The Greatest Game Ever Pitched
Juan Marichal, Warren Spahn, and the Pitching Duel of the Century
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4.6 • 5 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Even before their epic pitching duel, Juan Marichal and Warren Spahn already had a lot in common. Future Hall of Famers with high-kicking deliveries, they were shaped into winners by character-building experiences in the military. Spahn had been baseball’s winningest pitcher in the 1950s, and Marichal would be equally dominant in the 1960s. In The Greatest Game Ever Pitched, author Jim Kaplan weaves the 1963 contest through a dual biography of its principals in a book that is sure to be a home run with baseball fans everywhere.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Instead of focusing solely on a single game even though the author and others have dubbed the July 1963, 16-inning duel between Marichal and Spahn "the greatest game ever pitched" Kaplan undertakes a tripartite biography of both pitchers and their famous match-up. That may have been the perfect pitch to Kaplan's publisher, but on paper, the Sports Illustrated veteran swings and largely misses. The narrative darts between Marichal, Spahn, the big game, and the many less-significant games that led up to the famous four-hour affair at pitcher-friendly Candlestick Park. In fact, Kaplan seems to devote fewer time to this game renowned for both hurlers going the distance without relief than he does to exploring the plight of Latino ballplayers in the 1960s and the impact of pitch counts on modern-day baseball. Not that this is such a bad thing; this game would never happen today and the author skillfully explains why. Kaplan also breaks from typical sportswriter prose, drawing comparisons between Spahn's final years and a late scene in Shakespeare's "King Lear," for instance, and mostly overcomes his zig-zagging structure.
