The Greatest Game

INTRODUCTION

It's going to be Yaz, Goose Gossage thought. In the bottom of the ninth, it's going to be me against Yaz.

The relief pitcher was back in his hotel room after drinking beers with his teammates at Daisy Buchanan's on Newbury Street. The Yankees hung out there when they came to Boston to play the Red Sox. Thurman Munson, Lou Piniella, Sparky Lyle, Reggie Jackson, Bucky Dent -- it felt like the whole team was out drinking. The 1978 Yankees were a tough crew. They liked to party, razz one another, throw back a few -- even if they were playing the biggest game of their lives the next afternoon, which they were. It was better than sitting around at your hotel. Thinking. Getting nervous. Getting tense. You didn't want that much time to think.

But Gossage couldn't shut out thoughts of the next day. After he and his teammates drifted off to their rooms for the night, he tried to sleep, and that's when the game bored into his head and started to buzz around inside his skull. The Yankees versus the Red Sox in a one-game playoff t ... read full excerpt from The Greatest Game: The Yankees, the Red Sox, and the Playoff of '78 ebook