Call the Yankees My Daddy: Reflections on Baseball, Race, and Family [Paperback]

Cecil Harris (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

In Call The Yankees My Daddy, sportswriter Cecil Harris reminisces on his years spent covering baseball’s most storied team. In his position as the first full-time black beat reporter to cover the New York Yankees, Cecil Harris had an up-close perspective of the team that he’d followed as a fan ever since the 1960s. Raised in a family that rooted against both the Yankees and Red Sox because of both teams’ seeming reluctance to accept integration, Harris nevertheless carried a passion for pinstripes into his professional life. Here, we get priceless insight into the Yankees’ ascendancy in the late 1990s—as well as their struggles to stave off a crumbling dynasty in the twenty-first century. Along the way, we meet Joe Torre, Don Zimmer, Derek Jeter, Hall of Fame legend Joe DiMaggio, and many other top baseball personalities. Harris also offers keen insight into the role of race within baseball and the media, even showing how some American League stars sought to exploit Harris’s race for their own benefit. Call The Yankees My Daddy is an entertaining and highly readable narrative that takes us both onto the field and into the dugout and locker room with baseball’s biggest names, and in its biggest games.

About the Author

Cecil Harris has covered sports for numerous publications, including Newsday, the New York Post, Sporting News, and USA Today.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: The Lyons Press (March 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1592289398
• ISBN-13: 978-1592289394
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,408,476 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars An unique perspective on family & the New York Yankees, October 10, 2008

By 

Cecil Harris "Author, Call the Yankees My Daddy" (Yonkers, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Call the Yankees My Daddy: Reflections on Baseball, Race, and Family (Paperback)

A New York Yankees fan since the age of five, Cecil Harris became the first African-American to cover the Yankees as a full-time newspaper beat writer in the 1990s. But far from becoming a Yankees cheerleader, he incurred the wrath of some Yankees officials, including tempestuous owner George Steinbrenner himself, because of his clear-eyed, objective and award-winning reporting on the team. Hariis recounts those stories in Call the Yankees My Daddy. Despite his constant battles for respect, Harris was thrilled to witness the building of what became Major League Baseball's last dynasty -- the Yankees won four World Series from 1996-2000. Although Harris's father was a National League fan who resented the Yankees for being among the last clubs to integrate (not until 1955, eight years after Jackie Robinson's debut), he encouraged his son's love of baseball and language, and intellectual curiosity, while tolerating his son's team of choice. Baseball provides a strong link between parents and children, particularly fathers and sons, and Harris pays homage to that tradition in Call the Yankees My Daddy. And he concludes the book with a cogent analysis of how the Yankees' organizational instability has led to the club's decline in this decade.

5.0 out of 5 stars Rich journalistic account from a gentleman who loves the Yankees!, July 9, 2006

By 

Frank S. (NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Call the Yankees My Daddy: Reflections on Baseball, Race, and Family (Paperback)

Cecil Harris is a beat writer for a Westchester County NY paper who recollects about his journalistic days covering the Yankees in the mid 90s, including the '96 season, as well as his past in living in a household filled with Met and Brooklyn Dodger fans. He describes about the time he became interested in the Yankees and shares his beliefs as to who are the 'true' Yankees today and in the past, as well as his favorite of all-time: Horace Clarke, a second baseman from the 60s-70s. Harris also offers a clear picture of how race plays a role in the game even today and what effect players have used the race card in interviews with Harris. Overall, I could not put this book down and I recommend it to anyone whose a true baseball fan, not even a Yankee fan per-say (but it does help if you are a Yankee fan!) Not only is the book a fun read, but your emotions will get the best of you when he recalls his immediate family and the memories he has of them through the sport of baseball. An excellent book overall - thanks Cecil Harris for your thoughts and wisdom.