The Seventh Game: The 35 World Series That Have Gone the Distance

If you enjoy baseball, then you will love this book. Levenson has presented his readers with a compilation of statistics and analysis of an unique entity in itself, the seventh game of a World Series. As of the 2005 season there have been 35 such games and here in one book is an interesting discussion of these games. The book is in three parts. The first part deals with preliminary issues. There is a foreword by Ralph Terry (who else?), sharing his insights from playing in several seventh games. Then, Levenson presents us with a short essay on the magic of a seventh game. He then includes a 50-question quiz (with answers!) on our knowledge of seventh games. He concludes this part of the book with a brief review of why the Series is a `best-of-seven' format. The second part of the book is the main part and consists of 35 chapters, one for each of the seventh games played. A typical chapter begins with a touch of trivia pertinent to the year a seventh game was played (who remembers when the song `Ode to Billie Joe' was released or when the movie `The Color Purple' premiered?). Levenson then sets the stage for the seventh game by offering a brief review of the teams playing in the series and a recap of the first six games of the Series in mind. The majority of each chapter is a description of the seventh game itself, with trends and critical plays dominating the review. Each chapter ends with the line score of the game (there is an appendix which has all the line scores of each seventh game). The third and final part of the book is a `deconstruction' of all the seventh games played. Levenson dissects the overall tends of teams, as well as identifies the heroes and goats in terms of hitting, pitching, base running and fielding. He then ranks the 35 games from worst (`stinkers') to the best ('fabulous'). He concludes this part (and the book) with the only section I thought was unneeded. He has utilized APBA to replay every seventh game. I found this to be both anti-climatic and even distracting to the point of taking away from what has been presented. Reality is by far enough to satisfy this baseball fan. (My copy of the book had pages 293-308 printed twice, but this is an error on the printer not Levenson). My criticism aside, this book is well worth the price of admission and will bring to mind many forgotten details and memories to remind us why baseball has such a storied history.

THIS BOOK COVERS ALL THE 7TH GAMES PLAYED IN THE WORLD SERIES. IT HAS SOME GREAT FACTS, DETAILS, AND SUMMARIES CONCERNING EACH INDIVIDUAL GAME. IT ALSO CONTAINS PICS OF SOME TICKET STUBS FROM A NUMBER OF WORLD SERIES. THE AUTHOR ALSO HAS A TON OF FACTS AND FIGURES FROM THE BEST HITTER AT EACH POSITION TO WHO STOLE THE MOST BASES IN A SEVENTH GAME. ALL THE GAMES COVERED IN DEATIL AND ARE ANALYZED AS TO HOW IT EFFECTED THE OUTCOME. A MUST FOR ALL HISTORY FANS OF THE WORLD SERIES.

Worcester Telegram & Gazette (MA) March 21, 2004 Baseball book a home run Author: Phil O'Neill Section: SPORTS, Page: D1Barry Levenson, a Worcester native and lifelong Red Sox fan, has researched and written a splendid baseball volume that is chock full of nuggets about the National Pastime and bound to be a popular seller. ``The Seventh Game: The 35 World Series That Have Gone the Distance,'' which is just now reaching bookstores, is a clever approach chronicling full-length Fall Classics, from the 1909 marquee matchup of Ty Cobb and Honus Wagner right down to Anaheim's surprising victory over hard-luck San Francisco in 2002. Highlights -- or lowlights, if you will -- include famous Red Sox failures in 1946, 1967, 1975 and 1986, along with what Levenson calls Boston's improbable seventh-game triumph in 1912 over Christy Mathewson and John McGraw's suddenly inept New York Giants. The 340-page soft-cover book, which is published by McGraw Hill and sells for $16.95, is dedicated to his father, Jim Levenson. ``The Seventh Game'' includes an in-depth analysis of the 35 World Series, line scores of the final game, a quiz on seventh-game knowledge, a 1-to-35 ranking of the best-to-worst seventh games, computer replays of the games and a foreword by New York Yankee pitcher Ralph Terry, who gave up Bill Mazeroski's game-ending home run in the 1960 seventh game and then hurled a 1-0 shutout in the 1962 Series finale. ``The seventh game is baseball's ultimate treat,'' Levenson said in a telephone interview. ``It only happens about once every three years. It's the ultimate game of `no tomorrow.' To me, it seems like the culmination of everything going on in America.'' A nice touch is the way Levenson sets the scene for each of his 35 chapters. The epic 1946 Red Sox-Cardinals clash, for example, was the year the boys came back from war and also witnessed the birth of Dolly Parton, the invention of artificial snow and the first appearance of the bikini. ``Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah'' was a hit song, and Jimmy Stewart starred in a new movie: ``It's a Wonderful Life.'' He spent two years researching ``The Seventh Game.'' He calls time spent at the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., poring over old newspaper and magazine clips ``great days. I just had a ball doing that.'' Time for Trivia (Questions from ``The Seventh Game)'' 1. Which teams have the best and worst records in World Series seventh games? 2. There have been only 13 triples in WS seventh games. Name the only Red Sox player to hit a three-bagger and the last player from any team to do so. 3. Who was the last catcher to steal a base in a WS seventh game?