The New York Yankees : New York Yankees - 100 Years - The Official Retrospective

Rating:
Summary: A stylish pat on the back for the New York Yankee franchise
Review: As the book title says, this is a "retrospective" and not a history, which explains why there is little to be found about the early days of the New York Yankees in between being certified as a member in the American League of Professional Baseball Clubs and the purchase of George Herman Ruth from the Boston Red Sox. Despite the 41-win season of Jack Chesbro, everything before the Babe is prologue. Besides, for most of those years they were the New York Highlanders and they have never been considered part of the fabled team in pinstripes. The team's centennial is as good as excuse as any for a book like this, since there is essentially the same problem that would have faced a similar effort 50 years ago. The Yankees are once again an on-going dynasty so there seems no real reason to wait for the end of the Joe Torre years or for Derek Jeter to retire before putting together such a book.

Edited by Mark Vancil and Mark Mandrake, "The New York Yankees - 100 Years - The Official Retrospective" is more in the style of sports journalism than academic history, which is fine. Throughout the volume there are a series of essays on the team's greatest players by some of the finest sports writers around: Richard W. Creamer on Babe Ruth, Donald Honig on Joe DiMaggio, Peter Golenbock on Mickey Mantle, and Ray Robinson on Lou Gehrig. Roger Kahn looks at "The Battle of the Boroughs" and Leonard Koppett writes about the Yankees dominance of New York City. There are, as you would expect in such a book, an All-Time Yankees team, selected by the New York-New Jersey Chapter of the Baseball Writers' Association of America, who also picked "The Top 25 Moment, Marks, and Events" that concludes the volume.

The sportswriter picked those lists but the justifications are provided by Bill James, the dean of statistical analyses of the game of baseball and a person who knows how to make an argument supported by compelling evidence. For example, James makes a case for Roy White being a better player than Jim Rice and even goes so far as to argue that Whitey Ford's consistency was more important that the spectacular efforts of Sandy Koufax. James provides similar arguments for the Yankees Managers and pretty much settles the debate as to which New York Yankee team was the greatest of all time (no, it was not "Murderer's Row"). Actually, James ends up accounting for about half the text in the book, which is welcomed if you like his brand of analysis and disconcerting if you hold other beliefs.

The book does skew towards the second half of the century, i.e., to the fans who would buy this nice looking book, which explains why the roster of great players gives space to Bobby Murcer but not Bob Meusel. As you would expect, the book is richly illustrated and you might be surprised that many of hte most familiar photographs in team history are not to be found in in this collection. Attention is paid more to the details than the big picture: Keith Olbermann tells Babe Dahlgren's version of the end of Lou Gehrig's playing streak; This is a page devoted to the wisdom of Casey Stengel; and the three major obstacles Elston Howard faced when he joined the Yankees. This book suffers from not having an index, but that seems a trivial concern in the end. You do not have to read this book straight from cover to cover, but as you look as you get around to everything sooner or later.

Rating:
Summary: A stylish pat on the back for the New York Yankee franchise
Review: As the book title says, this is a "retrospective" and not a history, which explains why there is little to be found about the early days of the New York Yankees in between being certified as a member in the American League of Professional Baseball Clubs and the purchase of George Herman Ruth from the Boston Red Sox. Despite the 41-win season of Jack Chesbro, everything before the Babe is prologue. Besides, for most of those years they were the New York Highlanders and they have never been considered part of the fabled team in pinstripes. The team's centennial is as good as excuse as any for a book like this, since there is essentially the same problem that would have faced a similar effort 50 years ago. The Yankees are once again an on-going dynasty so there seems no real reason to wait for the end of the Joe Torre years or for Derek Jeter to retire before putting together such a book.

Edited by Mark Vancil and Mark Mandrake, "The New York Yankees - 100 Years - The Official Retrospective" is more in the style of sports journalism than academic history, which is fine. Throughout the volume there are a series of essays on the team's greatest players by some of the finest sports writers around: Richard W. Creamer on Babe Ruth, Donald Honig on Joe DiMaggio, Peter Golenbock on Mickey Mantle, and Ray Robinson on Lou Gehrig. Roger Kahn looks at "The Battle of the Boroughs" and Leonard Koppett writes about the Yankees dominance of New York City. There are, as you would expect in such a book, an All-Time Yankees team, selected by the New York-New Jersey Chapter of the Baseball Writers' Association of America, who also picked "The Top 25 Moment, Marks, and Events" that concludes the volume.

The sportswriter picked those lists but the justifications are provided by Bill James, the dean of statistical analyses of the game of baseball and a person who knows how to make an argument supported by compelling evidence. For example, James makes a case for Roy White being a better player than Jim Rice and even goes so far as to argue that Whitey Ford's consistency was more important that the spectacular efforts of Sandy Koufax. James provides similar arguments for the Yankees Managers and pretty much settles the debate as to which New York Yankee team was the greatest of all time (no, it was not "Murderer's Row"). Actually, James ends up accounting for about half the text in the book, which is welcomed if you like his brand of analysis and disconcerting if you hold other beliefs.

The book does skew towards the second half of the century, i.e., to the fans who would buy this nice looking book, which explains why the roster of great players gives space to Bobby Murcer but not Bob Meusel. As you would expect, the book is richly illustrated and you might be surprised that many of hte most familiar photographs in team history are not to be found in in this collection. Attention is paid more to the details than the big picture: Keith Olbermann tells Babe Dahlgren's version of the end of Lou Gehrig's playing streak; This is a page devoted to the wisdom of Casey Stengel; and the three major obstacles Elston Howard faced when he joined the Yankees. This book suffers from not having an index, but that seems a trivial concern in the end. You do not have to read this book straight from cover to cover, but as you look as you get around to everything sooner or later.

Rating:
Summary: Not equal to the subject
Review: I'm sorry I had to buy this, because I have to buy everything about the Yankees and their anniversary. Although the pictures range from very good to spectacular, the book reads like it was written by committee. This is a sugar-coated history of the team, and not a very accurate one at that. You would have thought that a team that prides itself on being the greatest franchise in sports would have paid more attention to their own story and paid more respect to their fans, but the words here are strictly to fill up the pages. The official retrospective is just a picture book, and a very pricey one at that.

Rating:
Summary: Impossible to Read
Review: Now I know why this was shrink-wrapped in the stores, which made it impossible to look inside. But after getting the book and removing the shrink-wrap, it is nearly impossible to read. The layout is similar to ESPN's Magazine, with small colored print on top of colored background, pictures without captions, etc. This was supposed to be for my Dad, but at his age he won't be able to read this. Heck, I can barely read it, and I don't even wear glasses. I'll never buy a shrink-wrapped book again. I should have known better.

Rating:
Summary: 100 Years?
Review: Someone can't count, because I expected this book to cover ALL of the Yankees history, but the first seventeen years get a grand total of TWO pages! Unbelievable. Then, I start to read and find out that part of this book was written by Bill James, the guy that works for the RED SOX! A few nice pictures don't justify the price - about as good a bargain as Danny Tartabull or Ed Whitson were.