Lost Summer: The '67 Red Sox and the Impossible Dream

by Bill Reynolds

Relives the exciting American League pennant race of 1967, when the Boston Red Sox, led by Triple Crown-winner Carl Yastrzemski, won their first pennant in twenty-one years. By the author of Born to Coach. Reprint.

Genres: Baseball, Sports, History, Nonfiction

328 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published May 1, 1992

About the author

Bill Reynolds is a sports columnist for The Providence Journal and the author of several previous books, including Fall River Dreams and (with Rick Pitino) the #1 New York Times bestseller Success Is a Choice. He lives in Providence, Rhode Island."

Reviews

[Josh Hitch · Rating 4 out of 5]

Closer to a 3.5. It's great when it keeps to baseball. The 67 Redsox is a great story. Coming from a horrible team to a pennant winner with a first year coach is remarkable. The author seems to want to go on tangents about race riots and Vietnam, which brings the narrative to a standstill. Even talks about Joe Namath for some reason. Though he does a great job with describing the season and all the personalities on the team.

Recommended it is a good baseball book overall. A team of overachievers who for one season came within one game of being world series champs.

[Tom Kielty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Each summer I try to read a couple of books about my very favorite sport and this season I focused locally. Bill Reynolds was a legendary columnist for the Providence Journal (all the way back to its days as the "Providence Journal-Bulletin") and, "Lost Summer, The '67 Red Sox and the Impossible Dream," showcases the storytelling skills that made him an Ocean State institution. And, this is a story that in some form was a long time rite of passage for New Englanders.

Beginning in 1967 the Boston Red Sox broke in a new generation of fans with a heartbreaking World Series loss once a decade and in the process cemented their devotion. 1975 was when I got jumped into the gang and they did it to others in 1986. This torment relaxed a touch in the 90's but in 1995, when they finished seven games ahead of the New York Yankees in the newly realigned American League. Of course, they were then swept in three games by the Cleveland Indians establishing a postseason losing streak that reached 13 straight games, dating all the way back to the 1986 World Series. Welcome on board... losers.

Of course, 2004 changed all of that - as those of us who are in New England are being very much reminded of on the 20th anniversary of "Curse Reversal" - and for someone who entered "Sox-o-sphere" just after Opening Day in 1967, "Lost Summer" was a wonderful history lesson. One of Reynolds' many gifts is introducing a reader to unknown names like Carl Yastremski, Tony Conigliaro, Jim Lonborg and George "The Boomer" Scott - that now need no introduction to Red Sox fans - during a period in their careers when they still did. Manager Dick Williams is an old-school baseball man in his first year at the helm of a team that Vegas was giving 100-1 odds and representing a team that hadn't even won a pennant since 1946! Yastremski, who has struggled to find his personality and place in the overwhelming shadow of Ted Williams. Conigliaro is the local hero with movie star looks and seemingly boundless potential destined for tragedy. Lonborg, the Stanford grad pitching ace whose baseball career almost seems an entertaining lark before the inevitability of a career as a dentist (he eventually practiced dentistry for over 30 years in suburban Massachusetts and it's a photo of his delivery that was appropriated as "Sam Malone" to hang behind the bar in the Boston-based TV classic, "Cheers"). "The Boomer" is a happy-go-lucky post-plantation southerner who is in and out of Williams' doghouse for both his weight and his free swinging search for what he calls "taters" (home runs) while teammate Reggie Smith, perhaps the most naturally gifted athlete on the team, struggles in his role as an African-American athlete playing for the last professional squad to integrate.

With characters like these and a remarkably interesting and wide-ranging supporting cast, set against the turbulence of the time period which Reynolds tastefully intersperses with references to culture, music and film, the seeds for a tale for the ages are sowed. With all this going for it a story like this would have to have a happy ending, right?

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

As I await a big athletic showdown between St. Louis and Boston, I think back to the first time in my life I remember something like that happening. Of course, being a St. Louisian, my sympathies were never with the Red Sox, so it's interesting to read a book that views the Cardinals only as the immovable object in the way of their deserved triumph. This book was written in 1992, so it's completely devoid of actual baseball analysis - Reynolds talks about batting average and RBIs as if those were the kind of things that tell you everything you need to know about a hitter. And, he didn't have access to the players themselves, so the book is based on newspaper accounts of the time. Still, Reynolds is a good storyteller, and while it seems obvious to me that Dick Williams was something of a horrific personnel manager, they did manage to overachieve considerably, and to win a ridiculously tight four-team pennant race that found them listening to the radio in the clubhouse on the final day of the season rooting for the Angels to beat the Tigers in the second game of a double header. And the Cardinals won in seven, thanks largely to Bob Gibson, as it should have been.

[Kevin Roones · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars Someone loaned me this book, and I enjoyed reading it since it took me back to a time and place that I remember well. The book interweaves stories about the Red Sox fabled 1967 season with player quotes and things that were taking place in popular culture.

My older brother was attending UMass at the time, so for whatever reason the entire family went to visit him at his dorm on the day of the final World Series game, so watching the game in the dorm lounge is etched in my brain.

