Pride of October
What It Was to Be Young and a Yankee
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- USD 12.99
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- USD 12.99
Descripción editorial
No other team has come close to dominating baseball like the New York Yankees, with 26 World Series wins and 38 American League championships. No wonder no other team has a fraction of baseball books published about them. Bill Madden adds another to the lengthy list with Pride of October: What it Was to Be Young and a Yankee.
From Phil Rizzuto and Whitey Ford to Lou Piniella and Paul O'Neil, 17 former Yankees and one Yankee widow, reveal their memories about their careers. The wide range ofYankee seasons is reflected in all the players selected, so questions range from the reality of Babe Ruth's "called home run," to Pichard the shocking final inning of the 2001 World Series loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks with the "unbeatable" Yankee reliever Mario Rivera on the mound. In the pregame clubhouse meetings, the normally reserved Rivera surprised his teammates by saying "We're going to win, but no matter what happens, it's in God's hands." Don Mattingly reflects on his 13 fine seasons with the Yanks without a single World Series ring to show for it. Yogi Berra, Madden claims, when asked directions to his home for the interview replies, "When you get to the house, you'll see it."
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It is a testament to the depth of New York Yankee history that a sportswriter, albeit a very good one, can profile 18 people connected to the team's past and deliver an absorbing story that traces much of the team's story through the eyes of the men who were there. Madden's goal, to capture as much of the team's past as possible, led him to Marius Russo, one of the last players alive to play with Yankee legend Lou Gehrig. The chapter on Russo, as well as on other Yankee old-timers Tommy Byrne and Charlie Silvera, are especially enjoyable since they shed light on the pre WWII Yankees, while bringing attention to three players who are not generally known by most fans. Madden (coauthor of Zim) writes with affection about each player, with an understanding of each one's place in Yankee lore. His choice to include Arlene Howard, widow of Elston Howard, the first African-American to play for the Yankees, is inspired, as it allows Madden to bring to life the difficulties Howard had in breaking the Yankee color line. One weakness: since many of the profiles are of men who were part of either Stengel's Yankees or the Bronx Zoo teams of the mid-1970s, Madden must repeat the highlights of those years in several different chapters. But this is a minor quibble, and Yankee fans will enjoy the perspective of what it was like to be young and a Yankee in a number of different eras.
