Thanks to University of Nebraska Press and NetGalley for this free ARC in return for my honest review.

David Krell has taken on an exceptional journey back in time to 1978 with his most recent book that combines Baseball with what is going on in American culture. Laid out in a month by month format we can follow the big events in Baseball during the Hot Stove Season, Preseason, Regular Season, post Season and beyond. This keeps us from mushing everything together and when coupled with what was going on culturally you get a fascinating look at the US from the Blizzard of '78 to the "best interests of baseball", to movies, TV, the amazing Yankees comeback to win the AL pennant and World Series, and so much more. A must for baseball fans, as well as cultural fanatics. As always, impeccably researched and an easy to read and super fun book!!!!
Kudos David!!!!

I didn't know what to expect with David Krell's 1978, but I really just decided to read it because of the cover - despite every teacher I ever had telling me to never judge a book that way (but really, let's be honest, you sometimes can).

I kind of expected a chronological blow-by-blow of the 1978 baseball season with all of the big points - mainly Billy Martin and the Yankees. This book isn't covering extremely new ground in terms of baseball literature. The Bronx Zoo has existed for ages. And then there's Ladies and Gentlemen, The Bronx is Burning, which is obviously about the prior season but you get some parallels here. Pretty much any biography of a Yankees adjacent person from Billy Martin to Steinbrenner to Thurman Munson to Reggie Jackson is going to have a pretty big focus on everything that happened this year.

This book, however, goes beyond the usual Yankees focus of that time period (although we do get a lot of it, since it's a little hard to steer clear of the team that somehow creates the most drama while also winning the World Series). It starts with the death of Joe McCarthy. We go really in-depth into the creation of Happy Days and Mork and Mindy. We get Pete Rose's hitting streak. We get Grease. It's mostly about baseball, but it's just fun. It's a fun trip through the year. Certainly it doesn't cover everything - surprisingly there's very little depth to the story of Bucky Dent's famous home run. Lyman Bostock's death gets a mention but we move past it quickly as he's only introduced after he's died.

It's not perfect, but it's fun.

I am not doing a public review of this book because I couldn't finish it. This is not necessarily the author's fault but the editor's. Although I feel sorry for the editor, he did not do his job, which was picking up a folding chair and beating the author senseless until he agreed to, you know, MAKE THE BOOK ABOUT BASEBALL AND AMERICA IN 1978, which WAS THE TITLE OF THE BOOK AND WHAT ANYONE READING IT WOULD EXPECT.

Instead, what we get is a level of sub-referencing that would make Dennis Miller sick. There is not anybody in this world that needs that level of detail about Happy Days, or Addie Joss, or Alvin Dark's affair in 1972, or any of the other innumerable rabbit holes that the author goes down. I got to the whole rigamarole about Dallas--not the Dallas Cowboys, or the nearby Texas Rangers, or anything related to, you know, sports, but the TV show with J.R. Ewing, giving us the whole genealogy of the characters, and a bit about Knots Landing, and oh my God there was so much minutiae about this one TV show IN THE MIDDLE OF A BOOK THAT IS SUPPOSED TO BE ABOUT BASEBALL.

I don't want to hurt the author's feelings. I am sure this is the book he wanted to write. But it is NOT the book that I wanted to read, and the editor should have said something or pointed out all the long run-on stuff about Eddie Matthews and Robin Williams, or done his stupid job and smacked the author with a boat anchor.

This book feels like it was made for me. 1978 was the year my love for baseball was at its greatest. I have long wanted a book about this season. So thanks to David Krell for bringing back so many memories. Krell doesn't just discuss baseball, he also brings up various things that were happening in America during 1978.

My one small criticism is the book spends a lot of time on the Yankees, Dodgers, Pete Rose and the Red Sox. Those were definitely the big stories in 1978, but I would've loved it if some time was spent discussing the funny and odd things that were happening on other teams around the league in 1978.

I don't know if there's any time to change an error before it is printed, but I noticed one mistake in which it's said that the Dodgers beat Cincinnati in the NL playoffs. The Dodgers beat the Phillies.

Overall, a really fun trip down memory lane.

Netgalley provided me with a free e-galley of this book in return for an honest review.

1978 is the year I was graduated from college. It was interesting to find what I was missing when I was in school.