Bombers: An Oral History of the New York Yankees [Paperback]

Richard Lally (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 25, 2003

With thirty-eight pennants and twenty-six World Series victories, the Yankees aren’t just the most successful baseball team of all time, they’re the most successful franchise in the history of sports. In Bombers, you’ll find stories about all the Yankees legends, including DiMaggio, Mantle, Maris, Martin, Jeter, and Williams. Yankees fans will love Bombers, but this is a book for all baseball fans, one that illuminates baseball history the way it happened on the field, in the stands, and in the hearts of players and fans.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

How does one capture a ballclub's history when the team rewrites it each year? Lally, who coauthored The Wrong Stuff with former pitcher Bill "Spaceman" Lee, has interviewed more than 100 baseball figures past and present, famous and obscure. Inevitably, his timeline ends following the Subway Series in 2000, meaning any subsequent Yankee history their 2001 Series loss, the signing of Jason Giambi is not covered. But the book is no less exhaustive a collection of Yankee minutiae; most engrossing is the debate surrounding Babe Ruth's famous finger-pointing preceding a home run, a lively discussion on the significance of Joe DiMaggio's hitting streak and the feud between Billy Martin and Reggie Jackson; however, testimony of 1939 Yankee Joe Gordon's slick glove is less riveting. Lally does a capable job of letting the players tell the story, but at times, the flashy phrasing and offbeat cultural references that pepper his narrative yank the reader out of the front row. Stating that a squad committed errors as often as Dorothy Parker flubbed bons mots or calling a pair of smooth infielders "twin Nijinskys" just won't resonate with bleacher bums. But Mickey Mantle's memory of Casey Stengel calling DiMaggio "The Big Dago" and the detailed dissection of the Subway Series the games within the games, including several takes on the epic Roger Clemens-Mike Piazza bat-throwing showdown will bring fans back in the game.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Sprinkled with insightful analyses, Bombers offers a fascinating look at the New York Yankees, from their preeminence to their downfall to their regeneration. This volume, which ranges from Babe Ruth's 1920 arrival in New York to the 2000 World Series championship squad, contains anecdotes from both members of the Yankee franchise and some of its most diehard opponents. Even the more familiar stories are told with a different twist. Reading other players' depiction of Mickey Mantle as "the toughest" and most courageous competitor they ever witnessed is a sheer delight. Less happy, but equally revelatory, are stories of the refusal of the mid-1950s Yankees to afford the fine Puerto Rican first baseman Vic Powers a shot at making the team. For general libraries.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Three Rivers Press (March 25, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400046777
• ISBN-13: 978-1400046775
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,738,906 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Hot Stove League reading for any baseball fan, September 8, 2002

By 

Lawrance M. Bernabo (The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Bombers: An Oral History of the New York Yankees (Hardcover)

"Bombers: An Oral History of the New York Yankees" does not cover the entire history of baseball's most storied franchise. Richard Lally is limited to living voices, which is why this book begins with Babe Ruth's "Called Shot" in the 1932 World Series. It ends with a look at the 2000 Subway Series between the Yankees and the Mets, but there is a giant gap between that section and the previous way, which is about the Kansas City Royals winning the 1980 League Championship Series. "Bombers" features oral testimony from more than a hundred people, most of them Yankee players, but some of the better ones come from some of their opponents. Whether you have heard of some of these great moments in Yankee history or not, you will enjoy the insights these players bring.

However, be forewarned that periodically Lally sets up these oral histories with introductions in which he writes with exaggerated rhetorical flourishes. For one excessive example, Lally writes about the 1939 Cincinnati Reds "they made mental errors about as often as Dorothy Parker flubbed bon mots." Rule #1 for the editor of an oral history should be not to get in the way of the people doing the actual talking about history. I would rather hear what Lonny Frey (major-league infielder, 1933-48; second baseman, 1939 Cincinnati Reds) has to say about being swept by the Yankees in the World Series a lot more than anything Frey has to say beyond setting up the historical context. But Lally is so determined to wax poetic that it becomes quite oppressive at times.

But despite his sporadic linguistic excesses, Lally does have his moments, the best of which is "Blackballed," a concise indictment of the refusal of Yankee management to bring black baseball players to the club, ignoring Ernie Banks, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron and others to sign Artie Wilson, Luis Marquez, and Frank Austin (i.e., ignore future Hall of Famers to go after lesser talent that would not last longer than a season in the minor leagues but give the team window-dressing regarding possible integration). This is one of Lally's longest pieces and it introduces one of the longest testimonies, from Vic Power. Reading about what the Yankee management did just infuriated me and just proved once again that racism makes people stupid. Lally also does a nice job of editing some of the oral histories together to create a seamless narrative, like the beginning of Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak.

