The Yankee Years
by Joe Torre, Tom Verducci
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Book Reviews of The Yankee Years
Book Review: Joe Can Manage and the Man, Tom Verducci, Can Write
Summary: 4 Stars
Truly outstanding account of the rise of Joe Torre's Yankee dynasty and the demise of that dynasty. It's about the rise of the Red Sox, too, how the two teams' destinies seem to go hand-in-hand, to be intertwined.
It's all here, the personalities of the game, revenue sharing plans, drug awareness and concerns and the computerization of baseball, the "new age" of the game that the Red Sox used to overtake the Yankees and create their own dynasty. The Yankees, simply put, stayed "old school" too long...
All told in the calm, reasoned, matter-of-fact style and perspective of a good man--and a great baseball man--Joe Torre.
The book gives an innteresting and intriguing look inside the Yankee Club House and the personality politics of the always fascinating NY Yankees, the greatest and most controversial organization in baseball.
Heroes, villans, goats and wannabees, they're all here. Torre's account gives flesh and blood feeling to individuals who are normally treated as characters in sports media.
The book is over-written at times, too many quotes all to prove or illustrate the same point, but in that respect the book is like baseball itself, a stat for everything and everything for a stat.
To the devoted baseball man, "The Yankee Years" is a treasure trove of good stuff; to the more casual baseball fan, it's a bit of overkill,but it's still a greata read, a great baseball book by a great baseball man on baseball's greatest team, the "New York Damn Yankees..." Love'em or hate'em, they're still the Yankees. Now and Forever...
And Tom Verducci...the man can turn a phrase to capture deeper meaning and nuances than words might normally convey. For example:
--Page 227 "A tremendous wall of sound rose up, the kind of roar that comes not just from the throat, but also from the heart..."
--Page 350-51 (on George Steinbrenner) "...it had become obvious by 2007 that the old lion had reached his winter."
And from page 324: "Greatness is the ability to mask the difficulty of a task--to make the difficult appear easy. Those Yankee teams epitomized greatness."
Now thaht's good stuff.
Give us more, Tom...
Book Review: Deserves more than 5 stars....
Summary: 5 Stars
The Yankee Years by Joe Torre and Tom Verducci has received a large amount of pre-release press especially from the New York media, but also the L. A. Times. I can't remember a book release in the recent past that has garnered so much attention before anyone has had a chance to read it. Even Steinbrenner is curious about the books contents. He should be.
The Yankee Years is a measured and thoughtful look at the years Joe Torre managed the Yankees, 1996-2007. During that time he got to and won four World Series out of five, not an easy task for anyone. Torre also stopped much of the ridicule he received from the New York media upon his appointment. If winning four World Series doesn't prove you're worthy of the job, nothing else will. The fact of the matter is that Joe Torre became the most beloved Yankees managers of all time winning the respect of the fans and his players.....also not an easy task given the list of outstanding players he worked with.
Not being a part of professional sports means that most of us read these kinds of books with a fascination made up of a combination of awe and disgust. Our only window into professional sports is comprised of the media, written and electronic and then watching the games as they come to us, one after another as the season progresses. I say this, because that means books such as the Yankee Years become our "inside" story; our life line and private peek into the insanity of what has become "professional sports."
The Yankee Years has already aggravated several A-list players that are mentioned in the book. A-Rod, reportedly referred to as A-Fraud by his team mates, and David Wells just to name two people who may not be happy with the publication of The Yankee Years.
Well written and very readable, the Yankee Years is above all else interesting and will be a book any baseball fan will want to read regardless of your team affiliation. Let's face it, the Yankees are the most storied of professional baseball teams and reading about them interests us even if we aren't fans.
Joe Torre's The Yankee Years is worth reading. I highly recommend.
Peace
Book Review: Well written and fun to read - but is it all true?
Summary: 3 Stars
Let me just start out by saying that I thought this book was very well-written and extremely detailed. Verducci really gets deep into the heart of the MLB organization - not just the Yankees - and explains that world from a behind-the-scenes perspective that most of us don't get to experience. Anyone who is interested in the business aspect of MLB as well as how MLB as a whole has changed since the mid-nineties will like this book.
