Yankees Century: 100 Years of New York Yankees Baseball [Audiobook] [Englisch] [Gebundene Ausgabe]

I'm sure the 14 percent have this book already and that they're reading it aloud to their kids every night before bed, wiping tears from the kids' faces, letting them know how deep and wide the Yankees history is.

If you're the other 86 percent, you ought to be reading it too. First, because there's something devilishly satisfying in reading about the early days, when the team was nearly shut out of Manhattan, playing on a sloppy, cobbled together frield with a sawamp in right. Second, because as you turn the pages you come to realize that from DiMaggio to Mantle, from Bucky Dent to Reggie to Paul O'Neill and El Duque, these guys and the things they've done (sometimes to you, sometimes in spite of you) are part of your history, part of how you remember and imagine your life. An third, because it's insanely thorough, full of details you've forgotten or never knew, and very good looking.

Stout started this series with Red Sox Century in 2000. Dodger Century is in the works. These are rich, dazzling books, standard-setters, fully-realized, complicated portraits of the ways a team and a game weave in and out of politics, history and popular culture.

O'Neill's sister contributes an essay that sums up the series appeal much better than I can: 'In our family we tell stories. We don't really Talk. We let baseball articulate the hopes and fears that we'd never consider telling each other.'"

In this case, I found the review was completely accurate. Of the spate of books out now that claim to tell the history of this team, this book, in almost 500 pages of words and photographs, is the only one up to its subject. If you don't believe me, or ESPN, I suggest you read the excerpt about the birth of the team - even hard core Yankee fans will learn something new.

I heard about this one at the SABR convention, where I one of the authors gave a talk about how the Yankees really got Babe Ruth, and on ESPN, which ran a story from the book, about how the Yankees almost moved to Boston after buying the Babe, which was news to me. Now that I have read the whole book I'm not disappointed, and there are many other untold stories from beginning to end. I can't think of another Yankee book that is as complete as this one and I've read them all. It tells the history of the team in one big story instead of just writing about the World Series or Babe Ruth or Mickey Mantle. This is a book you can spend hours with and I already have (Yea, no strike, go Yanks!).

I never really knew how the Yankees were created or much about the team before Ruth, but I do now. There's all sorts of information on the early history of New York and how the city and the team helped make each other waht they are today. Instead of the same old stories over and over like most other books about the team, this book tells it like it is and how the Yankees became the Yankees. In particular, I really enjoyed the stories about the 2001 season and postseason last year, from 9/11 onward. Almost made me cry but really put it all in perspective, too.

You've just got to read this to believe it.