The Year of the Gerbil

The Year of the Gerbil chronicles the events leading up to and including October 2, 1978, the day that will live in Boston infamy as the day that the Red Sox could have had it all but then lost it to the New York Yankees. Detailing the age-old American League East rivalry, the book is populated with all of the baseball personalities that fans of the game are unlikely to soon forget. In the Yankees corner are notorious owner George Steinbrenner, colorful manager Billy Martin and flamboyant player Reggie Jackson, as well as familiar names like Bucky Dent, Lou Piniella, Willie Randolph, and Thurmon Munson. Appearing for the Red Sox are Carl Yastrezemski, pitcher Bill "Spaceman" Lee, Carlton Fisk, the tenacious Lius Tiant, Mike Torrez, Dennis Eckersley -- the man who has the distinction of holding the league record for most runs allowed -- and manager Don Zimmer, who Lee once not-so-lovingly nicknamed "the gerbil".

From Opening Day through the Red Sox red-hot summer and on into September, when Boston's lead over the Yankees vanished into thin air during a series dubbed the "Boston Massacre", Chapman takes the reader through a play-by-play accounting of how the Red Sox succumbed to the ancient Greek sin of hubris. With the regular season culminating in a tie, forcing a one-game playoff between the perennially-winning Yankees and the frequently-hapless Red Sox -- a team that hadn't won a World Series since 1918 -- Chapman puts the reader right in the stands for that fateful day in October. Due to the author's fair treatment of both teams and his literary handling of his subject matter, The Year of the Gerbil is sure to delight fans of the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox as well as baseball fans everywhere as it takes its just place on bookshelves alongside of other great classics of the sport.