Title/Author:
“Yells for Ourselves:
A Story of New York City and the New York Mets at the Dawn of the Millennium” by
Matthew Callan
Tags:
Baseball,
professional, history, Mets
Publish date:
March 12, 2019
Length:
368 pages
Rating:
4 of 5 stars (very
good)
Review:
For most of their history, the New
York Mets have been playing the part of second fiddle to New York City’s other
baseball team, the New York Yankees. At
the start of 1999, as a new millennium was about to begin, this was still the
case, especially since the Yankees had just come off one of the most successful
seasons in baseball history and won their second World Series title in three
years. The Mets, meanwhile, were also starting
to make waves and capture the attention of New York baseball fans and
media. The Mets’ adventures in 1999, as
well as 2000 when they got to face the Yankees in the Subway Series. This book, mainly a collection of writings by
the author, Matthew Callen, from blog posts is a very good account of those two
seasons.
The most impressive aspect of this
book is the minute detail in which Callen writes about the Mets for those two
seasons. Not only does he capture the highlights of the best of the team those
years, he writes about the agony of some of the losses, all of the controversy and
all of the front office maneuvers. While
many of the more controversial statements and actions involve manager Bobby
Valentine, there isn’t a person involved with the Mets those two seasons that
escapes being noticed by Callen.
While the detail of so many games
and so many press conferences with the New York media can get tedious to read
(at least if the reader is not a serious Met fan), it gets very entertaining
without Callen needing to insert his own brand of humor or opinions. There is
very little that the reader will learn about Callen’s views because he lets the
players, manager, general manager and reporters tell the story themselves and
he simply reports it. That proved to be
a winning formula for this book.
Every great Mets memory from those two seasons is captured here – the thrilling come-from-behind victory at Shea in the 1999 series against the Yankees, the tie-breaking game against Cincinnati to give the Mets the wild card spot in that same season. Then in those playoffs, the epic National League Championship Series against the Atlanta Braves is covered in its full glory. The Braves winning the first three games fairly easily, then the Mets storming back in games 4 and 5, capped off in that latter game by Robin Ventura’s “Grand Slam Single”, and finally the heartbreak of the loss to the Braves in game 6.
Then when the new millennium starts,
Callen writes about 2000 with just as much gusto as 1999, although this time,
he adds some Yankees text as well since the two teams met in the World Series
to give the World Series a complete New York flavor for the first time in 44
years. This is also where the book
finally gives a more thorough picture to the reader of the pulse of New York
City and how they feel about their baseball teams and the Subway Series. This aspect of that time is what drew me to
the book and while this was very good, it left me slightly disappointed that there
wasn’t more of this material written throughout the book. Keeping in mind that this was most a
collection of blog posts that were weaved together to make the book, I felt the
author did a very good job of putting them together in a fluid story instead of
simply throwing them together because they spoke on a similar topic – the Mets.
Die-hard Mets fans will really enjoy
this book, and fans of other teams, even the Yankees, would be wise to take a
look at this as well for a complete picture of the Mets for those two seasons
when New York truly did capture the lions’ share of attention from the baseball
media.
I wish to thank Quill for providing
a copy of the book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Book Format Read:
E-book (Kindle)
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