Pre-Owned The Boys of October : How the 1975 Boston Red Sox Embodied Baseball's Ideals - and Restored Our Spirits (Hardcover) 0071402470 9780071402477

In the Fall of 1975, the country was mired in the Vietnam War's aftereffects, economic distress, and lingering political turmoil from the Watergate scandal. When the nation sorely needed a diversion removed from the larger events of the day, it arrived in the form of the World Series match-up between the Boston Red Sox and the Cincinnati Reds, and both teams delivered in a classic duel. The Reds, nicknamed The Big Red Machine, cruised to 111 regular-season victories and an easy pennant and had already been compared with the best teams of all time. Made up of players in the truest sense, the Reds were clean-cut, disciplined professional athletes at the peaks of their respective careers. Their opponents were the ragtag Red Sox, a cast of characters who had been likened to the boy falling off a turnip truck. The series was a true showdown, an epic seven-game struggle that is widely regarded as the greatest ever played. Four of the seven games were won in the final inning, six were come-from-behind victories, and five, including the nail-biting finale, were decided by a single run. The Boys of October relives the drama of this historic World Series duel and the cultural milieu behind