[Phil Hardin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed Lost Summer by Bill Reynolds. It relives the miraculous 1967 season of the Boston Red Sox. It brings back many memories and emotions that went with those memories. The 1967 season in the American League had four teams in contention for the pennant up until the final days of the season. It had to be one of the greatest races of all time. The Red Sox had finished in the second division for the previous six years before winning the 1967 pennant.

[M.E. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book on one of the greatest seasons in Red Sox history. As a Boston transplant, it's nice to know why Yaz and the other members of the '67 team are so beloved.

[Jimmy · Rating 5 out of 5]

1967 Red Sox. There will never be another team quite like that one. Baseball has changed considerably since those days. Managers are now unable to tell players what to do. Players are wealthy beyond the wildest dreams of 1967 baseball players. That one baseball season during a year that had so much happening in America as well will never be matched.

All of the single men on the team are able to use the pull of Red Sox management to get out of the draft to be put on reserves so they will not have to go to war. At the same time as they were getting out of the war, I was wondering what it would feel like to be asked to kill a man. And what would I do about it.

Race issues come into play. The Red Sox were the last team to integrate. In 1957, their first black player was "Pumpsie" Green. In spring training, he had to stay at a hotel in Arizona that was 17 miles away because of segregation.

Book was an excellent mixture of baseball, behind the scenes stories, and cultural references.

[Fred · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have to rate this as a baseball book and not a work of great literature or history. It is a baseball book about a wonderful moment in Red Sox history, the 1967 pennant wining team of Yaz, Tony C, Boomer, Gentleman Jim, Rico and their crazy throw-back manager Dick Williams. This was the team I knew least about as a Sox fan and I thoroughly enjoyed the story. Reynolds is a good writer. He writes with accuracy and sympathy. He interjects just enough of the history of 1967 to keep the season in perspective, without trying to say too much. I learned a lot: for instance Yastremzski was a reluctant hero who had the best season of his life. Conigliaro had the makings of a superstar making his beanball-shortened season all the more tragic. Lonborg complained about being taken out of a game in the 8th inning because he had only thrown 167 pitches. It was another world. Fun stuff.

[George Briggs · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Moment in Time

Bill Reynolds has captured a special summer for this reader. On June 24, 1967 - I returned home after two tours of duty in Vietnam to realize that the Red Sox were actually in a pennant race for the first time in memory. My father would often talk about the '46, '48, & '49 seasons which ended badly. August 18 was my 22nd birthday - the day that Tony C. was hit by Jack Hamilton. I remember the radio broadcasts everywhere you went that summer. The final two games at Fenway were dreams come true. The Impossible Dream was more than just a song on the radio. The over-achieving Red Sox made believers of us all. Bill Reynolds has written another excellent page turner. I look forward to his daily column in the Providence Journal.

[David J. Giffin · Rating 5 out of 5]

The (Impossible) Dream Season, 1967 Red Sox

As Charles Dickens once wrote, "It was the best of times. It was the worst of times."

In 1967, the Viet Nam War was escalating, Race Riots were popping up all over the USA like pimples on a teenager, and the Red Sox (a Las Vegas preseason 100-1 shot) captivated the entire City of Boston in their quest for "the Impossible Dream", to win the World Series. Reynolds brilliantly weaves the Baseball story with the changing Social History of the times, and while you don't have to be a Baseball fan to enjoy it, you may become one by the time you finish it. I heartily recommend you give this book a try.

[Greg Raleigh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a nice trip back to my childhood. I thank the author for names of players I'd forgotten about, descriptions of life during the age of Vietnam, MLK, RFK, antiwar protests, race protests, and general overall anxiety for nearly everyone except children like myself, who didn't really grasp what was happening. All a 6 year old boy cared about were baseball cards and bicycles and getting to stay up and watch tv later in the summer months. This book opened my senses and introduced me to parts I missed and showed me where the puzzle pieces fit. I'm not a Red Sox fan, but this story invited me to their party, and I was sorely tempted.

[Dale Stonehouse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not the most pleasant topic for a Minnesota Twins fan - that season was heartbreaking for 3 other teams who were beaten for the pennant by the Red Sox. This book is, however, a nice reminder of how much more important baseball was in those days, when summers meant being outdoors, either playing baseball or beating the heat swimming in cold fresh water. Reynolds weaves news and cultural events into the narrative of a year like few others in American history.

[Maggie · Rating 3 out of 5]

good sports book. knowing stats is helpful, but not necessary in understanding this odyssey of the '67 Red Sox. almost wished the book stopped after the pennant

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun read about the year that made Boston the city where baseball is the most relevant.

[Matthew Baione · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reliving 1967 Red Sox

Pretty good read. I didn't know the story of the '67 Red Sox, so it was good to learn more about their World Series run. Not as good as Reynolds other books.

[Steve]

Lost Summer is the story of the 1967 Red Sox and their “100 to 1 shot” at winning the American League pennant. As with all my favourite baseball books there is a developing history that sits alongside the game with the shadow of the Vietnam War looming large, as well bubbling racial tensions and a growing generational divide, but this was a book in which it was the sporting narrative that really grabbed a hold of me.

Full review here: https://livemanylives.wordpress.com/2...