Fred Claire: My 30 Years in Dodger Blue

Rating:
Summary: Insightful, Educational and Compelling
Review: Whether you bleed "Dodger Blue" or you're just a passionate baseball fan, Fred Claire's My 30 Years in Dodger Blue offers compelling insight on MLB management from the interior.

Claire chronicles his rise from newspaper writer to Los Angeles Dodger general manager and everything in between. The book is stuffed with great storytelling, including the inside story of the Mike Piazza trade in 1998, the sale of the family business to corporate TV giants Fox and the untold story of how close the Dodgers were to hiring Joe Morgan as team manager.

For baseball fans, Claire digs into the "Anatomy of a Trade." if you've ever wondered how a trade is made from nuts to soup, here it is. Claire honestly and openly shares the Dodger philosophy on many of the key transactions that led the Dodgers to a World Series title in 1988.

"Baseball will break your heart if you let it," Claire writes, at the end of a long, painful chapter on the acquisition of Darryl Strawberry and how his personal demons took possession of a great talent. The former Dodger GM also tells the dark tale of Maury Wills, a one-time Dodger legend who's life spun out of control and nearly killed him.

From the first free agent signing to the 1994 baseball strike, corporate takeover and the construction of a World Series team, Claire has seen it, live it, worked side-by-side with it and now shares it with baseball fans.

My 30 Years in Dodger Blue will educate you and make you a smarter baseball fan.