Customer Reviews

All Roads Lead to October: Boss Steinbrenner's 25-Year Reign over the New York Yankees

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1 star:		(7)

 

 

This book is a perfect example of the importance of truth in advertising. If Maury Allen wanted to write a book that provided an overview of his prolific sports writing career I'm sure that there would have been many interested readers. However, he has chosen to write that book and disguise it as a book about the Yankees. Sure, the focus of the book for the most part is on the Yankees, but Allen presents little that the average Yankee fan has not already seen. He also interrupts the narration on the Yankees with stories from his personal experiences that have nothing to do with the Yankees. There are no insights here for Yankee fans, which would be fine if he didn't promise a book about George Steinbrenner's years of ownership with the Yankees. Don't waste your time with this book.

Rabid Yankee fan that I am, I bought this book expecting a fascinating overview of the Steinbrenner era with some new insights and perspectives. I got neither.

Maury Allen was without question a talented sportswriter in his prime, but this ranks as the worst written sports history book I have ever read. It soon becomes clear that Allen's book isn't the product of extensive research but merely personal reminiscences and meanderings that offer very little sense of depth or substance about this period at all. Allen's most gripping chapter is his first one concerning his eyewitness perspective on the Fritz Peterson-Mike Kekich "wife swap". After that, it's all downhill with skimpy warmed over rehashings of things I've read about in so many better written books.

Along the way, when Allen skimps over the seasons and games of the period he's supposedly writing about he wanders off into annoying digressions about players of the 50s Brooklyn Dodgers, or the early 60s Mets, or Richie Ashburn, or being rude to Richard Nixon in 1969, none of which has anything to do with the Steinbrenner era. And on top of that, he gets so many basic facts wrong that after awhile it really gets annoying. There's trouble in the opening when he has the Mets beating Houston instead of Arizona in last year's postseason! On another occasion he describes Dave Righetti's 1983 no-hitter as the first at Yankee Stadium since 1951 (uh Maury, what about Don Larsen?) Don Mattingly is described as the first Yankee captain since Thurman Munson (Graig Nettles, Willie Randolph and Ron Guidry held the position after Munson and before Mattingly). Tony Horton is described as playing for Boston and being victimized by Steve Hamilton's "Folly Floater" in Fenway Park (Horton played for Cleveland and the incident happened at Yankee Stadium). Don Mattingly's eight game HR streak is described as happening at a time when the Yankees were "going nowhere" in 1987 (They were in first place at the time).

This book is for completists only. As a comprehensive overview of the Steinbrenner era it is neither comprehensive, nor is it much of an overview.

I was quite excited when I first saw this book, being a twentysomething die hard Yankee fan. I enjoyed Maury Allen's work for the New York Post for some time. Now that I've read it, I must say I'm terribly disappointed.

If you are looking for an objective view of George Steinbrenner, don't bother picking this book up. The Boss is clearly a complicated man, generous one moment and cruel the next, but not in Allen's view. He only casually mentions Steinbrenner's Hyde-like moments, then spends pages gushing about George's generous deeds. Yogi Berra's anger toward the Boss and self-imposed exile from Yankee Stadium is left out almost entirely.

Allen can also be quite sloppy at times. Chances are most people reading the book know that the "Curse of the Bambino" was born when Babe Ruth was traded to the Red Sox. Even so, bringing up the phrase once or twice is justifiable; to retell the story every time the Red Sox are in a pennant race, every time the Yanks sign a free agent from Boston, etc. gets to be tedious. Yet, that anecdote and others, are repeated and repeated.

Plus Allen glosses over that long, rough Yankee stretch between playoff appearances and completely ignores the terrible trades where that Yanks gave up future all-stars like Willie McGee for mediocre players like Bob Sykes. When Allen closes with the notion that the Boss is worthy of consideration for the Baseball Hall of Fame, I shivered and wondered where such an idea could have come from.

Maury Allen's book mentions, numerous times, that Thurman Munson was not a nice man. He was rude to fans, waitresses, and Heaven Forbid-sportswriters. Allen happily mentions that he has never wasted one vote on Munson in Hall of Fame votes. In fact, not voting for him appears to be revenge for Munson not giving quotes and quips for Allen's stories in the New York Post. This is precisely the reason sportswriters should not vote for Hall of Fame inductions; as Allen states, the writers vote on what they thought of the ballplayer as a "man", not as a clutch ballplayer, who always came through when his team really needed him to. And we all know, if you don't show respect to sportswriters, you don't deserve to be in the Hall of Fame. Sportswriters believe, that since they know how to put two sentences together, they are more important than the players they write about. Gotcha, Maury. And go to Hell.

Maury Allen's first-hand "account" of George Steinbrenner's 25 year reign over the Yankees completely lacks insight and anything remotely interesting on the Yankee dynasty. Reading this book will leave even the casual fan feeling empty. Not only does Allen's book lack insight, it is loaded with inaccuracies and flat out mistakes. For example, did you know that "Bobby Thomas hit the shot heard round the world?"