This book will appeal to baseball fans, not just Yankee fans. In fact, the character who most caught my interest was Elden Auker, a submarine pitcher who was told by both Ruth and DiMaggio that they could not really pick up his pitches. Auker's recollections are sprinkled throughout the first part of the book and, as he points out himself, he came close to being the man who ended the two most famous streaks in baseball history: Gehrig's consecutive games played and DiMaggio's consecutive games with a hit. Ultimately, the point is that listening to what baseball players have to say about playing the game is worthwhile, even if the team they played for was the St. Louis Browns. There is something bascially compelling about these first person accounts. Hopefully fans of other teams will put together similar volumes for us to enjoy as well.

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars nostalgic for me; a Yankee fan since 1953, February 2, 2008

By 

Michael R. Chernick "statman31147" (Holland PA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bombers: An Oral History of the New York Yankees (Hardcover)

As a big Yankee fan growing up in the 1950s and 1960s this is certainly material that interests me and brings back many memories. Lally does some narration to set up the interviews. But the inside stuff is the interviews with players and managers involved in the games. He goes all the way back to Babe Ruth's called home run in the 1932 World Series and covers a lot of controversial plays and events including the Phil Linz harmonica incident in 1964 (mostly a media build-up. But was it a turning point for the Yankees?
It was interesting to learn how the Giants stole signs in 1951 to make their comeback against the Dodgers but refused to use this proven system in the World Series against the Yankees because Durocher was afraid of being caught.

On the other hand Lally relates how the 1961 Reds stole the Yankee signs in the Series. But that did them no good at all!

I remember how nervous I was when Terry was pitching to McCovey with the tieing run at third and the winning run at second in the 1962 series. I was watching the game with my parents but couldn't stand it when the Giants appeared capable of pulling out a dramatic victory in the ninth inning of the seventh game. So I ran to my room to watch by myself with the sound off. Before I could be alarmed by the line shot he hit, I could see Richardson holding on to the ball.

It was a great surprise to me to hear that Clete Boyer was so scared of what might happen if the ball were hit to him that he was glad when they decided to pitch to McCovey. This meant that the ball would not likely be hit to him! If they walk McCovey to pitch to Cepeda the pressure would definitely be on the third baseman. This revelation was amazing comong from one of the all-time great fielding third basemen.

This is the flavor of the book which follows the history of the Yankees in roughly chronological order. Lally reused some interviews he had gotten from an earlier book with some revision by discussants such as Jim Bouton.

I give it 4 stars because I was a little disappointed with the coverage of the 1996-2001 Yankees. With five World Series to cover, Lally chose a long discussion of the 2000 Subway Series between the Yankees and Mets and said nothing about the 1996, 1998, 1999 or 2001 series. I can understand neglecting the unexciting 1998 sweep of San Diego but the others had their dramatic moments especially Torre's first win in 1996. There was no more drama than the 2001 series with two dramatic Yankee wins and that horrifying ninth inning loss in game seven.

Since I wrote this the Yanks missed the World Series in 2002 and lost to the Marlins in 2003 and then that unthinkable loss of 4 straight to the Red Sox in the 2004 championship series after winning the first three. With playoff losses in 2005, 2006 and 2007 Torre has elected to go to the Dodgers and Joe Girardi will take the helm in New York. Steinbrenner gave the free agents what they wanted and so Posada, Rivera and Rodriguez are still Yankees with the hope of a 2008 World Championship that would finally be their 27th and last in the original Yankee Stadium.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Baseball Book That Reads Like a Great Novel, April 18, 2002

By 

Bruce Byerling (New Hampshire) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bombers: An Oral History of the New York Yankees (Hardcover)

This is something new, something different, something I've never seen in a baseball book. The prose in Bombers is accessible, but nearly poetic with the most memorable phrasing I've encountered in years. Lally's description of Sandy Koufax's fastball ('a living, punishing thing, it screamed at hitters as it flashed towards home plate to disarm and disrupt. Dismantle.) is worthy of Evelyn Waugh.

Much of the book reads like a Jack Kerouac remembrance (not surprising since Kerouac was an avid baseball fan), witty, offbeat, but never obscure. Lally nails his subject time and time again, yet he always knows when to back off and let the players tell their story.

And what a story it is. Who would have thought that any book could contain so much information on such a well-covered team, but every page of Bombers contains some gem of a fact I didn't know such as the Reds' illicit sign-stealing escapades during the 1961 World Series, or the unique way Roger Clemens stokes his emotions for each start.

Lally saves the best for last, making the Subway Series come alive with word pictures any reader-not just baseball fans-can savor. He describes NY Mets reliever Armando Benitez thusly: "...all 6'4, 250 pounds of him, roamed onto the field resembling a character out of celluloid, the reliever as Godzilla...When things go against him, Benitez often steps from the mound, puts his hands on his hips, and tilts his nose skyward. It is the pose of a potentate raising his nostrils above a noxious aroma..." That's beautiful writing and Bombers is filled with it. Mr. Lally is onto something here, a new form of baseball literature for a new millenium. And it rocks. Mark my words, this book and its author are going to be the Next Big Things.