Balls

by Graig Nettles, Peter Golenbock

A candid, behind-the-scenes look at the New York Yankees by the team's outspoken third baseman offers an irreverant chronicle of the crucial 1983 season--profiles of George Steinbrenner, Billy Martin, and fellow team members--and anecdotes about the baseball strike and other controversial events

Genres: Baseball, Sports, Nonfiction, Biography

293 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published April 30, 1984

Reviews

[Terry Cornell · Rating 2 out of 5]

Basically this is third basemen Graig Nettles diary entries of his 1983 season with the New York Yankees. Some earlier bio information about his prior experiences before playing with the NYY but primarily focused on what a micromanager owner George Steinbrenner was. I thought there would be more humor, and was disappointed. Interesting reading about some of the other players at the time--Reggie Jackson, Goose Gossage and others.

After excerpts of the book were leaked before publication in 1984, Steinbrenner traded Nettles to the San Diego Padres where he helped lead the team to the World Series. I would only recommend this book to diehard baseball and/or Yankee fans.

[Chris Dean · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book that famously got Nettles traded to the San Diego Padres. Admittedly, I read this book nearly 30 years after it was written, so many of the revelations and criticisms of Steinbrenner seem dated and tame now.

[Josh Hitch · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a lot of fun reading Nettles, not pulling any punches. He bad mouths who he wants, especially good ol George Steinbrenner. He talks about his years in the majors, but mainly, it's sort of a diary of the 83 season.

Highly recommended, Nettles had a great career, and he still had a few years left after this book. Well put together and interesting to learn more about Nettles.

[Oliver Bateman · Rating 5 out of 5]

no "the bronx zoo" as golenbock colaborations - nettles is too modest and self-deprecating for that - but it serves as a handy little autobiography of one the 2-3 greatest players not currently in the hall of fame. nettles comes across as an unassuming, punch-the-clock sort of character, the son of a college athlete who himself became a pro athlete, and he does his job without complaint aside from rare outbursts of wit or anger, as when he called george steinbrenner a "fat motherfucker" or some such thing.

beyond nettles recapping his career in summary form (which is good to have on the record), most of the book consists of nettles covering the '83 season via ceaseless speculation about steinbrenner's mental state (undoubtedly this is what all yankees did for a 20-year period until they began winning titles again in the late 90s). he's not nearly as critical of everyone else, from coaches to other players, as sparky lyle was, because nettles was quite obviously in it for himself, a beacon of consistency in an ever-shifting yankees lineup (he and part-timer lou piniella are the only holdovers from the team as constituted during sparky lyle's '78 season). he can field, he can hit, and as he says frequently, he wants to be left alone. perhaps too alone, because he never made much of a name for himself outside of his work on the diamond.

[Tom Stamper · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nettles was my favorite player on my favorite team so this book was my birthday present although I wasn't much of a reader as a teenager. Nettles is a clever guy although his wit was overshadowed by the bigger personalities on the team. Although I haven't read the book in 30 years I remember a tidbit about the Yankees playing the White Sox and Sox infielder Scott Fletcher popping up and saying "dagnabit". Nettles told Fletcher that it was the big leagues and that he could say "%#>%€^'". Later Netles learned that Fletcher was a religious guy and Nettles felt bad about it so the next few times he popped out he yelled -- dagnabit.

[Ted Papoulas · Rating 3 out of 5]

I tripped across this in my local library and decided to bring it home with me. The 1970s Yankees were my childhood team, and I have very fond early memories of watching Chambliss take the Yankees to the World Series in 1976 and Reggie's historic 3HR game in the 1977 World Series. Being young, I was mostly ignorant of all the behind the scenes drama of those times. Nettles was the most impressive defensive third baseman I have seen in a Yankee uniform and he had an inside seat for all the goings on throughout the 70s and early 80s, so I thought it would be enjoyable to take a trip back and look at those years from a different angle. It was close to exactly what I expected. If you are a fan of that team (I love references like the one about the 'new kid' Don Mattingly), it's worth a read, but if you are purely looking for a gripping inside look at baseball, there are better choices. Jim Bouton's classic Ball Four is leaps and bounds ahead of this book in terms of pure literary and humanistic value, but that said, I enjoyed this trip back to a crazy era in Yankee history.

