Synopsis
It is baseball's last great team. And always will be. Here is the inside story of the greatest starting eight in baseball history, and one of the greatest teams of all-time:The Big Red Machine. Led by the fiery Pete Rose, Hall-of-Famers johnny Bench and Joe Morgan, and Latin stars Tony Perez and Davey Concepcion, the "Great Eight" of the Reds dominated baseball in the I970s. The Great Eight earned 63 All-Star selections, six MVP awards and 26 Gold Gloves. No team could afford such excellence today. General manager Bob Howsam arrived in Cincinnati in 1967 and immediately began building a first-class operation that became the best in baseball. He hired the unknown Sparky Anderson in 1970, and the two proceeded to guide the Reds to consecutive World Championships, four National League pennants and five N.L.Western Division titles in seven years. Drawing upon dozens of interviews and thousands of pages of research material, authors Greg Rhodes and John Erardi document the behind-the scenes maneuvering that guided this baseball juggernaut, including: the intelligence gathering of superscout (and super "sleuth") Ray Shore that led to the trade that brought Morgan to Cincinnati in 1972; the real story of what turned around the 1975 season; the clubhouse conversations that fueled --sometimes explosively -- the "chemistry" of the four superstars; the coming of free-agency and the resulting decline of the Big Red Machine. Big Red Dynasty is a compelling, riveting romp through a decade that changed baseball forever and left as its legacy some of the greatest postseason performances of all time: the dramatic 1972 playoffs; the nerve-wracking Reds-A's World Series of 72; the 1975 Reds-Red Sox Series classic; and the 1976 post-season sweep of the Phillies and Yankees. "Nobody has chronicled a dynasty team and an era the way this book does", says Reds broadcaster Marty Brennaman. "This is the bible."
Review
It may seem like a big conceit, but the assertion that the Big Red Machine was the last baseball dynasty--and always will be--is not far off base. Unless the business of baseball changes drastically, it will be mighty tough to assemble a team of all-star players and keep them together long enough to build the sort of dominance the Cincinnati Reds (and their fans) enjoyed in the 1970s. Greg Rhodes and John Erardi present this formidable marriage of all-stars and brilliant coaching with anecdotes, quotes, pictures, and year-by-year commentary. The exciting rise of the Reds begins with the arrival of general manager Bob Howsam in 1967 and subsequent hiring of little-known Sparky Anderson three years later and gains momentum with the grooming of one of the greatest lineups to take the field. Over the course of seven years, the Big Red Machine won consecutive World Series, four National League pennants, and five National League Western Division titles. The "Great Eight"--led by Pete Rose, Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan, Tony Perez, Davey Concepcion, and George Foster--earned 63 All-Star selections, six MVP awards, and 26 Gold Gloves. The glory of this dynasty, maybe the last of its kind, is preserved with a careful, knowledgeable touch and a true fan's attention to drama and detail.
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