List price: $4.95
Pages: 144
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-0974648156
Publisher: Brown Barn Books

 It's 2024, and your beloved baseball team hasn't won the World Series for a long time. What can you do about it, except say "Wait 'til next year?

...Not if you're one of four teenagers who have a plan.

This is the year the Sox are going to win the Series, even if the four of you (and your cat) have to steal it for them!

For every fan who's ever stolen a base, cheered for the underdog, crossed their fingers, or yelled at the umpire, this is the book you've been waiting for.

     "The Boston Red Sox' spectacular comeback in the 2004 World Series which they won, breaking the eighty-six year Curse that descended upon the team when they sold their ace player Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees, has spawned several books in recent months. "The Year They Won," by Gerard Purciello, and ardent Boston Red Sox fan, is an imaginative and entertaining novel targeted for the age group ten and up....
     The author has created memorable characters, bringing alive their dreams, fanatical enthusiasm for sports, easy camaraderie, and friendly banter. His vivid descriptions of summer season and school vacation remind adults of their own childhoods and make children still in school waiting for vacation jealous.
     Superbly crafted and a hilarious read from first to last, "The Year the Won" is a sure win-win for baseball fans, especially Red Sox die-hards.
                                                                                               --BookWire Review
                                                                                                         June 29, 2005
 
Blohards name The Year They Won; A tale of the Boston Red Sox,
“Book of the Month”  
     “This month's feature is dedicated to the younger Sox fan. Written by Gerald Purciello, ‘THE YEAR THEY WON; A tale of the Boston Red Sox’ concerns itself with four loyal 12 year-old Sox fans (and their cat) in the year 2024 who, facing a 20 year world championship drought, determine to ensure, by means fair or foul, that their beloved team again reigns supreme. …(it’s) ‘for anyone who's ever loved or hated the Boston Red Sox, stolen a base or tried to, rooted for the underdog, taken a baseball glove to a game, crossed your fingers, or yelled at the ump’, and that sounds like almost all of us...”            
                                                                                                               --Blohards.com

    WALTHAM -- Prior to their 2004 World Series championship, the Red Sox were famous for crushing the hopes of their fans; but when a Waltham author counted on them losing, he found he had to make some last-minute changes to his first published book.     Gerard Purciello is the author of "The Year They Won," a fictional baseball tale set in the year 2024. The story centers around four 12-year-olds in Belmont, where Purciello grew up, who decide to fix the World Series so their beloved Sox can win it for the first time in 20 years...
     ...Purciello couldn't resist the lure of the annual torture that Sox fans had endured, and he began to build his book around it. But, as the storyline changed, so did the fortunes of the real life Red Sox. Always superstitious, some have taken to calling his book "the book that broke the curse..."
                                                      Sox force author to revise his book, 'The Year They Won'
                                       By Christopher Moore / Daily News Staff, Monday, April 11, 2005  

A lifelong, fiercely partisan Boston Red Sox fan, Gerard Purciello used to spend a lot of time waiting 'til next year. Now he's optimistic that the Curse has lifted and that the Red Sox will repeat their glorious World Series win of 2004. His poems and short stories were published in his college literary magazine, and he is at work on two other novels. Injured in an automobile accident when he was 18, Gerard is a paraplegic. If you'd like to write to him, his e-mail address is Gerard2LO@aol.com.

This year's something was really something. The one player other than the Rifleman they couldn't afford to lose for an extended period of time was L.C. But the Red Sox being who they are, well, that's exactly what happened. Louie Cardinale was placed on the disabled list for the month of September. The way he got hurt was just another chapter in the cruel history of the Boston Red Sox. It seemed L.C. was eating in a downtown Boston restaurant, when, the chef mistakenly poured brandy not only on the cherries jubilee, but also on L.C.'s right hand and lit them both on fire. The doctors agreed the burn was severe enough for a three-week stint on the DL. While Louie Cardinale recuperated and the fans drank everything in every bar in Boston, the team seesawed with the Yankees for first. They were holding tight, but everyone was waiting for the other shoe to drop.