Description
Book SynopsisBobby Thomson’s home run in the ninth to beat Brooklyn and give the Giants the 1951 National League pennant. Bill Mazeroski’s ninth-inning homer for Pittsburgh to beat the Yankees in the 1960 World Series. The Mets’ amazing 1969 stretch drive. It’s the winners we remember in baseball’s most dramatic episodes. But baseball being a game of inches, it's often a fine line between victory and defeat. Losing is unexpected, unpredictable, frequently a consequence of fickle fate. The game is designed to break your heart, Bart Giamatti said. In Heartbreakers, veteran baseball writer John Kuenster recalls fifteen of the game’s most painful “disasters” of the last half-century and looks at them from the losers’ point of view. With a reporter’s skill and a fan’s enthusiasm, he sets the scene for these memorable matchups, surveys the players who led each team to the big moment, and tells the story of the game and the emotions that can’t be erased. He has interviewed key players who suffered the defeats, providing personal insights and sometimes surprising perspectives on the game action that snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Heartbreakers offers a box seat for—and a fresh slant on—the replay of baseball’s most thrilling games. With 50 black-and-white photographs.
Trade ReviewA refreshing approach to the games...it makes for an interesting read. * Tampa Tribune *
This book tells the real story of why sports are so great. -- Sparky Anderson
John Kuenster lets those who suffered baseball's most epic defeats know that he feels their pain. -- Bob Costas, NBC Sports
Kuenster does a fine job of summing up the season that led to each critical game...coming close to winning the whole enchilada, then having it snatched from under you maybe that's the definition of the agony of defeat. -- Charles Salzberg * The New York Times *
The best stories are always about the losers. Heartbreakers is a must for any baseball library. -- Jerome Holtzman, Official Historian of Major League Baseball
