Wicked Good Year, By Steve Buckley

Wicked Good Year, By Steve Buckley

From the middle of 2007 to the middle of 2008, the fans of Boston sports had an unbelievable run. The Red Sox won their second World Series in four years. The Patriots became the first team in NFL history to finish the regular season 16-0, and came within a hair (or helmet) of winning their fourth Super Bowl of the decade. The Celtics joined in the party by winning their first NBA championship since 1986-7. That clearly was a “wicked good year.” This book looks to tell you how that all happened, and what exactly it all meant.

This was a nice book to read. If that seems like a less than enthusiastic endorsement, you’re right. It’s been a couple days since I finished reading it, and nothing is standing out to me. That certainly doesn’t make it a bad book. It just means it wasn’t riveting. I did find that the book spent a lot of time talking about things that didn’t happen during the “wicked good year.” That bothered me more than it should have, and I don’t know why. When books like “Game Six” focus on a single game, they often talk more about events outside the game than they do the game itself. Maybe it doesn’t bother be as much because I know a book written solely about one single game would be rather dull. (The exception, of course, being Steve Ketteman’s spectacular book One Day at Fenway) But, with an entire year to work with, I assumed that the book could focus simply on the year. It didn’t. The stories about the year, though, were great. It was especially nice for me since I didn’t know as much about the Celtics and Patriots as I did the Sox. So, most of those stories and events were fresher for me. The combination made the book better than a book on any one of the teams alone would be. This is certainly a book that any Boston sports fan should enjoy reading.

Rating: 3 bases