Rating: 
Summary: Half and Half
Review: A little I like this, a little I don't, Kahn is at his best when he is writing precisely about the events of 1978, for he has a true insider's viewpoint of the principals involved. When he lets the story tell itself, this book is great. But the downside is that you have to wade through a great deal of Roger Kahn to get to the good parts, and as a character in his own books Kahn comes off as venal and mean-spirited; there is a self-serving and nasty edge to some of the things he writes that is totally unnecessary. And in those portions of the book where he chooses to retell Yankee history prior to the 1970s, he is just plain sloppy, getting many of his facts wrong and repeating old myths that don't deserve the space, something that also marred his last book, The Head Game. In short, at times the book really could have used a forceful editor to reel the author back in and remind him what he was supposed to be writing about.
Rating: 
Summary: The Wrath of Kahn
Review: Appears to have been written merely to vent spleen and fulfill contractual obligations with the publisher. An entirely unnecessary chancre of a book, mean-spirited and low-intentioned. Sadly, Kahn succeeds only in bullying precious publishing resources away from more deserving younger writers.
Rating: 
Summary: A Quite Wonderful Book
Review: As my title suggests this is a splendid book, as remarkable in its way as Kahn's "The Boys of Summer," which a Sports Illustrated panel recently selected as the greatest baseball book ever written. The October Men are a different breed, contentious, many from broken homes, all dealing with a gifted but ferocius boss named Steinbrenner and a manager, Billy Martin, who was equally paranoid and brilliant (until the fourth drink, when he stopped being brilliant).
It is remarkable how Kahn has brought these people so vividly to life 25 years later. The great race toward a championship, which includes Bucky Dent's famous October homer has never been more thrilling. Kahn interweaves social history, Yankee background, racism, social unrest with the touch of a great artist, which he is. He calls Reggie Jackson not a personality, but an earth force. What else can anyone say.
If this sounds extravagent, I am not alone. I've noted elsewhere on the Internet that "October Men" has drawn rave reviews from Time Magazine, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Dallas Morning News and just every other important media spot.... Buy this book and learm what real big-league baseball and great writing are all about.
Rating:
Summary: THE 1978 SEASON STARTS ON ABOUT PAGE 200
Review: Considering that the 1978 Yankee team is my all-time favorite, it was disappointing to realize that the first 200 pages of a roughly 360 page book was NOT really about the 1978 season. Kahn spends those first 200 pages talking about other "miracle" teams and great seasons, the origin of the Yankees, and Yankee owners and players pre-1978. If I hear about the "dreary CBS Yankees" one more time... If you already have some grasp of baseball and Yankee history, that makes those 200 pages mostly a wash. That stuff, as well as mini-bios of 1978 Yankee ownership, executives, and players, should have been put into the first 10 pages or better integrated into an account of the '78 season. Beyond that, Kahn seems a bit pompous and playing for history.
He has unfavorable things to say about more than one journalist from the era, while getting in things like how "The Boys of Summer outleaped (the New York) Times Snide and went to the top of the best-seller lists." (p. 247) Great, Roger, but I was hoping this book would be less about your reminiscing about baseball, Yankee (and some Dodger!) history and more for the educated fan of the 1978 Yankees. "The Bronx Zoo," by Sparky Lyle and Peter Golenbock, while not up to the standard set by "Ball Four" by Jim Bouton, is still your best bet when thinking about picking up a book about the 1978 Yankee squad.
Rating:
Summary: What More Can Be Said on Steinbrenner's Yankees
Review: Forests have been leveled to accommodate the number of books that have been written about the New York Yankees especially during the Steinbrenner years, and you have to wonder what can be said that hasn't been written about numerous times before. However, if I were to have only one book on this subject (I have several) this latest offering by Roger Kahn is the one I would choose. I admit to being partial to Kahn's writing in regard to baseball, but he delves into the personalities of George Steinbrenner, Billy Martin, Al Rosen, Reggie Jackson, Thurman Munson, Sparky Lyle, Gabe Paul, Dick Young, Larry MacPhail, and others with anecdotes and humor you probably haven't heard before. This book is littered with stress and alcohol as conflicting personalities clash their way through the 1978 season. Yes, part of the book provides a little history in regard to the Red Sox and Yankees in regard to their previous ownership, but even in this, the author tells these stories with quotes I haven't read in previous books. If you have enjoyed reading other books on this subject, and especially if you enjoy Roger Kahn's writing, this book will not disappoint you.
Rating: 
Summary: Enjoyable, but sloppy
Review: I agree with most of the other reviews. The book is an enjoyable recollection of a great Yankee team, but the facts are lacking. The October 2nd 1978 playoff game with the Red Sox was on Rosh Hashanah, NOT Yom Kippur. For Roger Kahn and Al Rosen, both Jews, to get this simple fact wrong is just inexplicable.
