Almost Yankees: The Summer of '81 and the Greatest Baseball Team You've Never Heard of

by J. David Herman

Almost Yankees is a poignant and nostalgic narrative of the lives and travails of Minor League Baseball, focusing on the 1981 championship season of the New York Yankees’ Triple-A farm club, the Columbus Clippers. That year was especially notable in the annals of baseball history as the year Major League Baseball went on strike in midseason. When that happened, the Clippers were suddenly the best team in baseball and found themselves the focus of national media attention. Many of these Minor Leaguers sensed this was their last, best chance to make an impression and fulfill their dreams to one day reach the majors.

The Clippers’ raw recruits, prospects, and Minor League veterans responded to this opportunity by playing the greatest baseball of their lives on the greatest team most of them would ever belong to. Then the strike ended, leaving them to return to their ordinary aspirational lives and to be just as quickly forgotten.

Almost Yankees is the previously untold baseball story of a team and its players performing in the shadow of one of the sport’s most famous teams and infamous owners. Featuring interviews with more than thirty former players (including Steve Balboni, Dave Righetti, Buck Showalter, and Pat Tabler) and dozens of other baseball and media figures, this season’s narrative chronicles success, failure, resilience, and redemption as told by a special group of players with hopes and dreams of big-league glory. J. David Herman, who worshipped the team as an eleven-year-old, tracked down his old heroes to learn their stories—and to better understand his own. The season proved to be a launching pad for some, a final chance for others, and the end of the dream for many others.
 

Genres: Baseball, Nonfiction

344 pages, Hardcover

Published April 1, 2019

About the author

Seattle resident J. David Herman is a first-time author and former newspaper sports writer. He traces his love for journalism and storytelling back to age 9, when he created his own “front pages” on binder paper to cover the top news stories of the day. Sports gripped Herman a couple of years later, when he latched onto his hometown Columbus (Ohio) Clippers as a first favorite team. His passions for sports and storytelling soon merged. He wasn’t much of an athlete himself and was never the first kid picked for anything, until one of his grade-school teachers divided his class in two for an essay-writing contest, and Herman was, for once, the first one of the board. It was one of several moments that pointed him toward a writing career. After graduating from Gonzaga University, he wrote for newspapers in Washington and Idaho before moving to the web with MSNBC.com, Olympics.com and MSN.com. He’s spent the past 17 years in various roles with Microsoft, including his current position as a managing editor for Microsoft News. He lives in Seattle’s Maple Leaf neighborhood with his wife, Karin, and their three children.

Reviews

[Lance · Rating 5 out of 5]

In 1981, the first strike to interrupt a major league baseball season occurred. However, minor league baseball was still played and one of the best teams that season was the Columbus Clippers, the AAA farm club of the New York Yankees. J. David Herman was an 11-year old superfan of this team until his family relocated to California. His memories are the inspiration for this book about that team.

Herman shares stories about many of the players such as Brad Gulden, John Pacella, Steve Balboni and Dave Righetti, although he only spent a short amount of time on the Clippers before being recalled by the Yankees. However, it isn’t only players who are portrayed in the book. Manager Frank Verdi, broadcaster Rick Rizzs and umpire Bill Emslie are just a few of the other people Herman talks about when he reminisces about the Clippers.

In addition to reviewing the championship season for Columbus, Herman includes passages about other events, baseball and otherwise, that took place in 1981. Of those, he talks most about the Yankees, which is logical since that was the parent club of his favorite baseball team. Righetti is the subject of most of these segments, but other Clippers like Balboni and Pacella who also made the big club are included.

What makes this book stand out more than others about a particular season or team are Herman’s personal memories about the team. These go well beyond simply memories at the ball park with his father or meeting the players. For example, when he was attending college at the University of Washington, Herman would catch Seattle Mariners games on the radio – and one of the Mariners’ broadcasters was none other than Rick Rizzs. Herman’s writing about hearing Rizzs over the airwaves and imagining he was calling a Clippers game was excellent.

Fans of minor league baseball will enjoy this book as they could relate to many of the stories. Herman has brought one of the best minor league teams back to life in this book and it will take the reader back to that glorious summer in Columbus when the Clippers were the kings of the baseball universe.

I wish to thank University of Nebraska Press for providing a copy of the book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

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[Kyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received an ARC via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

A wonderful reflection of what it means to be a fan and the profound effect a team can have on people. Part memoir, part adulation, and part historical record, this book thoroughly captures the 1981 Columbus Clippers tremendous season and the impact it had on the sport of baseball during a time where baseball needed a distraction the most. You are introduced to the rookies, vets, and rejects that constructed the team and gain a greater appreciation of what it means to be a team. There are crazy superstitions, a 33 inning game, and import baseball influencers inserted throughout the book.

