Baseball Toaster was unplugged on February 4, 2009.
Mark Armour has a nifty piece over at The Baseball Analysts about the Yankees first free agent draft. It's a must-read for Yankee fans, who may or may not know that Reggie Jackson was not the Yankees first--or second or third--cherce in 1977. Armour details what went down and asks, what would have happened if the Yankees had gotten their man, Bobby Grich? Who knows if they would have won two straight World Serious'? Oscar Gamble would have never left, Bucky Dent would have never been a Yankee, Billy Martin may have slept a bit better at night, and the Yankee clubhouse would have been a more harmonious--and for the sportswriters, dull--place. Without Reggie, there would have been no Bronx Zoo, and, who knows, maybe Grich would have eventually made the Hall of Fame.
Also, Dick Lally's "Pinstriped Summers" is a good read as well.
I was wondering if you guys could post a top-ten list of yankees (or baseball in general) books. With summer coming up, I like nothing more than chilling on the beach with a good baseball book. Since you guys are far more literate (literary?) than me, I'd love to see a list...and i'm sure others would too. Maybe you could have a running list in the "suggested reading" box at right. Just a thought.
By the way, the boss ALWAYS wanted Reggie. His "baseball people" wanted Grich.
David Halberstam wrote a couple of Yankee books: Summer of '49 (the down-to-the-wire battle between DiMaggio's Yanks and Williams' Sox) and October '64 (the aging, lily white Mantle Yanks vs. the speedy, young and black Cardinals of Lou Brock and Bob Gibson). Halberstam has a tendency to incorporate every single fact he learned in the course of his research, so the thoroughness will either delight you or make your eyes glaze over.
Most of my favorite baseball books have little to no Yankee content, though Ball Four at least briefly touches on Jim Bouton's days with the team, and it's hysterical.
My dad was and is a classic-Yankee hater, but I remember one of his friends giving him "The Bronx Zoo" when it was in hardcover. First book I ever read with swears. And boy, was their plenty of them.
Lots of dirty stuff in that one, or so it seemed to me as a kid.
Comment status: comments have been closed. Baseball Toaster is now out of business.