Living in OH at the time, this team ranks up there with my favorite teams. ( )

I absolutely adore this book. Now I must admit I am very biased when it comes to my beloved Cincinnati Reds, but I truly believe this is a very well written book that can be enjoyed by all baseball lovers. The book covers the famous Reds teams of the 1970s, "The Big Red Machine," focusing on the 1975 season in particular. That team, considered by many to be one of the greatest baseball teams of all time, consisted Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan, Pete Rose, Tony Perez, Ken Griffey Sr., Dave Concepcion, George Foster, and Cesar Geronimo, dubbed the "Great Eight." This team was also led by future hall of fame manager Sparky Anderson, which makes the case for the greatness of this ball club that much stronger. But in Posnanski's book he delves into the day to day operations of the team, which is filled with glorious moments and also some pretty ugly ones. This was a team of immense egos that was able to put their egos aside just long enough to come together and win the 1975 World Series over the Boston Red Sox. I cherish this book and propose that any fan of baseball, other than Red Sox fans maybe, will also approve of this books merit. ( )

A day-by-day of the Big Red Machine’s greatest season, showing how a firely used-car salesman directed some of the best baseball talent, and biggest egos, ever collected to a World Series title through game recaps and interviews with key members of the team by one of today’s best sportswriters.

I was born in 1977, so by the time I started getting into baseball in the mid-'80s, the Big Red Machine was gone. Some of the players were still hanging around, but they were approaching the finish lines of their careers. Still, I grew up a huge Reds fan, hearing stories about the Machine and about the larger-than-life characters that played on it. From that perspective, the book was great. I really liked reading the stories and anecdotes about these guys and the way they played the game. I also liked how Posnanski gave just a light dusting of historical context, just enough to give a sense of what was going on in the world at the time.

So this was a great light, fun read...but I felt like it could have been a lot more. It brought up things like Griffey's frustration with his role, and hinted at personality clashes throughout the team, but never explored them. Posnanski kept mentioning Bench's shoulder injury, but never discussed how he dealt with it or managed to play through it at such a high level, or if he ever got over it or how it affected him after 1975. There was a disappointing lack of Marty Brennaman, and no mention of Joe Nuxhall at all. How you can have any book on the Reds without Joe is a little beyond me.

But hey, it's January. With spring training still about a month and a half away, this was a decent way to turn my mind to baseball for a few days. And the bibliography in the back of the book will give me plenty of other books to check out the next time I need a Reds fix. ( )

Great fun and great nostalgia. The perfect light reading for spring training season. ( )