January 28, 2021
Former Rocky Mountain News editor and senior executive
Denny Dressman long has been a respected voice and leader in Colorado's journalism and literary communities. He retired in
2007 after a 42-year newspaper career and since has added to his diverse author catalog, including the sports-themed Eddie
Robinson, a biography of the long-time Grambling coach; and Heard But Not Seen: Richard Nixon, Frank Robinson and
the All-Star Game's Most Debated Play.
So
Dressman's latest book, the terrific Game 163, is no surprise.
The Rockies' 2007 run down the regular-season
stretch to the World Series was -- to put it bluntly -- the damndest thing I've ever witnessed in decades of covering Denver
sports.
Dressman's decision to make the play-in game against the Padres the pivot (not the sole focus, but close to it) was
risky, but appropriate.
Why?
I'll answer that with another question: What's the first thing you think of when
Rocktober comes up?
Exactly!
Game 163. The National League Wild-Card Tiebreaker. That play-in
game.
I asked Dressman how
he came up with the idea. He said he had gone to the game and seen replays several times, but that it took another book
to prod him.
"Our daughter, Melissa, had given
me Kevin Cook's Ten Innings At Wrigley and I had really enjoyed
that book," Dressman said. "It's about the 23-22, 10-inning game between the Cubs and the Phillies back in
1979. When I saw the
TV replay of the Rockies-Padres 2007 Wild Card tiebreaker game last year before the shortened season started and ATT Sportsnet
was showing replays of Rockies games, I thought to myself, 'This would make a book like Ten Innings At Wrigley.'"
In his resulting deeply researched book, Dressman adds to
the lore and places that single game in context.
That context includes what followed -- the sweeps of the Phillies (3-0, NLDS) and Diamondbacks (4-0, NLCS),
then the four-game World Series loss to the Red Sox -- and while Dressman touches on them, he pounced on the better idea.
Dressman's narrative
is democratic -- little "d" -- with all from eventual Hall of Famers, managers, utilitymen, executives and umpires
having their time in the spotlight. He said one of his first interviews was with journeyman reserve infielder Jamey Carroll,
and that Carroll was such a treasure trove of behind-the-scenes anecdotes Dressman hadn't heard before, the author decided
he was on to something.
"One of the things that, I think, makes this a very readable book is talking to journeyman players whose perspectives
were never written," Dressman told me. "We know what Matt Holliday, Todd Helton, Troy Tulowitzki--the stars--had
to say about the game. But players like Matt Herges, Josh Bard, Josh Fogg and Ryan Speier, as well as Carroll, provide fresh
perspectives. Even the TBS sportscasters who worked the game added insights and background--by email."
He also spoke with general manager Dan O'Dowd, manager Clint Hurdle, third base
coach Mike Gallego and Bill Geivett, who was assistant general manager at the time.
Gallego provided another hint that Dressman was headed in the right direction.
"When I got him on the phone," Dressman said, "his first response was, 'Uh, which
game was that? I'm not sure I know which one you mean.' I was flabbergasted. Then he quickly laughed and said, 'Wasn't that
something?'"
Exactly!
Dressman
said they spoke -- about that one game -- for almost an hour.
Another easy
way out for Dressman, taken so often in sports books of this era, would be to consult the baseball experts, Messrs. Google,
Nexus and NewsLibrary, among others, and grind out a serviceable rehash. The other way those types of pedestrian, by-the-number
books come out is if beat writers -- even great beat writers -- hurriedly cobble together their work from the season in question
and send it off to New York. (By the way, if the Mets had that kind of National League late-season and playoff run, even with
a World Series loss, every New York publishing house would have commissioned a quickie book for one of their imprints ...
and 14 Mets books would have been at every Barnes and Noble from coast to coast by February 1.)
Dressman illustrated -- as he has in his previous books, both sports and otherwise -- that he doesn't settle for
the formulaic or serviceable. You don't have to, either.
A conventional rehash would have had most readers often nodding and saying, "Oh,
yeah ... I remember that."
With Dressman's book, the frequent reaction is, "I didn't know that."
By the way, on the issue of
whether Holliday touched the plate ...
What ... do
you want me to reveal that the butler did it?
Sorry. Read the darned book.
Amazon:
Denny Dressman's books
Denny Dressman's Game 163