[Michael Tenerowicz · Rating 3 out of 5]

I grew up a huge Yankee fan. HUGE. In Massachusetts! Horace Clarke, Gene Michaels, Pete Ward, Joe Pepitone, Ron Woods, Bobby Murcer. Mel Stottlemyre was my first fan crush, especially when he beat Denny McLain on NBC Saturday's game of the week in McLains 31- game winning season. Beat him 2-1. This book taught me nothing that I did not already know. But it was fun going through the names I haven't thought about in 40 years. Jerry Mumphrey, Gossage, Lyle, Dent etc. Nice to climb back into my past and read about Mr. Steinbrenner. Just in time for spring training. Fan the flames and whatnot. It was fun for me.

[TheHenry Blank · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a good book for those familiar with baseball in the 70s and 80s. He respects Billy Martin, rags on Reggie Jackson, sympathizes with Sparky Lyle. Corks his bat. I would have given it 5 stars but he omits any mention of the most notorious stunt he pulled on a baseball, that is the time when he wrestler-style picked up and slammed Boston hurler Bill Lee to the ground during a Yankee-Red Sox brawl, separating Lee's shoulder. So the title is actually a misnomer.

[Marshall Merims · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another book about the antics, conversations, and observations inside the Yankees clubhouse. Nettles was a quality player who enjoyed some quality seasons with the Yankees including being named team captain. Interesting how he alternated chapters about 1983 with all the other years of his life and career.

[Judi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Always loved Graig Nettles. This is a recounting of the 1983 season, with flashbacks to the mid- and late-70's. Most fun for me was hearing all the names of the players I watched back then, when the team seems more cohesive (despite George Steinbrenner's, a/k/a Trump's predecessor, interference with the team).

[Mike Baker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots and lots about riffs between George and Billy. I would have loved to have read more on insights of some of the interesting players on these Yankee teams, including Mickey Rivers, Winfield, Griffey, Pinella etc.

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just remembered I read this.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as good as Sparky Lyle's Bronx Zoo, but not terrible.

[Pete · Rating 4 out of 5]

A must for Yankee fans.

[Kristen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this years ago when it came out in paperback. I just reread it (the same copy) and I'm not sure it held up to my memory of it, but it was still a nice trip down memory lane.

[Spiros · Rating 3 out of 5]

An enjoyable, field-level view of the madness that was Yankees' Baseball in the early 1980's. Chapters alternate between biography of Nettles, and a "journal" of the 1983 season, in which the Bombers finished third behind the World Champion Orioles. Coincidentally, '83 would turn out to be Nettles' "walk year", in which he was playing out the final year of his contract, and amongst the anguish of his larger concern with the team's struggles, there is an undercurrent of anxiety as to how his own performance is going to affect his impending free agency.

On May 20, 1976, Nettles' path dramatically crossed the flight trajectory of Bill "Spaceman" Lee; here is Lee on the incident: "Somehow, in the midst of this melee, I got spun around while grabbing [Otto:] Velez and was hit from behind. A picture later showed Mickey Rivers had hit me in the back of the head with a sucker punch. That dazed me. He packed a pretty good wallop for a skinny, little guy. As I tried to clear my head, Nettles came over, picked me up, and dropped me on my shoulder. He later claimed that he was only trying to keep me out of the fight. He did do that. I guess Graig's idea of keeping the peace was to arrange for me to get a lot of bed rest in a quiet hospital."
Despite being on opposite sides in just about every regard, Nettles and Lee do share a few similarities: both were raised in Southern California, and both evinced a healthy disrespect for authority. Here's Nettles on Commissioner Bowie Kuhn: "Bowie Kuhn finally made a correct decision. He finally made one good decision for the good of baseball. He resigned." And later in the same passage: "There were other things he did, or rather didn't do. Where was he during the [1981:] strike? On vacation. Peter Gammons wrote, 'If Bowie Kuhn was alive, this strike never would have happened.' And that's the way I felt about it. What did Bowie Kuhn ever do for the good of baseball? He did everything for the good of certain owners, and that's all."
As you can see, Nettles may have been the better player, but Lee is definitely the better writer.