[Tina · Rating 5 out of 5]

This lookback at the minor league Columbus Clippers is part “Bull Durham”, part Ken Burns’ baseball documentary with a little bit of “The Wonder Years” type personal reflection mixed in.
Well-written and very thoroughly researched, this is a great read to get you in the mood for baseball season, while also allowing us Gen Xers (at least that’s what I think I am?) to remember what it’s like to love a local team so much as a child.
Bonus section for any Seattle Mariners fans out there is a short bio of Rick Rizzs baseball broadcasting career!

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to NetGalley for the chance to read this book.

Almost Yankees follows the Columbus Clippers, the AAA team for the New York Yankees during the tumultuous 1981 season. It focuses on the players and coaches during the season as well as their subsequent baseball careers, in addition to exploring the significance of baseball in Columbus, Ohio. The book is generally an enjoyable read, with interesting personal anecdotes about the author's upbringing, childhood, and adult life. Stories about players both famous, infamous and anonymous are discussed. This reviewer is a life-long Yankees fan and found the work to be enjoyable and insightful. The book follows the course of the season but is not constrained by it.
Some mild criticism of the book are include an under-theorizing of why winning (as opposed to development) matter at AAA, and a sporadic use of personal anecdote. The author's struggles with his father, weight, relationships, loneliness, and success are mentioned but not discussed in depth. There are many players mentioned and sometimes it was hard to keep track of all of them.
Overall this book is a welcome edition to any baseball shelf. It is not constrained by the 81 season. More books about minor league baseball should be written.

[Greville Waterman · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a lovely read. Lyrical, nostalgic affectionate and detailed and like the best books about sport it is about more than sport itself. David Herman was schoolboy fan of the 1981 Columbus Clippers, the New York Yankees' Triple A farm team and he recounts the tale of the season when the spotlight fell upon them given that there was a strike which halted the Major League season.

Herman has researched far and wide and spoken to nearly thirty of the team members and he ha provided a beautifully written account of what happened throughout what was a memorable season and also the fate of so many of the players who in many cases were so near - but also so far from making it in The Show and having a Major League career.

I am a sports and baseball junkie and thoroughly enjoyed how Herman also interposed his own life, family and upbringing into the story.

Highly recommended.

[Casey · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is well intentioned, but a serious disappointment in that the author varies between the 1981 Columbus Clippers season and the background on some of the players and his life and wanderings outside of what was supposed to be the subject of the book. That said, it is an interesting read though nowhere as good as it could have been based on Herman's writing style.

I received a free Kindle copy othis book and it was with the understanding that I would post a review on Net Galley, Goodreads, Amazon and my fiction book review blog. I also posted it to my Facebook and Twitter pages.

[Edwin Howard · Rating 3 out of 5]

ALMOST YANKEES, by J. David Herman, tells the forgotten story of the 1981 Columbus Clippers, the AAA minor league affiliate of the New York Yankees. When Major League Baseball went on strike, this ragtag team of up and coming stars and grizzled veterans were thrust into the spotlight. Some of the players continued to mature into major leaguers, while for others, this was their last and maybe only time to shine.
Herman tells the story of the team and all of its players with such passion and vigor. I particularly enjoyed reading about the manager, Frank Verdi, who could probably have a book written just about him and his antics. Many of Herman's stories of the individual players were well-researched and fun to read about and his tales of George Steinbrenner reflected a feeling of awe, coupled with a hearty dose of eye-rolling at some of his ridiculous choices based on personal animosities. Herman does try to tie in national stories in 1981, I think to try and create a fuller feeling of the time, but those interludes in the book just seem clunky and random and took away from my enjoyment of the book. Herman also splices in his personal story at certain parts and while I appreciate how baseball can tying into one's life deeply, I wish there was some sort of indication of this in the title of the book. Generally, the layout of the book felt very clunky and uneven.
Some really fun stories from the 1918 Columbus Clippers that I won't soon forget, ALMOST YANKEES does take me back to a pleasantly different time in baseball that is lost in today's world. Any baseball fan is going to come away from this book with a new appreciation for minor leaguers and some great tales of baseball lore.
Thank you to University of Nebraska Press, J. David Herman, and Netgalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

[Ken Heard · Rating 4 out of 5]

This had the potential to be a fantastic, nostalgic look at minor league baseball akin to Neal Karlen's "Slouching Towards Fargo," which in my opinion is the best book on minor league baseball that there is.

Instead, "Almost Yankees" is a hodgepodge collection of game recaps of the 1981 Columbus Jets, bios on the players, brief anecdotes on players and coaches and really brief glimpses of the author's personal life.