Allen's book completely misses the mark and often overlooks critical periods in Yankee history. Jim Leyritz's homerun in 1996 does not even warrant a remark by Allen, nor does Joe Torre's infamous story about sweeping the Braves in Atlanta in 1996. The current streak of three out of four world series championships is barely mentioned or quickly covered. Allen seems to have comprised content and substance in an effort to not upset anyone mentioned in the book. Unfortunately, he fails to portray Yankee life during the 25 year circus at the hands of the Boss. A swing and a miss!

I bought this book thinking it was about George Steinbrenner...but The Boss turns out to be nothing more than a supporting character in his own story. There's next to nothing about him.

The book is also confusing and reads more like the author's memoirs. He'll start telling a story, then go off on a tangent into the past (which can last anywhere from two sentences to two pages) and then suddenly he's back at the original thought. It was nearly impossible to follow.

I'm a huge Yankee fan and have read lots of books on the team...there are better ones out there. This definitely isn't one of them.

As a Yankee fan who's followed the team during the Steinbrenner era, this book appealed to me as soon as I heard about it. I looked forward to reading behind-the-scenes anecdotes about my favorite players. Unfortunately, this book was so sloppily put together that it was impossible to fully enjoy the stories and experiences that Maury Allen shares.

The biggest problem with this book is that it wasn't carefully edited. The writing is wordy, and the book seems to have been pulled together from various sources without any attention given to transition or flow. The author has a habit of going off on tangents and repeating information; sometimes these repeated passages are located within pages of each other.

I found the content to be strongest when it focused on the Yankee teams of the mid-to-late 1970s, especially the championship teams of 1977 and 1978. Anecdotes about Billy Martin, Reggie Jackson, and Thurmon Munson, among others, offer some insight into the atmosphere that surrounded the Yankees during that period. The end of the book seems rushed, however, and less attention was played to the team's more recent history. The book also fails to deliver on its promise of providing a "definitive look" at George Steinbrenner-very little new ground is covered in describing Steinbrenner's personality.

Surely a good editor could have helped the author tighten up his writing and expand the weaker sections. Instead, the reader who actually paid for this book is left feeling cheated. We expect more from a major publisher and a sportswriter who has so many years of experience. Too many corners were cut in producing this book, and although I had some fun reading it, I wouldn't recommend it to even the most avid Yankee fan.

For someone looking to learn more about the tumultuous past of sports greatest franchise, I would barely recommend this book. However, for those looking to gain true knowledge about the Yankees or any true insight as to their prolific owner, I would have to say stay away. Unsure of whether to blame the problems of this book on Allen or poor editing, it is any which way a poor read. Allen tells and re-tells the same anecdotes. He introduces phrases and stories as though for the first time, even though they have appeared three times already in the past hundred or so pages. One example is a statement by former Jets owner, Sonny Werblin (who had stolen it from Joe Lewis): "I've been rich and I've been poor...Rich is better." In addition to this, Allen begins to chronicle a doomed or spectacular season only to remiss into an anecdote about one of the player's wives or a house party he once had. These tangents are usually unforgiveable as they horribly interrupt the book's flow. His biases get in the way, particularly as he describes the troubles between Reggie Jackson, Billy Martin, and Thurman Munson. Interestingly, nowhere in this section does the Boss appear. In a book supposedly about Steinbrenner's reign, the man is barely mentioned as anything but a mere catalyst. In terms of pure writing and editing, this book is poorer than poor. The anecdotes seem farily rich, but are told once too often. The sheer redundancy of the book (as well as this review) dooms it from the beginning. Allen has written many books about the Yankees. I have not read any of them. However, if any of them are like this, one has to wonder who has granted this man's career as a writer its longevity. Then again, he did work for the Post.

I enjoy reading baseball books that contain stories and anecdotes that don't usually appear in the papers. Allen has amassed a wealth of these stories, and as a baseball fan who is not privy to the "inside story," I found the book extremely interesting and fascinating. Allen rambles through Steinbrenner's 25 years as owner of the Yankees, and, in the process, he relates many wonderful stories about baseball and the people in it. Some of his tales aren't complimentary, but he's never nasty or spiteful, and I find that refreshing. I recommend the book to anyone who likes baseball and likes to read the stuff that isn't covered by the print and broadcast media. The book was written as an anecdotal anthology, and it succeeds.

I was hoping to learn some interesting things from the Steinbrenner era being a huge Yankees fan. I figured, hey it's only $6.95 can't go wrong right? Wrong. Allen adds very little new information about the Yankees. The fact that he despises Thurman Munson because *gasp* Thurman never gave him any good quotes is ridiculous. He takes great glee in his petty revenge of refusing to vote for him on Hall of Fame ballots. I lost interest in this book right about there. As previously mentioned, the only real interesting chapter is on the Peterson-Kekich wife swap. Allen is a very vindictive man and I lost all respect for his opinion following this book. Not worth a read.