The Subway Series Reader: Mets - Yankees 2000

by Pete Hamill (Editor)

A Tale of One City It was the best of times, it was the best of times; it was a season of pinstripes, it was a season of amazin'; it was the autumn of Sinatra, it was the autumn of Baha Men; it was a time of the 7 train, it was a time of the 4 and the D. In short, the period was so like other glorious times that it inspired chanting in the streets, division in the taverns, and a giddy nostalgia in the hearts of all who watched and cheered. The 2000 World Series pitted the New York Yankees and their winning tradition against the New York Mets and their history of miracles. These two outstanding teams breathed new life into the words that characterized the city's halcyon hardball subway series. Older generations followed the action with one eye on the games of today while the other viewed black-and-white film of the Derek Jeter strokes a home run, and Hank Bauer rounds the bases; Al Leiter rocks back, and Johnny Podres delivers the pitch. New generations experienced thrills they'll tell their own grandchildren one "Yes, I saw Mariano Rivera pitch...." "I was sitting right there when Todd Zeile's drive hit the top of the wall...." To celebrate the return of New York to the center of the baseball universe, Pete Hamill, legendary columnist, editor, and author of Snow in August and A Drinking A Memoir, has assembled an all-star team of writers to create the ultimate thinking fan's keepsake of the subway series. The Subway Series Reader spans the generations of baseball in New York, from Lawrence Ritter's recollection of attending his first World Series game in the subway series of 1936 to Peter Knobler's reflection on bringing his son to the Series in 2000. With contributors running the gamut from Frank McCourt to Yogi Berra, The Subway Series Reader contains all of the best of what made the millennium World Series one for the ages. When it comes to World Series teams and the city that loves them, The Subway Series Reader -- thoughtful, nostalgic, graceful, charming, exciting, and up-to-the-minute -- is the one book to have when you're having more than one.

Genres: Sports, New York, Baseball

192 pages, Hardcover

First published December 10, 2000

About the author

Pete Hamill was a novelist, essayist and journalist whose career has endured for more than forty years. He was born in Brooklyn, N. Y. in 1935, the oldest of seven children of immigrants from Belfast, Northern Ireland. He attended Catholic schools as a child. He left school at 16 to work in the Brooklyn Navy Yard as a sheetmetal worker, and then went on to the United States Navy. While serving in the Navy, he completed his high school education. Then, using the educational benefits of the G.I. Bill of Rights, he attended Mexico City College in 1956-1957, studying painting and writing, and later went to Pratt Institute. For several years, he worked as a graphic designer. Then in 1960, he went to work as a reporter for the New York Post. A long career in journalism followed. He has been a columnist for the New York Post, the New York Daily News, and New York Newsday, the Village Voice, New York magazine and Esquire. He has served as editor-in-chief of both the Post and the Daily News. As a journalist, he covered wars in Vietnam, Nicaragua, Lebanon and Northern Ireland, and has lived for extended periods in Mexico City, Dublin, Barcelona, San Juan and Rome. From his base in New York he also covered murders, fires, World Series, championship fights and the great domestic disturbances of the 1960s, and wrote extensively on art, jazz, immigration and politics. He witnessed the events of September 11, 2001 and its aftermath and wrote about them for the Daily News.

At the same time, Hamill wrote much fiction, including movie and TV scripts. He published nine novels and two collections of short stories. His 1997 novel, Snow in August, was on the New York Times bestseller list for four months. His memoir, A Drinking Life, was on the same New York Times list for 13 weeks. He has published two collections of his journalism (Irrational Ravings and Piecework), an extended essay on journalism called News Is a Verb, a book about the relationship of tools to art, a biographical essay called Why Sinatra Matters, dealing with the music of the late singer and the social forces that made his work unique. In 1999, Harry N. Abrams published his acclaimed book on the Mexican painter Diego Rivera. His novel, Forever, was published by Little, Brown in January 2003 and became a New York Times bestseller. His most recently published novel was North River (2007).

In 2004, he published Downtown: My Manhattan, a non-fiction account of his love affair with New York, and received much critical acclaim. Hamill was the father of two daughters, and has a grandson. He was married to the Japanese journalist, Fukiko Aoki, and they divided their time between New York City and Cuernavaca, Mexico. He was a Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University.

Author photo by David Shankbone (September 2007) - permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation.

Reviews

[Tom Gase · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good, very quick read. It's a small size book and only 180 pages (which, like I said are small pages). This book actually looks like a little pamphlet. Anyway, it's about the 2000 World Series, which featured the New York Yankees and New York Mets, the first NY subway series since 1956. The book has about 30 writers in it, with Pete Hamill doing the opening. Each writer then writes about 5 pages talking either about the 2000 World Series, or subway series of the past in the 1940s or 50s. My favorite short stories are the ones where an author talks about his first time his Dad took him to Ebbets Field, Yankee Stadium or the Polo Grounds. If you like baseball in the 1950s, you'll love this. Same if you enjoyed the 2000 World Series. If not, probably skip. The only reason I didn't give it a five was it was too short, I finished in a day and a half.

[Gretchen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this book up long ago at a sale at the library of congress. I think it was 2003 or 2004, and devoured it on the commute home. What I didn't realize until today though was that the author was the same as the man that wrote Forever the lovely novel of New York that I read this Spring. I found this knowledge so intriguing.

[Glenn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like baseball? Like the Mets/Yankees? Like nostalgia? Good one for you then. You know what you're getting into with this one and it doesn't disappoint.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mets/Yankees 2000