The Machine: A Hot Team, a Legendary Season, and a Heart-stopping World Series: The Story of the 1975 Cincinnati Reds
4/5
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About this ebook
Award-winning sports columnist Joe Posnanski hits a grand slam with The Machine—a thrilling account of the magical 1975 season of the Cincinnati Reds, baseball’s legendary “Big Red Machine,” from spring training through the final game of the ’75 World Series. Featuring a Hall of Fame lineup of baseball superstars—including Johnny Bench, George Foster, Joe Morgan, Cesar Geronimo, and “Charlie Hustle” Pete Rose himself—The Machine is a wild ride with one of the greatest baseball teams in the history of the American Pastime.
Joe Posnanski
Joe Posnanski is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of seven books, including The Baseball 100, Paterno, and The Secret of Golf. He has written for The Athletic, Sports Illustrated, NBC Sports, and The Kansas City Star and currently writes at JoePosnanski.com. He has been named National Sportswriter of the Year by five different organizations and is the winner of two Emmy Awards. He lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, with his family.
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Reviews for The Machine
48 ratings7 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I 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.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pretty good book about the Big Red Machine dynasty (specifically focusing on the year 1975), but as a baseball fan who wasn't alive back then, I can see why the people who were around back then find this book a little lacking - it definitely does come off as a kind of Cliffs Notes version of everything that was going on back then. As others have pointed out, things that probably should have been explored in greater detail (Griffey and Foster's roles on the team, Bench's shoulder, Perez potentially getting traded) were mentioned and then kind of glossed over without really having any depth. Still, as someone who didn't really know much about the team other than the fact that they were great, this did satisfy my curiosity enough that I'd recommend the book. But if you already are familiar with the Machine, then it might not be worth it.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I 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.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Great fun and great nostalgia. The perfect light reading for spring training season.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In The Machine, Joe Posnanski highlights the characters and events that shaped the 1975 Cincinnati Reds and led to the greatest World Series in the history of baseball.The book is very well written minus a typo or two. I really liked the brief insights into the state of the country during 1975. I thought they were appropriate and generally well done.My only wish was that the book was more in depth. It was a quick read and provided a great overview, but I really wanted more insight and detail. I think there are so many ways that this book could have gone. It could have provided a more in depth analysis of the formation of the team (trades, signings, minor league history, etc.). It could have provided deeper biographical data about the players. It also could have focused more on the fans of the Cincinnati Reds and their opinions and sentiments of the team.At the very least, it gave me more things to research and read about. I want to learn more about Sparky Anderson. He doesn't sound like a Hall of Fame manager in this book. He sounds like a moron who happened to be the manager of the greatest team of the last 50 years. He managed the pitching staff in a very modern way for the time, but it seemed like a product of his impatience with pitchers than some great strategic insight.I also found Ken Griffey to be a tragic figure in all of this. His abilities were completely taken for granted. This was probably due to Anderson. Great coaches and managers put their players in a position to succeed (i.e. Bill Belichick), but Anderson seemed to be a star struck manager who took all of his other players for granted. The Reds seemed to have won in spite of him, not because of him.Overall, a really good book. It just didn't have enough meat for me.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I've got nothing but props for Joe Posnanski, sportswriter and blogger extraordinaire, for this compelling portrait of my favorite baseball team, the 1975 Reds.Although the 'season in a bottle' approach Posnanski takes is not new, he exploits its limits and conventions to full effect. Those of us who read Pos regularly are amazed, day by day, by his prolific and insightful commentary on sports, athletes and pop culture. But here in The Machine it's Posnanski's restraint that's exemplary. A book like this can go off in so many directions, and include far too many anecdotes and game summaries, but Posnanski keeps his eye on the ball, focuses, and keeps his story moving forward at a smart pace. I came of age as a basefall fan cheering for this very team, but even if you didn't, spending some time with this book is time well spent indeed.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Very well written (as usual) and insightful, but there's something missing that I can't quite put my finger on. I'll say this; Pete Rose is one of the most fascinating people I've ever read about. The last part of the book focusing on Rose in 2008 is probably the best part of the whole book and left me wanting to read even more about him.