It begin with J. David Herman's proclamation of his love for the Jets and, as an 11-year-old, his mania for the team - especially since the majors went on strike that year. He recalls watching games with his father and those moments are poignant and the basis for the thought that this could become a Field of Dreams Father/Son thing. Instead, those personal tales are short and far between. Herman later mentions seeing an eye-catching woman who is in management with one of the minor league teams who, coincidently, appears in "Slouching Towards Fargo." But that tale goes nowhere and later he only mentions finding love in Seattle in a graph or two.

Herman also talks of going to baseball after a heart-wrenching breakup but, again, not much mention at all about it.

This could have been a poignant autobiography of how the author used baseball to get through tough times.

Some of the stories also hop-scotch around. You have players in the minors suddenly appear in anecdotes about their major league time and then back to the minors . It's a tad confusing.

However, this is not a slight at all on Herman's writing. The book is well-written and researched excellently and as I was reading it, I found I was hoping it wouldn't end. It was that good. Had he thrown in more personal stuff it would have been a classic read.

[patrick Lorelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

1981 the year of the baseball strike was also the year for the Yankees Trillpe A affiliate Colombus Clippers to win their championship. For some of these players that would be it there would be no more baseball, or baseball in the Yankee organization. Most would have never heard of it. Some like Dave Righetti would pitch a no-hitter for the Yankees against the Red Sox on a 4th of July game in 1983 he would be with the Yankees but later win three World Series as pitching coach for the Giants. Buck Showalter was another member of the team but is now known for being a manager for different clubs including the Yankees. Unless you are a Yankee fan most never heard the name Steve Balboni who was to take over first base but never had a chance in New York. I remembered him more for striking out but he did win a championship with the 85 Royals and hit well and had good glove work as well. That was the big guy from the book but for me, I was happy to read this book and all of the different stories.

[Don Gorman · Rating 1 out of 5]

(1 1/2). To get through this book, you have to be a beyond belief sports and baseball junkie, or have a vested interest in it, as I do. I live in Columbus, Ohio, and this is about players from our minor league team, The Columbus Clippers. There are a few interesting side stories on the non-stars and how they did not make it, but there is more boring information and wild diversions into side stories that just don't correlate in any way shape or form. Plus, play by play of minor league games from almost 40 years ago does not cut it either. Then, at the very end, there is a typo or just bad proofreading factoid error that is so outrageous it made me doubt even more of the book. Too bad.

[Robert Kendall · Rating 4 out of 5]

This entertaining and highly readable book details the 1981 championship season of the International League Columbus Clippers. While major league teams were on strike during a significant part of the season. the Clippers received national attention. This is a bittersweet story. As a Yankees farm team, the Clippers had very good players, but so did the parent club. Many of the players depicted here were frustrated in their efforts to achieve success at the major league level. Any baseball fan will love this book.

[Brian Kolda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dave did such a good job, bringing back memories and providing entertaining stories of minor league baseball. Thoroughly enjoyed it!

[Brian Depaola · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ah, life in the minors!!

[Patricia E. · Rating 3 out of 5]

For diehard baseball fans only. I enjoyed the personal stories, but there was too much play-by-play.

[Wayne · Rating 4 out of 5]

good book for Columbus baseball fans

[matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I should probably preface this review by stating that I am not a baseball fan. The closest I’ve come to a game is reading Chad Harbach’s The Art of Fielding. However, there’s something about baseball that’s just so inviting, and it’s books like this that make me consider devoting my time to it.

I went into this novel expecting to appreciate J. David Herman’s lifelong love of baseball and his enthusiasm for the minor league, and it delivered. If you’re seeking a hard-hitting baseball novel, this isn’t it Herman winds his own memoir into the text and it is his love for both the game and the Columbus Clippers that made it so interesting. Many of the names initially meant nothing to me; the only name I knew was Babe Ruth and I thought he played in the 60s, but he was long dead by that point. Now having finished the novel I have some fond favourites and I feel almost as if I had grown up with them too. Rizzuto’s use of ‘ww’ for ‘wasn’t watching’ just about sums up my life.

Herman’s style bridges the gap between fiction and non-fiction. From the offset, the narrative tone is for me set as a smooth Midwestern voice. The prose is simple but effective. Although, at times I wished there had been more attention paid to the structuring of sentences and the general flow. There were a few moments where I thought I’d missed something, but after going back, I’d realise that the paragraph just didn’t make sense.

It was helpful that photos of those mentioned in the text were included, although I would have preferred a player index with them all collated and a small bio for each player as they sometimes intruded on the narrative.

For anyone interested in reading this, but like me lacks the baseball expertise, I found rookie road to be pretty helpful.

*I received a free copy of this via NetGalley for review*