Tyler Kepner. The Grandest Stage. Doubleday, 2022.
The Grandest Stage is subtitled A History of the World Series. I suppose there is a certain irony or appropriateness that it is published by Doubleday.
The Grandest Stage will fascinate any reader interested in baseball. It is divided into seven chapters—like the best of seven format of the World Series. Each chapter is thematic rather than chronological. It
is not a historical overview: “In 1903 the first interleague baseball championship featured the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Boston Pilgrims, later renamed the Red Sox.” No, not that. Instead, each chapter focuses on a different theme.
Kepner has been a sports reporter for various publication including the New York Times for over twenty years. Much of what he shares is from interviews with players, coaches, managers, and team officials—both from his own interviews and those from others. For example, he occasionally quotes from The Glory of Their Times, the well known baseball oral history of the early years major league.
Chapter One, for example, is about how players, coaches, and managers learn to handle the pressure of being in the World Series. It begins, perhaps for obvious reasons to baseball fans, with a discussion of Reggie Jackson. Some players like Jackson, a.k.a. Mr. October, handled the pressure just fine, thank you. Others, not so much. Quotations from a variety of people give us a sense of what it was like. The solution which seemed to work for many was simply to treat the Series like any other game.
Chapter Two is a record of overlooked plays and events in well-known World Series games. One example resonated with me because as a boy I attended the seventh game of the 1960 World Series between the Pittsburgh Pirates and New York Yankees. Yes, it has rightly gone down in history as a famous back-and-forth battle decided by a walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth inning by Bill Mazeroski. What is often overlooked was the three-run homer the inning before by Hal Smith which put the Pirates ahead of the Yankees. Kepner notes that by modern sabermetric standards, before that two-out home run, the Pirates had a thirty percent chance of winning the game. Afterwards, they had a ninety-three percent chance. Of course, the Yankees tied the game in their half of the ninth, so that set the stage for Maz’s blast.
It also explains in some detail why the Cincinnati Reds were the better team in the 1919 World Series and probably would have won it anyway apart from the Black Sox scandal. Other interesting notes include about the unusual event that set the table for Kirk Gibson’s famous homer in the 1988 World Series or the possible strategic pitching change that happened before Joe Carter’s walk-off in game six of the 1993 World Series.
Other observations include, yes, the Cardinals got a bad umpire call in the 1985 World Series against the Royals, but “the Cardinals deserved to lose” (66). Later in the book, Kepner tells the story that Royals’ starter Mark Gubicza never got to play in that World Series though he had won the deciding game in the ALCS. When his manager apologized for that, he told him that he did not care because they won the championship. Gracious.
Chapter Three tells of unlikely World Series heroes like Del Unser of the 1980 Phillies who had been called out of retirement from baseball for the season and was basically a pinch hitter and utility player for the team. All he did in the World Series was hit three home runs in three consecutive at-bats pinch hitting. There is also an interesting discussion on Bill Wambsganss who achieved a World Series feat that has never been equaled—an unassisted triple play. (There have only been fifteen in the entire history of the Major Leagues).
Chapter Four sets the tone for much of the rest of the book. It is a chapter on managing the World Series. Sometimes the managers are goats—and I do not mean GOATs. Sometimes they are the heroes. While it is likely that 1960 would be Casey Stengel’s last year managing the Yankees, his decision not to start Whitey Ford in the first game, thus making him available for games 4 and 7, would haunt him. (For what it is worth, I wrote a poem about why Red Sox manager Grady Little did not replace Pedro Martinez in game seven of the 2003 ALCS.) Terry Francona, who has managed both Boston and Cleveland in the World Series, said simply, “If you win, you’re smart; if you lose, you’re dumb” (119).
One weird thing to me in this chapter was an alleged quotation from Casey Stengel saying that he chose the pitchers he did because Pittsburgh had a small park. That is absolutely not true. Center field was 457 feet. They kept the batting practice batting cage on the field in center because hardly anyone ever hit balls that far. The shorter left field had a tall scoreboard and right field had a large screen in front of the stands. It was hardly a band box.
Chapter Five also speaks of a different kind of strategy. It is a overview of how front offices build or attempt to build a World Series winning team. Baseball is unique among professional sports because of its long season of 154 or 162 games. To reach the playoffs requires one kind of approach, much of it having to do with endurance and cohesion. The postseason is basically a tournament which has to do more with players getting hot at the right time. In other words, Kepner would say, luck. Often trades made during the season especially near the August trade deadline can make a difference. Again, using many examples and quotations from many sources, readers get a sense of how the World Series team sausage is made.
Chapter Six is titled “It Wasn’t Your Fault, Kid.” It takes a look the ignominy associated with certain plays or player in the World Series. Probably the classic example is Giant outfielder Fred Snodgrass who dropped a ball in the tenth inning of the last game of the 1912 World Series against Boston, allowing the Red Sox to win. Even though he had made a spectacular score-saving catch earlier in the game, he was never forgotten for dropping the ball in the tenth. I can honestly say as a baseball fan, that that is all I ever knew about Snodgrass.
Some players can overcome mistakes. We read about Oakland’s Dennis Eckersley, who served up Dodger Kirk Gibson’s home run in the 1988 World Series. Eckersley had a distinguished career and is in the Hall of Fame. He is able to look back with some good humor about it. In game four of the 2018 World Series at Los Angeles, Eckersley threw out the ceremonial first pitch to Gibson.
Chapter Seven may be one that will generate the most discussion. It is a chapter of interesting and probably controversial lists. One especially stands out: who Kepner believes would have received the Most Valuable Player award for the World Series before 1955 when the prize was instituted. Another one was MVP mistakes, that is, who should have gotten the award instead of the person who did.
There is one that I have noticed before, and Kepner noticed the same thing. The 1960 World Series MVP was Bobby Richardson, a player for the Yankees, the team that lost. As a ten year old, that is when I learned about coastal, especially New York, media bias. I thought it was even brave of Kepner to say that since he writes for the New York Times. He also notes that while Richardson did break a record for the most hits in a series, he made most of those hits in the three Yankee blowouts (16-3, 10-0, and 12-0) when the whole team was hitting.
He also puts together two World Series all-time all-star teams. Why two? The Yankees have been in so many series (forty in all) that he made one list of Yankees and one list of non-Yankees. This includes players who have played in the World Series, so, yes, it does not include Hall of Famers who never made it to the Big Dance. His player choices focus on the postseason. He chose Roberto Clemente as a starter and Hank Aaron as a backup, for example. Clemente was a better fielder and his World Series record was better, even though Aaron held (some would say still holds) the all-time home run record.
Even just from these examples, readers can see how this book could lead to many interesting discussions. More than most baseball books, it also takes a close look at strategies, including in game decisions of the moment, pitching decisions, decisions about who starts, as well as decisions by the front offices in putting teams together, and yes, even umpiring decisions. This is a thinking fan’s book.
One criticism is that the copy I received the pages listed in the detailed index do not correspond to the pages in the book. If this goes into a second edition, hopefully that problem will be corrected.