[Tom Gase · Rating 3 out of 5]

A pretty good book on Graig Nettles, the former third baseman of the New York Yankees. Nettles, along with the help of great writer Pete Golenbock, chronicles the 1983 season with the Yankees. Nettles also talks about in seperate chapters how he came up with the Minnesota Twins, and later played with the Cleveland Indians and New York Yankees. He talks about the great 1976-1980 teams briefly but I've read books about those teams a bunch of times and I really liked when he talked about the 1983 team because I didn't know much about that team. It's a rare book about the 1980's Yankees where Reggie Jackson or Don Mattingly weren't regulars on the team. This book rips George Steinbrenner a lot, so if you are a fan of his, don't read this book. It also talks a lot about Billy Martin and other Yankee players such as Lou Pinella, Dave Winfield, Willie Randolph, Roy Smalley, Ken Griffey, Goose Gossage and Ron Guidry to name a few. Another thing I liked about this book is it talked about Dave Righetti's no-hitter with the Yankees and the infamous pine-tar incident with George Brett that happened during the season. Kind of all over the place at some parts and doesn't get too in depth with games all that much, but it was still a fun quick read. Yankee fans will enjoy this, especially if they grew up in the early 1980s.

[carl theaker · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was always a Yankee fan but rarely got to see them on TV or radio. I lived in St Louis a NL town
and those were the days of the 'Game of the Week', yep 1 game on TV a week. We moved to
Toledo between the AL cities of Detriot & Cleveland and got to hear a share of Yankee games that way.
I'll always remember a gave vs the Tribe, in 1971, Nettles made a stab at third that the Cleveland announcer went on about for 4 minutes.

Several years later, I used Nettles for my inspiration to move to the infield, I was always a fast but erratic outfielder. I watched him and visualized how he would play third and I moved there and later became a pretty good shortstop.

Oh yeah the book, it was published to take advantage of the turmoil and zoo like qualities of the early 80s yankee teams. Book does a fairly good job of mixing in Nettles' career progression with the then current events for the team. Event wise-fit in well with the Munson bio.

[Bill · Rating 3 out of 5]

This books was written during the 1983 season. It seems Nettles just wrote down his thoughts (what was going on with the team and baseball) during the season and they made it into a book. He also devotes a few chapters on past Yankee teams and seasons, more so on the Championship season he was apart of.
Because the book was created on his notes and memoirs it didn't have real good fluency. It also seems that certain events (that you may read about in other books) were left out of the book intentionally. However, Nettles doesn't hold back on his feelings towards George Steinbrenner (owner of the Yankees).

[Kevin · Rating 2 out of 5]

The lack of a real narrative makes this book a slog when it could be a lot of fun to read. Nettles has some zingers about George Steinbrenner which are still pretty harsh 30+ years later. Unfortunately, they sometimes get lost in the timeline as the story repeatedly makes jumps from the then-present day (the 1983 season) and Nettles's entire life up to that point. There are some interesting anecdotes about the Bronx Zoo era teams, but there are better books if you're that interested. I would only recommend this book to the most hardcore of Yankees fans or fans of Nettles himself.

[Jennifer Segar · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mr. Nettles keeps no actual timeline and the book skips into whatever memory he chooses to recall at that particular moment. But I did enjoy all the Steinbrenner insults and insight into the evil empire of the late 70's to early 80's.

[Kenneth Flusche · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good but repetitios could cut 50 pages from this book. Nettles says it best, He got to play Pro-Baseball and join the Circus.

[Ron Lottermann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Graig Nettles was one of my favorite players when I was a child. This book did not disappoint.

[J. Herman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really fun look inside the Steinbrenner Yankees of the early '80s. Pretty candid although I wonder about the stories that Mr. Nettles left out of the book.

[Ronald]

read some time in 1986

[Dryan1066 · Rating 1 out of 5]

Didn't like it. Nettles ego .wow