They Bled Blue

March 15, 2019
The spirited tale of a unique Major League Baseball championship team.While less vaunted than the 1927 or 1961 New York Yankees, the 1981 Los Angeles Dodgers produced enough fireworks to deserve significant attention, and Turbow (Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic: Reggie, Rollie, Catfish, and Charlie Finley's Swingin' A's, 2017) delivers the goods. He begins with the frustrating 1970s, when the Dodgers continued to win without winning the World Series. He claims that the painful 1978 loss--four defeats after winning the first two games--so demoralized the team that it sunk below .500 in 1979, finishing third in the division. The 1980 season also ended badly when the Dodgers tied for first place only to lose a one-game playoff to the Houston Astros. Many fans remember the 1981 strike, which was inspired by the owners' distress at free agency. The author's detailed, blow-by-blow account tells readers perhaps more than they want to know. Far more entertaining were the games themselves, beginning opening day. With starters either injured or unavailable, for the first time in baseball history, a rookie became opening-day pitcher: Fernando Valenzuela, who threw a shutout, proceeded to win his first eight games, launched "Fernandomania," and became the first pitcher to win rookie of the year and the Cy Young award. With superb pitching and celebrated infielders Steve Garvey, Davey Lopes, Bill Russell, and Ron Cey in the last of their many years together, they led their division when play halted in June. Play resumed in August following controversial rules under which the Dodgers, having won the division in the first round, were guaranteed a playoff position. Perhaps as a result, they played poorly, finishing fourth. Turbow devotes nearly half the book to the postseason, which featured as much grit and luck as heroism but ended well when the Dodgers lost two World Series games to the Yankees but then won four straight.A skillful mixture of biographies, on-field action, and behind-the-scenes baseball politics in a story with a happy ending for Dodgers fans.

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April 1, 2019

The year 1981 was unusual for Major League Baseball. A 50-day-long midsummer players strike dampened the spirits of fans around the country. Game attendance and TV ratings suffered as fans dismissed players as greedy and arrogant. Despite this, the Los Angeles Dodgers stood out as the most exciting team in the game, thanks mainly to rookie pitching sensation Fernando Valenzuela. In his newest book, Turbow (Dynastic, Bombastic Fantastic) takes readers back to this abbreviated but unforgettable season. The challenge of writing about a team like the 1981 Dodgers is that, despite ending up as World Champions, they were still a team in transition. Turbow proves more than up to the challenge, providing insight on personalities such as Valenzuela, first baseman Steve Garvey and legendary manager Tommy Lasorda without readers getting lost in a number of tangential narratives. The larger arc of the players strike is threaded throughout without being overbearing. VERDICT Despite an over-fondness for footnotes, which can be distracting, this work successfully tells the story of a unique team that won it all in the strangest way. An entertaining work for all reading baseball fans.--Brett Rohlwing, Milwaukee P.L.

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from April 8, 2019
Sportswriter Turbow (Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic, The Baseball Codes) turns his attention in this riveting history to the Los Angeles Dodgers’ improbable 1981 championship season. The team was known for its edgy and eclectic cast of characters: Steve Garvey, aka Mr. Clean, the first baseman with Popeye-size forearms; base-stealing second baseman Davey Lopes; third baseman and World Series MVP Ron “The Penguin” Cey; the swift, Midwest-born shortstop, Bill Russell; mercurial manager Tommy Lasorda, whose mantra was “you gotta believe”; and the teenage left-handed pitcher Fernando Valenzuela, who created a fervor among fans known as Fernandomania. With a heady mix of reportage, biography, and classic play-by-play coverage, Turbow meticulously traces the arc of the team’s rise from the late 1970s postseason failures to the fateful, strike-filled season where the team defeated the New York Yankees in the World Series. Turbow’s reports of behind-the-scenes shenanigans show the cracks in Garvey’s squeaky-clean image and reveal Lasorda’s obsession with celebrities and Steve Howe’s cocaine addiction. But, as Turbow writes, “Whatever those Dodgers did before taking the field was strictly ancillary. It was what they did with cleats that mattered.” Fluidly written and expertly paced, this exciting look at a turbulent team will thrill baseball enthusiasts of all stripes
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