Rating:
Summary: Save Your Money
Review: I bought this book because I thought Boys of Summer was one of the greatest baseball books I've ever read, I love the Yankees, and the 1978 Yankee story is a great tale to tell, particularly in the hands of a good storyteller like Kahn. Unfortunately, the formula did not work. What we have here is a mess. Kahn does a terrible job with a great story. The text is peppered with an unnecessarily high proportion of Kahn's pretentious opinions on everything under the sun. I found his knock on David Halbertsam particularly odd, since Kahn seems to be trying to mimic Halberstam's approach to telling the story of the 1964 World Series by focusing primarily on the distict individuals involved rather than trying to tell a chronological history; the only difference is that Halberstam pulled it off while Kahn presents a disjointed series of seemingly unrelated topics. For example, he tries to tell the history of baseball in his prologue, tying that somehow to the 1978 season, but as a reader I was never sure what it all meant. In addition, Kahn focuses on the most idiotic details possible. Do we really have to know that Hoss Radbourne dies of syphilis in 1897 or the name of the girl that Cleon Jones got caught with in a van during spring training? The connection that Kahn draws from the latter incident to the 1978 Yanks is weak at best and is not worthy of coverage at all in comparison to other relevant topics that are infinitely more interesting. Kahn then spends well over half the book "working up" to the 1978 Yankee season, which (by what the cover said) was supposed to be the topic of this book. I normally wouldn't have minded that, because the years leading up to 1978 were also interesting times for Yankee fans. The problem is that Kahn totally blows it here. He does a horrible job of telling the story of how the 1978 team was built and misses several key events and influences. The 1978 team was built painstakingly over a thirteen-year period, beginning with the arrival of Bobby Murcer in 1965 and Thurman Munson in 1969, nurtured by the arrival of Sparky Lyle in 1972 and Graig Nettles in 1973, and supercharged with the arrival of George Steinbrenner and Gabe Paul in 1973. Kahn, for such a self-described insider, misses many influences (some subtle, some not) - the role and influence of Bill Virdon, Bobby Bonds, Elliot Maddox, how the Yankees changed from a medicore club where losing was cheerfully tolerated to the revival of the winningest sports franchise in history, culminating with the conclusion of the 1978 season. I'm not sure what to make of this book. As a work of history it is useless - much better histories of that era of the Yankees have already been written. As entertainment is is also weak - Sparky Lyle's "Bronx Zoo" was much better in this regard. I was hoping for a engaging read, but instead found myself forcing myself to bull my way through it for fear of wasting my money and in the hope that it would get better. It didn't. Baseball fans - spare yourself the pain and save your money.
Rating: 
Summary: ANNOYING TENDANCY TO GO OFF ON TANGENTS
Review: I enjoyed parts of this book, particularly those that related directly the turbulant 1978 season. However, Roger Kahn has an annoying tendancy to jump into subjects that really aren't related to the 1978 Yankees in some kind of effort to craft a wider view of the game and country at that point in time. (A treatise on Jimmy Carter and Rod Laver's lack of effort in a guaranteed payment tennis match, for example.) To me, it seems as though Kahn had all these stories,anecdotes, and opinions that he wanted to share, and jammed them in regardless of the fit with the overall subject or the point he was trying to make in a particular chapter. Perhaps he intends this to be his last book and didn't want some stories and opinions to go untold. I found myself thinking this was a poor attempt at the storytelling method used so effectively by Sebastian Junger in "The Perfect Storm." Take an incident and expand on it to explain how and why those individuals were there at that particular point in time and how history contributed to to the central incident. Whereas Junger creates a gripping tale with this methodology, Kahn created a book that has an odd flow to it, and ultimately, misses the mark. I did appreciate some of the behind scenes stories about Steinbrenner and his relationship with Martin and Jackson. However, I found Kahn to vicious in his opinions of his peers in the sports reporting world, like Howard Cosell, Dick Young and Dick Schaap, that are unable to defend themselves. To me, it came across as vindictive and a chance to get in the last word. It's worth a read only if you are a diehard Yankee fan. Otherwise, skip it and read "Moneyball" instead.
Rating:
Summary: Not Another "Boys Of Summer" But It's Not Trying To Be
Review: I imagine it must be both a blessing and a curse to have written the Greatest Baseball Book of All Time. A blessing, from the outer recognition and inner satisfaction such an achievement brings; and a curse, because every time you again put ink to paper, your new child will be measured against your most successful offspring. I read the review stating that Roger Kahn's "October Men" is in the tradition of "Boys of Summer" and I ask in wonder if that writer read the earlier work. The first third of "Boys" is Kahn's memoir of growing up in Brooklyn as a Dodger fan, then covering the great team of 1952-53; but the heart of the book is his story of revisiting these men in middle age as they cope with life's challenges. Kahn himself said it's not a book about baseball but about "time and what time does to us all." A true classic, and deservedly so. That being said, the focus of "October Men" is on the wild, raucous Yankees of 1977-78. Although there are notations on what's happened to many of those Yanks in the quarter century that's passed, the spotlight is clearly on those two wild seasons. And that's just fine. It's a great story, and Kahn brings all his observational and descriptive skills to bear in telling it with insight, humor, and narrative power. Anyone who lived through that era should enjoy having it brought back to life so vividly; and for those youngsters who may wonder what all the fuss was about involving George and Billy and Reggie and Thurman and crew, there's no better introduction to their story.
Rating:
Summary: Sloppy and Disappointing
Review: I wanted to like this book and expected to like this book, but there are just too many flaws. When the focus is on Billy Martin and Reggie Jackson and the turmoil of the 78 Yankees, it's insightful and interesting. But relatively little of the book actually is about the 1978 season. Far too much space is given to sloppy, meandering passages about baseball history and odd, mean-spirited, and entirely unnecessary swipes at other sportswriters. This seems to have slapped together with little thought, research, or editing.
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