Here is my problem with the book however. It was NOT written by Joe Torre though that is how it was packaged to be sold - even putting his name above Verducci's. I bought it because I thought I would be reading a book by Torre who was assisted by Verducci. Instead it's Verducci's book and though it centers around Torre and the Yankees - it just has input from Torre in the form of quotations. Given that - it could have just as easily had Mike Mussina's name on the cover - who is used as a source just as much as Torre I felt.
Though the book is ripe with statistics and solid facts it is also ripe with gossip about the ownership, management, and players of the Yankees during the Torre Years. Given the deception in which Torre's name was used to sell the book I couldn't help but question the validity of many of the claims made about these folks by Verducci. Some of them were just down right funny (particularly the ones about Clemens) but I have to think that at least half of them were BS. Most of what was written about these folks was negative except for Torre, Mussina, and Jeter which I think is suspect.
I'm not a Yankees fan - but love baseball as a whole and I would recommend this book to the die-hard baseball fan. I'm not sure how I would take it if I were a Yankees fan since it is so negative to the team. In fact when it talks of the Red Sox it puts Boston in quite a positive light.
One thing is for certain - the book explains how and why the Yankees have gone from being great to just another team and how and why other teams are coming up and getting to the world series. It's way more complex than one would think and for that reason alone the book is worth reading.
Book Review: Veiled hit piece by embittered ex manager
Summary: 2 Stars
I am a sports fan in general and an admirer of Joe Torre based on his accomplishments as Yankees manager.
However this book comes off as nothing more then an attempt to portray the NYY as a now hopelessly archaic franchise while portraying the Red Sox as all that is bright, brilliant and successful in this sports arena. It appears that the author(s) have decided to team up to extract their pound of flesh from the Yankees because they decided to offer Joe Torre an incentive based contract. Frankly the NYY were right in doing this since their season is considered a failure if they do not win the WS. That's why Torre was hired and that's why they made him the highest paid manager in baseball history when he brought them those 4 WS. But in the past 7 years he has failed to deliver while making all that money and the NYY decided to "motivate" the man with their contract offer. Torre said he was offended because the offer insinuated he wasn't doing the best he could.
Torre needs to get a grip. It's not what you TRY to do that matters in business (only in Democrat politics does this thinking carry the day) but what you actually SUCCEED at doing. Most all CEO's and most high level managers in any company worth it's salt pay their key people based on performance using a tired bonus program of compensation. Joe is a great manager and he really should not have whined about the perfectly sane offer made to him by the NYY.
That said the tone of this novel is just anti NYY and pro Red Sox and it shows by giving great detail in all the Yankees shortcomings, ignoring all their stupendous achievements through the years and at the same time glossing over the Red Sox shortcomings and lionizing then for their recent WS victories after as string of 85 years with none.
Now that the Sox have lost Ramirez and in so doing basically negated the effectiveness of Ortiz, I look forward to the next book by Verducci, this one about what happened to the Red Sox.
Book Review: Walk away after about page 300
Summary: 2 Stars
The bad news first: One, Joe Torre had nothing to do with writing this book. He's a source, and not a particularly articulate or interesting one at that.
Two, Tom Verducci is a terrible writer. Practically every sentence in the Yankee Years could be improved. Nothing flows. Also, Verducci's given to quoting people at length, even when what they're saying makes no sense.
Three, besides Torre, only a few people go on the record for Verducci. And of these, the only marquee name who offers any real insight is the Red Sox's Theo Epstein. How do you like that?
Four, Verducci loves to repeat himself. For example, he discusses at length Torre's trust-based managerial philosophy at least once every few pages. Which amounts to one reason why the Yankee Years is a needless 500 pages long.
Five, Verducci talks out of both sides of his mouth. Half the time he's glorifying the Red Sox and other teams for using data analysis to gain ground on and eventually surpass the Yankees. The rest of the time he's ridiculing Brian Cashman for Cashman's "conversion to the religion of statistics."
Now, the good news: If you're a Yankee fan, you might very well enjoy the early chapters of the Yankee Years, where Verducci competently eulogizes the 1996 through 2000 teams.
You may also appreciate Verducci's discussion of revenue-sharing, and how this has helped to bring some parity to major-league baseball (much to the Yankees' detriment, alas).
All in all, though, I can't recommend the book, or at least not the last two-fifths. I mean, Verducci completely loses his way after approximately page 300. The last 200 pages or so are essentially a headlong defense of Torre against the charge that he's even slightly responsible for the Yankees' steady decline after 2000. The sportswriter doth protest too much, methinks.