Despite the ongoing story regarding Kobe, I've been hankering to write a baseball-related entry. So, I'm changing gears for today and presenting the following book review:
I purchased Buster Olney's The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty a couple of years ago and finished re-reading it recently. Yes, re-reading it. It's a great book about the pressure on the New York Yankees to win a World Series every year. The thing that makes the book work is that no one is made to be the villain, but rather people with significant flaws. Each chapter focuses on one person (everybody from pitcher Roger Clemens to centerfielder Bernie Williams to general manager Brian Cashman) while giving snippets of the game that brought the Yankee dynasty to an end: Game 7 of the 2001 World Series against the Arizona Diamondbacks. But the most intriguing aspect of the book is its portrayal of team owner George Steinbrenner. What drives Steinbrenner is an insatiable hunger for World Series championships every year,so much so he is willing and very capable to spend any amount necessary to make his dream of never-ending championships possible. Olney doesn't portray Steinbrenner as bad, just having an unbridled passion and craving for victory with the power and pocketbook to match. Even though I am not a Yankees fan, I strongly recommend this book to anybody that is a baseball fan. This book is available on Amazon.
Good book review and I think you expressed your opinion very well in this one. Personally I can't stand the yankees and don't see myself reading a book about them however good it might be. You make it sound interesting though. From what I read in the papers I always thought that Steinbrenner was a jerk. Did this book make you admire him or just understand him? Wanting to win is understandable and perhaps admirable, but taken to extremes where you mis-treat the people under you it can be less admirable. It always seemed to me that Steinbrenner crossed over the line of just having the desire to be a winner as all team owners do, and he became a bully and a tyrant and a crazed "win-at-any-cost" guy.
ReplyDeleteWhen you said the book is available from Amazon, you failed to add that it is also available through any local bookstore. Amazon is the 600 pound gorilla killing off all the little book dealers with their huge franchise. People of conscience are encouraged not to buy anything from them and to support your local book merchant instead. If you want to buy online you can also order it or any other book from Powell's in Portland to name just one alternative source. Sorry to add a non-sports note here, but personally I try never to buy from Amazon unless they are the only place where you can get whatever you're looking for.
You mean everybody agrees with me one hundred percent about everything I said? Wow, that's never happened to me before! Let the applause begin!
ReplyDeleteTom,
ReplyDeleteI can't stand Steinbrenner either, but this book makes the reader understand him more. The book makes him out to be a sort of bull dozer, someone who is willing to plow anything in his way in order to achieve a goal.
As far as where to buy goes, I was also trying to consider the local bookstore, but we don't have them here in Santa Clarita (we have Barnes & Noble and Borders and if they don't have a book, they point people to Amazon). Perhaps I should have worded it as "available on Amazon or you r local book retailer."
Buster Olney is a fine sportswriter (for the NY Times), so I'm interested to hear that he has a book out. Thanks for the recommendation, Andrew.
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