By Kristie Schiefer
Assistant News Editor
Hailed as one of the best baseball books of our time, Pen American Center honored “Bottom of the 33rd: Hope, Redemption, and Baseball’s Longest Game” and its author, Dan Barry, ’80, with the PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing.
The award is granted to nonfiction books on the subject of sports published in 2011 and included a $5,000 prize, according to a university press release.
“The award, for literary sports writing, is very gratifying, as are the kind words that have been written about the book. But I didn’t write ‘Bottom of the 33rd’ in the pursuit of praise. I wrote it because I saw a chance to explore the human condition as played out on a ball field,” Barry, a New York Times national columnist, wrote in an email.
The book is about a 33-inning minor league game beginning on Holy Saturday night and continuing into Easter Sunday morning, April 18-19, 1981, between the Pawtucket Red Sox and the Rochester Red Wings of the International League.
The game was ordered to stop in the 32nd inning at 4:07 a.m. on April 19. It took place in the struggling mill city of Pawtucket, R.I. on a cold night with 1,700 people in the stands for the opening pitch, and only 19 people left in the stands by the end of the 32nd inning. The final and 33rd inning was played June 23, 1981, according to Barry.
“For eight hours, the night seemed to suspend a town and two teams between their collective pasts and futures, between their collective sorrow and joys—the shivering fans; their wives at home; the umpires; the batboys approaching manhood; the ejected manager, peering through a hole in the backstop; the sportswriters and broadcasters; and the players themselves,” according to an Amazon.com synopsis.
“In the end, I think that the book is about dedication to a purpose; about struggling to reach a higher level (the major leagues) against the odds; about coming to terms with failure and moving on,” Barry said.
Living in Pawtucket provided Barry with inspiration for the book.
“I used to live in Pawtucket, not far from the old ballpark where the game was played, but didn’t see a book in it until I learned that the game began on Holy Saturday night, 1981. That opened up all sorts of possible areas to explore, including, of course, resurrection, rebirth — all that stuff,” he said.
Barry’s research also left much exploring for sources for the book, including major league players.
“The research included interviewing as many of the participants as I could find, from the ball players and spectators down to the bat boy. But it also meant researching the history of Pawtucket, convincing two Hall of Famers to talk to me — Wade Boggs and Cal Ripken Jr., both of whom played in this game — and putting myself in a 1981 mindset,” Barry said.
Besides his most recent book, Barry also wrote “Pull Me Up,” a memoir of his Long Island Irish upbringing and battle with cancer, published in 2004; and “City Lights: Stories About New York,” a collection of his About New York columns, published in 2007, according to a university news release.
Barry’s column, “This Land,” takes readers beneath news stories and into obscure and well-known corners of the United States. The column expands Barry’s storytelling scope to the nation from New York City, where he wrote the About New York column for three years, according to a university news release.
The PEN/ESPN Award is an addition to his collection of awards, which includes a 1992 George Polk Award for an investigation with several other Providence Journal reporters, a Pulitzer Prize in 1994 with other members of the Journal’s investigative team, a 2003 American Society of Newspaper Editors Award for deadline reporting and the 2005 Mike Berger Award. Barry was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing in 2006 and 2010, according to danbarryonline.com.
“I like Pawtucket, I like old ball players, I like the minor leagues — and I like telling stories. So, for me at least, it worked out,” Barry said.
schiefkm10@bonaventure.edu
