventig Lee from calling his catcher out for a chat, using Fisk to help him regain his own composure. Or he could even walk around for a bit, until he felt ready to go on. None of this happens. When Bill returns to the rubber, he’s still agitated. Perhaps, in light of what now transpires, he’s not thinking clearly. He misses with his first pitch, then makes a decision so poor that it becomes instant Sox history. Bad history. Miserable, heart-wrenching, weep-in-your-beer history. Because Space, guided by whatever intergalactic logic, decides to come back with the Leephus. P\u00c3\u00a9rez crushes it and the ball soars over both the wall and the net.” Boston 3 Cincinnati 2. The Reds tie the game in the seventh. And win it in the ninth with Joe Morgan single to shallow centerfield to bring the Griffey’s run. Hornig gives his point of view saying that Darrell Johnson should have left Willoughby for the ninth inning because his sinker was excellent. Once again the commonplace of what a manager should have done in order to win the game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":75,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[4265,141,4272,1930,4269,4260,4261,4271,4275,4263,4266,4268,4264,4259,4274,4267,4270,1928,4262,4273],"class_list":["post-903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-review","tag-arranca","tag-box-score","tag-cape-cod","tag-carlton-fisk","tag-cuento","tag-doug-hornig","tag-ed-armbrister","tag-especie","tag-esto","tag-ken-griffey-sr","tag-la-pelota","tag-los-rojos","tag-magnificent-book","tag-medias-rojas-de-boston","tag-plato","tag-puntos-de-vista","tag-sinker","tag-sparky-anderson","tag-terry-crowley","tag-tribuna"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t