Summary

The book, "Three Nights In August", is separated roughly into three equal parts. Each part focuses on a different game in the series. The first section of the book focuses on game one of the three game series. This section also gives a history of Cardinal's manager Tony Larussa. It tells about what he has done in baseball and the sacrifices he had to give up. It tells us about a pre-game activity, which is watching video with Chad Blair, Rick Ankiel, and Dave Duncan. Duncan is the pitching coach for the Cardinals and Larussa. The result of the first game was the Cardinals losing to the Cubs 7 to 4. The Cubs were lead by a strong Mark Prior, Cub's pitcher. They also had homeruns hit by Randall Simon and Aramis Ramirez off Garrett Stephenson, Cardinal's pitcher.

In the second section of the book it is devoted to game two of the series. In this section Bissinger focuses more on the game itself. This part also tells us about the strategy used by Larussa. The Bean ball Tactic is probably the most interesting. This is when Larussa told his pitcher to hit the batter after a pitch near the head of Tino Martinez in Arizona. Larussa actually intentionally walked a batter with 2 outs in the eighth inning when down 1 to 0. This was to ensure Gonzales batting in the 9th inning. Section two also includes a brief profile of J.D. Drew and Larussa's struggle with him. Probably the most interesting profile is of Cal Eldred. He had elbow surgery and came back to be successful out of the bullpen. The Cardinals took game two with a score of 4 to 2. The game featured a pitching duel between Kerry Woods and Woody Williams.

In the third section Bissinger writes about intertwined stories of Matt Morris and Darryl Kile. Morris was going through injuries in 2003. This was after the death of Darryl Kile in Chicago hotel room in 2002. This section also features the redemption of Kerry Robinson who homered off Mike Remlinger to win the game. It was only Robinson's third homerun ever. Robinson was recently in Larussa's doghouse for not being aggressive during RBI situations. The Cardinals took the game with a final score of 3 to 2. They also took the series 2 games to 1. 

Game 1

Game 2

Game 3