Certain moments in sports are etched indelibly in the minds and hearts of those who lived them or watched them as they happened. The end of Game Six of the 1975 World Series between the Boston Red Sox and Cincinnati Reds was one of those unforgettable moments and now best-selling author Mark Frost retells the story of that magical night like only he can in his latest literary work “Game Six,” which he talked about last Thursday evening at Village Books on Swarthmore. “I was on a book tour in Boston and asked one of my audiences if there was anyone who doesn’t remember where they were when Fisk hit the home run. Not a single hand went up,” Frost said. “Then I asked ‘Does anyone here not know someone who was there?’ Again, not one hand was raised. Finally, I asked ‘Does anyone here not think Luis Tiant belongs in the Hall of Fame?’ No one moved a muscle–and that’s when I knew I was indeed in Boston.” Frost, who lives in Los Angeles and grew up a Dodgers fan, decided to write the book because he remembers watching the game as a kid and the feeling that has stayed with him ever since. “I wanted to go back in time and describe to the reader what it was like to be there,” Frost explained to Village Books guests, many of whom purchased signed copies of the book. “In order to devote two years of your life to a project like this the event has to be extraordinary–this was; it has to be full of remarkable people–this was; and it has to have happened at the right time in history for it to be meaningful–and this clearly did.” One of the first people Frost contacted about “Game Six” was the Reds’ then manager Sparky Anderson, whom he described as a ‘chronic worrier.’ The two of them watched a tape of the game together and Frost said Anderson got so worked up that he had to take a break every four innings, as if the game was going to end differently. “I talked to 100 people who were there–from the groundskeeper to the organist, to the players, the managers, coaches and sportswriters,” Frost said. “At that time the Red Sox were worth between $11 and $12 million–and that included Fenway Park. Today, the franchise is worth north of $900 million.” The book not only delves into the lives of the people involved–most notably Tiant and his father–a former major leaguer himself who lived in Castro’s Cuba and didn’t see his son for 14 years, it also examines the structure of the game, which would change forever the next season with the advent of free agency. Before leaving for the book signing Frost was at home watching the dramatic ending of the Dodgers-Cardinals playoff game (the Dodgers rallied to win in the bottom of the ninth) and equated that to the feelings inspired by the events of his book. “There’s something about those moments that touches all of us and lifts the human spirit,” he said. “The games don’t have any real bearing on life but in them we see people at their best when they deliver in the clutch and it inspires us to be the best we can in whatever it is we do.” Frost previously wrote several notable golf books, “The Greatest Game Ever Played: A True Story,” a nonfiction account of the 1913 U.S. Open; “The Grand Slam: Bobby Jones, America and the Story of Golf”; and ‘The Match: The Day the Game of Golf Changed Forever.” “Baseball and golf have something in common–there’s no clock,” said Frost, a former TV writer and producer who co-wrote episodes for Hill Street Blues and the Six Million Dollar Man. “There’s a lot of time between pitches or between golf shots to describe the scene. That’s why those sports have produced some of the best writing we’ve ever had.” Signed copies of “Game Six” are available at Village Books (1059 Swarthmore Avenue).
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