Baseball's Dynasties and the Players Who Built Them
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- USD 54.99
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- USD 54.99
Descripción editorial
Baseball has had its fair share of one-and-out champions, but few clubs have dominated the sport for any great length of time. Given the level of competition and the expansive length of the season, it is a remarkable accomplishment for a team to make multiple World Series appearances in a short timespan. From the Baltimore Orioles of the 1800s who would go to any length to win—including physically accosting opponents—to the 1934 Cardinals known as the “Gashouse Gang” for their rough tactics and determination, and on to George Steinbrenner’s dominant Yankees of the late twentieth century, baseball’s greatest teams somehow found a way to win year after year.
Spanning three centuries of the game, Baseball’s Dynasties and the Players Who Built Them examines twenty-two of baseball’s most iconic teams. Each chapter not only chronicles the club’s era of supremacy, but also provides an in-depth look at the players who helped make their teams great. Nearly two hundred player profiles are included, featuring such well-known stars as Joe DiMaggio, Jackie Robinson, Sandy Koufax, and Pete Rose, as well as players who were perhaps overshadowed by their teammates but were nonetheless vital to their team’s reign, such as Pepper Martin, Allie Reynolds, and George Foster.
With a concluding chapter that profiles the clubs that were on the cusp of greatness, Baseball’s Dynasties and the Players Who Built Them is a fascinating survey of what makes some teams dominate year after year while others get only a small taste of glory before falling to the wayside. Written in a lively style with amusing anecdotes and colorful quotes, this comprehensive book will be of interest to all fans and historians of baseball.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Weeks quickly engages the reader by taking a controversial stand, redefining what is considered a baseball dynasty and calling the 1996 2000 Yankee squads the "last bona fide dynasty." This makes for spirited debate, particularly since his criteria exclude the 2010 2014 San Francisco Giants teams that won three World Series championships in a five-year span but include the Atlanta Braves teams of the early to mid-1990s (his guidelines include "the presence of several Hall of Fame caliber players" and "a relatively stable lineup during the period of dominance"). After this initial confusion and some overdrawn player bios, Weeks gets to the crux of a comprehensive book that's laid out so well it suits the novice fan as well as the diehard who still reads box scores. Weeks nicely encapsulates lots of data in practical prose, capturing the swashbuckling mood of baseball's early years with clever phrases ("ill-fated Roanoke Magicians who disappeared from the Virginia league"). Weeks avoids the peril of catering strictly to trivia fans, but his book can still serve as a quick reference, filled with a long list of notable players rarely mentioned outside their local team lore.