Regular readers here know that I like to read books on train rides to live games about the sport in which I am about to attend a game. I had a recent bus trip to Citi Field to take in a Mets game, so what baseball book did I choose? One about the other New York team - here is my review of a book about their 1998 championship team.
Title/Author: “The 1998 Yankees: The Inside Story of the Greatest Baseball Team Ever” by Jack Curry
Rating: 4 of 5 stars (very good)
Review: Ask any sports fan about who
is the greatest team, no matter the sport, and you are very likely to get not
only an answer that might surprise you, but you will also get a passionate
explanation from that fan to explain their answer. While Jack Curry is a very good baseball
journalist who has covered the New York Yankees in both print and broadcast
media, he does this very type of explanation in this book when telling the
reader why the 1998 Yankees should be considered the greatest baseball team
ever assembled.
The book has both typical and non-typical aspects of books
that describe a particular season.
Typical in that there are many game recaps and insights into specific
games, plays and player reactions over the course of the season. In fact, this book goes further back than
just the 1998 baseball season – it starts with the day the Yankees were
eliminate in the 1997 postseason by the then-Cleveland Indians. Curry does well
writing about the emotions of the Yankees on that day, and keeps it up
throughout the book with all the highs and lows – mostly highs – in his
description of the team.
Where the book does not fit into the typical one season
recap is that the main stars of the team are the players who are described in
the most pages. While yes, readers will learn
some information they may not have known about the “Core Four” of Derek Jeter,
Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettitte and Jorge Posada, other players are prominently
on display in this book.
Those include David Wells (yes, his story about being hung
over while pitching a perfect game is confirmed), Orlando “El Duque” Hernandez,
World Series MVP Scott Brosius and second baseman Chuck Knoblach. Some get more pages written than others, but
this was something I really enjoyed in the book – learning about more than
those players already known well and in the baseball Hall of Fame. Plus, there is an excellent section on Brian
Cashman, who was promoted to general manager of the team before the 1998 season
and felt the pressure from owner George Steinbrenner to win the championship
that year.
While I again want to emphasize that Curry is a journalist
and not a fan, and in no way does this review imply that he sounds like a fan,
the book can come across as trying too hard to convince the reader that there
is absolutely no baseball team that can be considered better than the 1998 Yankees.
There are several worthy reasons why this is case and Curry does make a strong
argument, but there points repeated several times that don’t need to be, such
as the 125 wins the Yankees racked up between the regular season and the
postseason. At the end, he acknowledges other
teams that can make a case for being the greatest, but he sets them aside to
let the reader know that in no uncertain terms, one must conclude it is this
team. Yankee fans will certainly not
need any verification like this to make that assessment, but for other readers,
this is a good book for helping to answer any questions they may have about
this team.
I wish to thank Twelve Books for providing a copy of the
book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
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