Game Six is a difficult to review because it seems to reach in so many different directions. Foremost is the action of the game, which carries the narrative momentum forward, and even constantly broken up by various back stories, manages to maintain coherence. Frost writes in enough detail, and with enough perspective, that even taken alone, the game sequences would never be mistaken for a newspaper recap. His description of Carlton Fisk’s famous twelfth-inning home run, allotted an entire chapter, merits a special mention for its lyricism.
Then there are the various back stories. If the action of the game is the book’s engine, then these histories are its cargo. They are what make Game Six valuable, but also at times what make it unbearably weighty. These are histories of commentators and coaches, players and owners, even of the franchises, their cities, and of baseball itself dating back to the 19th century. Their goal is a raising of the stakes. Framed by all these things, the game is meant to take on greater significance. But while none of the stories seem extraneous, their vitality and immediacy are inconsistent; some lend urgency to the action on the field, others are merely anecdotal.
These kinds of books, re-creating the past, are tough to pull off. Anyone read this one yet?
I think I'll try this question one more time, in case any of youse super-knowledgeable people are reading.
There are different ways to calculate an OPS+, but they all seem to use a "lgOBP" component (at some point you divide the OBP by lgOBP and the SLG by lgSLG). The question is whether the lg is all of MLB that year, or just the AL or NL (depending).
After a remark by monkeypants in an earlier thread, I started wondering whether the Phils' team OPS+, which is 102, is just above average for the NL, or just above average for MLB. Makes a big difference.