Pride of October: What It Was to Be Young and a Yankee

by Bill Madden

In his years of writing about the Yankees for the Daily News, columnist the author has earned the reputation as one of the premier journalists covering the team.

Genres: Baseball, Sports

464 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2003

Reviews

[Jane]

this is my treadmill book

[Matthew Tessnear · Rating 5 out of 5]

Baseball history has always fascinated me. The sport is essential to the American understanding. To not know baseball is to not know America. And to not know the Yankees is to not know baseball. This book does not feature Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Mantle or Jeter specifically. But it touches deep into Yankee fabric through guys who knew them and played with them, who know baseball and who’ve lived it all in America. I love how each chapter focuses on a living (at the time) Yankee the author interviewed about their Yankee and life story. This is essential sports biographical reading.

[Marc Friedman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A thoroughly enjoyable step back into Yankee baseball history. You'll probably want to be a big baseball fan to read this, and better yet if the Yankees are your team. Which in my case, they are! Brought back lots of memories of seasons when I was a kid growing up in Queens, the home of the Mets, but I was raised a Yankees fan and I can never be more thankful for that. It was hike to get there when I took a bus and then two subways, but it was always well worth it.

Go Bombers!

[Hugh Atkins · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bill Madden wrote profiles on former Yankee players to get their take on what it meant to be a Yankee. It was good to learn what some of the players did after baseball. But, overall, Madden tends to exaggerate the accomplishments of most of the players and reports very little negative aspects of the organization. For instance, he makes it sound as if the firing of Yogi Berra as manager in 1964 sent the Yankees on a downward spiral. Madden is correct when he notes the spiral, but an aging roster and the Yankees' refusal to sign young black players is what led to their demise. Also, he makes Bobby Murcer out to be the last player with ties to the Yankee teams of Mantle, Ford, Maris, Howard, and Richardson and laments that Murcer came back too late to get in on their championships of the late 70s'. Madden never once mentions Roy White, who was a regular before Murcer, stayed with the Yankees through the lean years, and was on their championship teams of the late '70s. And even though Madden doesn't have a chapter on Derek Jeter, he still manages to waste two pages on the most overrated play in the history of baseball--Jeter's flip of the throw from right field in playoffs. Madden even manages to gloss over Roger Clemens throwing the bat at Mike Piazza in the World Series against the Mets. I'm not a Yankee hater, but man this Madden is quick the nonobjective homer.