The game was won by a home run hit by a Hall of Famer off of a Hall of Fame pitcher, and that’s maybe the least interesting thing about it. On May 17, 1979, the Philadelphia Phillies and Chicago Cubs played a Thursday afternoon game in front of a half-full stadium. Neither team would go very far that season, but on that afternoon the teams played one of the craziest games anyone had ever seen. The main culprit was the wind, which was blowing out the entire day. That and a hungover umpire calling a tight strike zone made the game a nightmare for both pitching staffs. There were fifty total hits in the game, including twelve that went over the fence. The final score was Philadelphia 23, Chicago 22, in 10 innings. Kevin Cook chronicles the wildness in his book Ten Innings at Wrigley.
One single game of baseball, even one with this much action, is a bit of a slender subject for a whole book. Cook extends his focus to the lives and careers of many of the men involved. Luckily for both him and his readers, the rosters that day were loaded with big stars and players who played crucial roles in the history of baseball. Philadelphia’s Mike Schmidt, perhaps the best third baseman ever, hit the game-winning homer. The all-time hit-king, Pete Rose, manned first base for the Phillies and went 3-7 to move his batting average over .350. As for the Cubs, they had hall-of-fame reliever Bruce Sutter in the bullpen, but Cook quite reasonably focuses on two players whose careers and lives turned on fateful mistakes much later in their careers: first baseman Bill Buckner, whose game-ending error in the 1986 World Series over–shadowed a marvelous career, and relief pitcher Donnie Moore, whose career and life spiraled downward after giving up a home run in the 1986 ALCS that cost the California Angels a trip to the World Series. Moore, already suffering from chronic arm and back pain, never pitched well again, and his increasing reliance on alcohol lead to a horrible tragedy in 1989 where, after shooting his wife multiple times (she survived), Moore turned the gun on himself and ended his life.
Ten Innings at Wrigley emphasizes the idea that a baseball game is a singular event that brings together dozens of people, all of whom have their own stories going on, that intersect in a particular time and place. Not all of their stories are as triumphant as Schmidt’s or as tragic as Donnie Moore’s, but all of them have their points of interest. There’s Cubs slugger Dave Kingman, whose three towering home runs kept Chicago in the game. Kingman was a homer-happy hitter who struck out a ton and played indifferent defense, making him a frequent target of sportswriters. Kingman struck back at one particular sportswriter who committed the unpardonable sin, to Kingman at least, of also being a woman. Phillies reliever Tug McGraw was two years removed from being told of the existence of his son, a little boy known as Timmy Smith, who would later take his father’s last name and become a country music star. Bob Boone caught the game for the Phillies, in the midst of his lengthy career as a second-generation baseball player. His young sons, Bret and Aaron Boone, were waiting for him at home.
While it’s strictly for big fans of baseball, Ten Innings at Wrigley expertly captures the game’s penchant for compelling narratives. Anyone who enjoys that aspect of the sport is sure to be entertained.