Thank you Triumph Books for providing this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

Mr. Book just finished The Enchanted Season: The Detroit Tigers’ Historic 1984 World Series Run and My Life as The Big Wheel, by Lance Parrish, with Tom Gage.

In 1984, I was a 13-year-old whose world revolved around baseball and was obsessed over the Yankees. So, at the time, I have to admit I did not enjoy the 1984 Tigers season. However, the time the regular season ended, I was rooting for them in the postseason. Even back then, I was a huge student of the history of the game and knew that a team that had been that dominant in a season deserves a championship. Now, as a much older baseball historian, I still appreciate the 1984 Tigers’ place as one of the most dominant single-season champions in history and have learned to keep my Yankees bias out of the equation.

The book got off to a very interesting and original start. I don’t think I’ve ever seen any book, on any subject, that started off from the point of view of a three-day old child. The uniqueness of that start to the book almost matches the uniqueness of the Tigers’ 35-5 start to the season. OK, technically, it was the prologue, but I don’t remember every seeing any prologue get started like that.

I had never heard the story about Lance Parrish serving as Tina Turner’s “bodyguard” for a day. Then, when he made his first trip to Yankee Stadium as a rookie, that was all that the press wanted to ask him about.

I enjoyed the story of Tigers GM Jim Campbell’s phone call after Jack Morris’s no hitter, even though that no hitter is still a sore spot for me. That was the first Saturday afternoon Game of the Week, in an era in which very few games were televised, even Yankees games. I wanted to watch the game, but had to attend a bar mitzvah of a hebrew school classmate I never spoke to. I was even more upset. I didn’t know at the time, but I wouldn’t be able to actually see a no hitter until Dwight Gooden in 1996 (don’t get me started on why I couldn’t watch Righetti and Abbott’s no hitters).  But, I did enjoy reading about the game in the book.

I love all of the little good tidbits that fill a good history or baseball book. One thing I hadn’t realized before reading this book was, when the Tigers finally lost after their season-opening 9-game winning streak, that was Bret Saberhagen’s first MLB win.

In addition to the 1984 Tigers, there was also other good information throughout the book about Lance Parrish’s career, such as the story about the time that he bought a motorcycle with one of his first paychecks early in his minor league career.

The thorough coverage of each of the Tigers’ postseason games was one of the highlights of the book.

I did notice a glaring error in the book. Parrish wrote that Dan Quisenberry was 44 for 44 in save opportunities in 1984. He was actually 44 for 53 that year. His career high was converting 20 save opportunities in a row (in 1984), so he never had a 44 streak at any point. But, that stands out as an exception. It was the only factual error that I had found in the book.

You do not have to be a Tigers fan to enjoy this book, all you have to be is a baseball fan. I give this book an A. Goodreads requires grades on a 1-5 star system. In my personal conversion system, an A equates to 5 stars. (A or A+: 5 stars, B+: 4 stars, B: 3 stars, C: 2 stars, D or F: 1 star).

This review has been posted at my blog, Mr. Book’s Book Reviews, and Goodreads

Mr. Book originally finished reading this on June 7, 2024.