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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.357640974811
EAN num: 9780786432172
ISBN number: 0786432179
Label: McFarland
Manufacturer: McFarland
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 272
Printing Date: November 28, 2007
Publishing house: McFarland
Sale Popularity Level: 161172
Studio: McFarland
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
On October 7, 1977, the Philadelphia Phillies lost a playoff game to the Dodgers, a game that began so hopefully and ended so disastrously that it has become known in Philadelphia simply as 'Black Friday.' As a season of rare hope and unity crashed to a painful end in a ten-minute sequence of bad plays, so too did the city's urban renaissance falter and an old sense of inferiority return.
This ambitious examination of the relationship between the team and city delves deep into Philadelphia's social and baseball history to reveal how the disillusionment of Black Saturday affected Philadelphia's self image and fans' relationship to the team they both love and love to hate.
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Rated by buyers 
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I really loved this book. It combines baseball history and social history in a way I've never seen before and shows you just how people's feelings toward their team reflect how they feel about other, larger, things. It also shows just how much a baseball team (at least the Phillies) can affect public perception of these things as well. For instance, I never realized that Philadelphia was not as racist in the 1940's as I'd always heard it was. Instead, as the book points out, it was the Phillies who were responsible for much of this opinion. Also, it shows how the Phillies of the 1950's and '60's pretty much became the personification of all the reasons so many people left the city and migrated towards the suburbs during that time.
As for Black Saturday (the 1977 game which forms the focal point of the book -- each chapter begins with a summary of a particular inning), the book shows just how that game contributed to the end of the city's renaissance in the 1970's and how the "negadelphia" image the city is so well-known for returned. I never thought I'd read a book that talks about both Mike Schmidt and Mumia but this one does and ties them together in a way where you really get to see how they both were convenient images for people to use whenever they wanted to either embrace or diss the city. Fascinating.
Rated by buyers 
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As most Phillies fans know, the 1977 Phillies were one of the best teams in franchise history, winning 101 games on their way to their second consecutive division title. The team featured future Hall of Famers Mike Schmidt and Steve Carlton, along with Larry Bowa, Greg Luzinski, Tug McGraw, and Garry Maddox. The team faced the Los Angeles Dodgers in the playoffs and lost in heartbreaking fashion on a day Phillies fans know as "Black Friday." So as a lifelong Phillies fan, the title of this book immediately drew my interest.
However, despite the title, this book features very little details about the great 1977 team. The book instead is almost a history of the city of Philadelphia during the 20th century. There is a lot of talk about city government/politics, the rivalry between the cities New York and Philadelphia, how the United Nations was at one point going to be built in Philly, etc. There's also ton of stuff about the Philadelphia A's, Connie Mac, what led the A's to move out of town, etc. While some of the information is interesting, that is not what I wanted or thought I was getting from this book.
The only real references to the 1977 Phillies is that the beginning of every chapter analyzes a situation from the famous Black Saturday playoff game versus the Dodgers. I think the point the author was trying to make is that the disappointment of the Black Saturday game is representative of a lot of the disappointment Philadelphians have felt over the years.
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