I just finished Joe Torre’s book with Tom Verducci "The Yankee Years" and gave it a pretty good grade despite my notoriously tough grading system (you imaginary readers know exactly what I’m talking about!).
My biggest surprise was that he had more negative comments about more people than I would have expected given his usual sensitivity to politics. His biggest targets in that regard were A-Rod, Kevin Brown, and Randy Johnson but he was also pretty liberal with the denigrating comments toward Pavano, Cashman, Wells, and (the one that surprised me the most) Johnny Damon.
At the extreme other end of the spectrum were Jeter, Bernie Williams, and Posada who were portrayed with great reverence at all times. He also registered glowing support for Paul O’Neil, Mel Stottlemeyer, and (again to my surprise) Theo Epstein.
I enjoyed the insights into Steinbrenner and his first-hand account of the Boss’s management style, the Yankee perspective on the Red-Sox, the thorough writing on the 2004 post-season, the palpable hatred of Pedro Martinez, and the vindicating support of those saber-metric philosophies first espoused publicly in my favorite sports book of all-time, Money Ball.
And speaking of Money Ball, any of you who haven’t read that yet better get your arses down to the imaginary bookstore and rectify the situation.
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