Almost Yankees

Almost Yankees is a poignant and nostalgic narrative of the lives and travails of Minor League Baseball, focusing on the 1981 championship season of the New York Yankees' Triple-A farm club, the Columbus Clippers. That year was especially notable in the annals of baseball history as the year Major League Baseball went on strike in midseason. When that happened, the Clippers were suddenly the best team in baseball and found themselves the focus of national media attention. Many of these Minor Leaguers sensed this was their last, best chance to make an impression and fulfill their dreams to one day reach the majors. The Clippers' raw recruits, prospects, and Minor League veterans responded to this opportunity by playing the greatest baseball of their lives on the greatest team most of them would ever belong to. Then the strike ended, leaving them to return to their ordinary aspirational lives and to be just as quickly forgotten. Almost Yankees is the previously untold baseball story of a team and its players performing in the shadow of one of the sport's most famous teams and infamous owners. Featuring interviews with more than thirty former players (including Steve Balboni, Dave Righetti, Buck Showalter, and Pat Tabler) and dozens of other baseball and media figures, this season's narrative chronicles success, failure, resilience, and redemption as told by a special group of players with hopes and dreams of big-league glory. J. David Herman, who worshipped the team as an eleven-year-old, tracked down his old heroes to learn their stories--and to better understand his own. The season proved to be a launching pad for some, a final chance for others, and the end of the dream for many others.

A revised and expanded edition of The New York Yankees: Legendary Sports Teams! The New York Yankees played their first game in the American League in 1903. Since then, they have become the best team in baseball, bar none. Now this action-packed and fact-filled volume brings the Yankee's great history to life. From Babe Ruth's called shot and Lou Gehrig's tearful farewell speech, to Reggie Jackson's three hits on three pitches and Derek Jeter's game-saving catches, classic moments are recounted with such vivid description that readers will swear they can smell the popcorn and hear the crack of the bat. Updated content includes team records and post-season results from 1903 to 2011, as well as lists of Yankees inducted into the Hall of Famers and photos of the most memorable plays and people in Yankee history.

Photographs and essays help chronicle one hundred years of history for the New York Yankees professional baseball team, profiling key players, coaches, and moments in the team's history.

The Yankees and New York baseball entered a golden age between 1949 and 1964, a period during which the city was represented in all but one World Series. While the Yankees dominated, however, the years were not so golden for the rest of baseball. In The Postwar Yankees: Baseball's Golden Age Revisited, David G. Surdam deconstructs this idyllic period to show that while the Yankees piled on pennants and World Series titles through the 1950s, Major League Baseball attendance consistently declined and gate-revenue disparity widened through the mid-1950s. Contrary to popular belief, the era was already experiencing many problems that fans of today's game bemoan, including a competitive imbalance and callous owners who ran the league like a cartel. Fans also found aging, decrepit stadiums ill-equipped for the burgeoning automobile culture, while television and new forms of leisure competed for their attention. Through an economist's lens, Surdam brings together historical documents and off-the-field numbers to reconstruct the period and analyze the roots of the age's enduring mythology, examining why the Yankees and other New York teams were consistently among baseball's elite and how economic and social forces set in motion during this golden age shaped the sport into its modern incarnation.

With more than 100 years to choose from, longtime Yankee sportswriter Phil Pepe narrows down the top 40 most fantastic moments in Yankee baseball. From the magical bat of Babe Ruth to the 26 World Series titles, there is no question that the Yankees are in a league of their own. Some of the famous and infamous moments highlighted in the book include Ron Guidry's 260 strikeout season; Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak; perfect games by Don Larsen, David Wells, and David Cone; and the infamous wife swap between Fritz Peterson and Mike Kekich. An extraordinary celebration of Yankee history, fans will have the opportunity to reminisce about these miraculous moments for years to come.

The New York Yankees' history is filled with great achievements, outstanding performances, and unprecedented success. For more than 40 years, from 1921 to 1964, the Yankees and their fans had much to cheer about--the team won 29 pennants and 20 world championships and featured such greats as Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Bill Dickey, Yogi Berra and Whitey Ford. Yankee haters waited endlessly for the fall of the seemingly unbeatable team from New York, and finally, in 1965, the Yankees began to flounder. The team didn't win anything for the next eleven years. Each losing season, from 1965 through 1975, is fully covered in this book. The author maintains that in their long losing streak and mediocrity, the Yankees somehow acquired a more endearing quality that had not previously existed. The team that had once offered its fans Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Mantle and other greats now offered Bill Robinson, Danny Cater, Jerry Kenney and Jake Gibbs, and standouts Bobby Murcer, Mel Stottlemyre, Thurman Munson and Roy White--men who knew the Yankees' long and glorious history, but also knew first-hand the decade of frustration and disappointment that Yankees players and fans had to live through.

This is a history of the New York Yankees over a decade which saw them at the top of the American League and at the bottom. Based upon thorough background research and interviews with over 100 former players, the book covers the major stories of the period as well as some not seen elsewhere. The seventh games of the 1960 and 1962 World Series are described in detail, replete with the remembrances of many of the participants. The infamous Phil Linz harmonica incident, the fruitless search for another Mickey Mantle and the surprising emergence of Mel Stottlemyre are some of the stories that make the early '60s such a fascinating era in Yankee lore.

Experience a century of the pride, power, and pinstripes of the Yankees, Major League Baseball's most successful team, as told through the stories of their hometown newspaper, The New York Times. The New York Yankees are the most storied franchise in baseball history. They consistently draw the largest home and away crowds of any team, command the largest broadcast audiences in baseball, draw the greatest number of on-line followers, and routinely sell more copies of books and magazines than any other professional sports team. The New York Times Story of the Yankees includes more than 350 articles chronicling the team's most famous milestones—as well as the best writing about the ball club. Each article is hand-selected from The Times by the peerless sportswriter Dave Anderson, creating the most complete and compelling history to date about the Yankees. Organized by era, the book covers the biggest stories and events in Yankee history, such as the purchase of Babe Ruth, Roger Maris's 61st home run, and David Cone's perfect game. It chronicles the team's 27 World Series championships and 40 American League pennants; its rivalries with the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Boston Red Sox; controversial owners, players, and managers; and more. The articles span the years from 1903—when the team was known as the New York Highlanders—to the present, and include stories from well-known and beloved Times reporters such as Arthur Daley, John Kieran, Leonard Koppett, Red Smith, Tyler Kepner, Ira Berkow, Richard Sandomir, Jim Roach, and George Vecsey. Hundreds of black-and-white photographs throughout capture every era. A foreword by die-hard Yankees fan, Alec Baldwin, completes the celebration of baseball's greatest team.