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Title: October Men: Reggie Jackson, George Steinbrenner, Billy Martin, and the Yankees' Miraculous Finish in 1978 by Roger Kahn ISBN: 0151006288 Publisher: Harcourt Pub. Date: 01 May, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.22
Rating: 5
Summary: Another Grand Slam for Roger Kahn
Comment: Roger Kahn, who I consider the best baseball writer of all time, has done it again with October Men. In his gifted, wonderfully unique style, Kahn takes us through the zany 1978 season with the New York Yankees. But the book also gives us insightful backgrounds into the main Yankee characters and an interesting, informative historical perspective on the Yankee dynasty. By far this is his greatest work since The Boys of Summer (and he has had many great books since that 1971 classic) and is a MUST read -- not only for Yankee fans -- but for all sports fans in general. A truly great work from a truly great author.
Rating: 4
Summary: A worthy addition to the Kahn canon!
Comment: While not the walk-off home run that "Summer of 49" was, this delightful volume paints a vivid picture of the tempest that WAS the 1977-1978 Yankees.
Reading it during this year's World Series was just about a perfect reading experience.
Kahn is widely recognized as one of our greatest baseball writers, and this is simply raising his batting average.
Reggie, Steinbrenner and especially Billy Martin spring to life, in a manner just different enough than what you expect, where even baseball diehards will find troves of new info and/or fresh perspective.
It's a quick read...dozens of pages fly by before you notice... but Kahn's style warrants a little slower pace. He's good. And funny. I found myself laughing out loud more than once.
When was the last time you laughed out loud at a BOOK?
A worthy addition to any fan's library. Heck, I'd like to check out the rest of the Kahn baseball canon!
Rating: 2
Summary: ANNOYING TENDANCY TO GO OFF ON TANGENTS
Comment: 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.
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Title: The Teammates by David Halberstam ISBN: 140130057X Publisher: Hyperion Press Pub. Date: May, 2003 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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Title: Game Time: A Baseball Companion by Steve Kettmann, Roger Angell ISBN: 0151008248 Publisher: Harcourt Pub. Date: 01 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: Pride of October: What it Was to Be Young and a Yankee by Bill Madden ISBN: 044652932X Publisher: Warner Books Pub. Date: April, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis ISBN: 0393057658 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: 10 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: The Last Good Season: Brooklyn, the Dodgers, and Their Final Pennant Race Together by Michael Shapiro ISBN: 0385501528 Publisher: Doubleday Pub. Date: 18 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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