Yankees by the Numbers: A Complete Team History of the Bronx Bombers by Uniform Number

by Bill Gutman

What do Mark Koenig, Red Rolfe, Frank Crosetti, Sandy Alomar, Bobby Murcer, Wayne Tolleson, and Derek Jeter all have in common? They all wore #2 for the New York Yankees, even though nearly eight decades have passed between the first time Koenig buttoned up a Yankee uniform with that number and the last time Jeter performed the same routine.

Since 1929, the Yankees have issued 73 different numbers to more than 1,500 players. That’s a lot of overlap. That also makes for a lot of good stories. Yankees by the Numbers tells those stories for every Yankee since ’29—from Earle Combs (the original #1) to Charlie Keller (the only Yankee to ever wear #99)—providing insightful and humorous commentary about the more memorable players, from a fan’s perspective. Complete with more than 100 baseball cards (courtesy of the Topps Company), each chapter also features a fascinating sidebar that reveals which players were the most obscure to wear a certain number, and also which numbers produced the most wins, home runs and stolen bases in club history. For data seekers, the Yankees Alphabetical Roster is a complete listing of every single Yankee since 1929, the numbers they wore, and their years of service at the House that Ruth Built.

Genres: Sports, Baseball

432 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

Bill Gutman is the author of more than two hundred books for both children and adults in a writing career that has spanned some five decades. His first book was an adult-level biography of former basketball star Pistol Pete Maravich, and since then he has written children's and young adult biographies and profiles of many prominent sports stars such as Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Shaquille O'Neal, Ken Griffey, Jr., Bo Jackson, Brett Favre and many others.

Some of his adult books include a biography of former football coach Bill Parcells, Parcells: A Biograpy; When the Cheering Stops, interviews with some 25 former baseball players from the 1940s through the 1960s on life after baseball; Won For All: The Inside Story of the New England Patriots' Improbable Run to the Super Bowl, written with former linebacker and then Patriots assistant coach Pepper Johnson; Twice Around the Bases, written with former big league manager Kevin Kennedy; The Giants Win the Pennant! The Giants Win the Pennant! which was the story of the 1951 pennant race between the New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers, written with home run hero Bobby Thomson; Miracle Year, Amazing Mets, Super Jets, the story of both New York teams winning championship in 1969; Being Extreme, interviews with 22 of the most daring, high risk athletes in the world of mountain climbing, BASE jumping, ski diving, big wave surfing rock climbing, extreme skiing and snowboarding. Of more recent vintage is What if the Babe Had Kept His Red Sox: And Other Fascinating Alternate Histories from the World of Sports, a book of What Ifs. His most recent sports book is a young adult biography of Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge called All Rise: The Aaron Judge Story.

Bill's current passion is The Mike Fargo Mysteries, a series of novels and novellas about a tough detective working in the New York City of the 1920. The novel, Murder on Murderer's Row is available as both an ebook and in paperback on Amazon, an ebook on other venues. The novellas, Death of a Flapper, Murder on Broadway, Seven Days to Murder and The Grab-A-Cab Murder are currently available as ebooks. A sixth book, Roaring Twenties Cop, Mike Fargo's Own Story is told in Fargo's words and serves to bring the lead character of the series to life, as he talks about his childhood on Staten Island, the reason he became a cop, the New York City of the 1920s and some of his cases. The book serves as an introduction to the series and is available for free on the Amazon, Barnes and Noble, iBooks, Kobo and Smashwords websites.

And hopefully there is much more to come.

Reviews

[Jill H. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't even like the Yankees but being a baseball fan I thought I would give this one a try. And it wasn't bad at all. The premise of the book is to cover every uniform number assigned to players from the beginning of Yankee baseball and provide a little information about each player. Obviously, some of the numbers have been retired and rightfully so...Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Mickie Mantle, Joe DiMaggio. etc. But those that have not been worn by stars who are Hall of Famers, get a short and interesting write-up even though they are veritable unknowns today.....Sam McDowell, a terrific pitcher who ruined his promising career by hitting the bottle one time too many....Travis Hafter, designated hitter, who was constantly plagued by injuries which ended his career......and the list goes on.

This is an interesting reference book for the baseball fan....otherwise, you will probably want to pass.

[Mike Glaser · Rating 3 out of 5]

A solid history of the New York Yankees based on the numbers they wore when they played for the team. And the author covers everyone who played even if it was for only one game. If you are a baseball fan, you will enjoy this book.

[DJ · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Nice review of the Yankee greats