Customer Reviews

Chasing the Dream: My Lifelong Journey to the World Series

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is one of the best books I have ever read. Joe Torre, through his life's journey, is in my eyes the King of the Hill. All the things he went through in life that he conquered make him the man he is today, and what a gift the Yankees got!

For everyone who said 'Joe who?' when George hired him as manager, I hope you read this book and find out the man behind #6!

Chasing the Dream is the best book I've ever read. It let's people know that goal reaching is possible, if you work for it. I now know that I can't procrastinate practice. If I want to achieve my dream I must work for it. Most people believe that goal reaching is impossible, but since I've read this book, my dream is coming closer, and closer to being achived. I defiantly would like to thank Joe Torre and Tom Verducci for making my dream possible and encouraging me to get on the right track. Thanks a million and one. Hopefully you'll see me in the 2008 Olympics for softball (i'll be the one pitching in the final games for the USA team) :)

Chronicles Joe Torre's life from childhood growing up in Brooklyn to his Championship Season with the Bronx Bombers. Insightful and honest look into Torre's personal life and all his days spent on the field and in the dugout.

Joe Torre does an outstanding job of re-creating the 1996 World Series in stunning and emotional detail. He proves that baseball managers are as much team psychologists as they are the men who make decisions on the field. Clearly for Yankee fans, this book will nevertheless appeal to all baseball fans and readers.

This is a good book about an exemplary player, manager and overall good person from the game of baseball. The book puts forth his philosophy of working hard to achieve your goals. I was impressed even more than I already was with Joe Torre after reading this. How he got to manage the Yankees and to successfully perform with quiet restraint and insightful reason once he made it that prestigious position makes for very fine and captivating reading.

Great guy, great story. Read this book and see how it came about that Joe Torre is one of the classiest things that has happened to Major League Baseball-

As an avid Yankee fan, I was looking forward to reading this book, and I was not disappointed. With the help of Tom Verducci, the book was put together very well and kept me interested the entire time.

Many people see Joe Torre as only a great manager, however, he was a very good ball player as well. As you read the book and learn about his experiences while growing up in the Major Leagues you learn why he does certain things as a manager, which I found to be possibly the most interesting part of the book. It was great the way he explained how he dealt with certain situations, based on his past experiences. It was interesting to see exactly how he thinks during a game and how he bounces ideas off the great Don Zimmer. The 96 Yanks were a special team, and he definitely helped them win with this managerial techniques and philosophies. This would only be the first championship for what would soon be a dynasty.

The book covers his entire life, from childhood to the time he wrote the book. You see exactly how certain aspects of his childhood stayed with him and influenced his personal life for years. Torre is a great man, with a very interesting past, and this book will teach you a lot about the game and the way things are behind the scenes of the game. You will also notice how baseball goes through changes during his time in the game. If your a Yankee fan, this is a must read. If you aren't, you will still find it to be enjoyable if you are a fan of baseball.

I was born in the Bronx, not far from the Stadium. I'm a Yankee fan and a great fan of Joe Torre as their manager. Perhaps that's why I am so disappointed in this book. I expected much more than just an un-elaborated listing of what happened in Torre's life. It is as though the writers used Post-its on a large bulletin board on which to write a few spare sentences for each event and then arranged the Post-its to make a book. There isn't much art there. I compare it to Tony LaRussa's book, "Three Nights in August" which is beautifully written. LaRussa's writer makes you feel what he (LaRussa) was feeling. You are with him in the dugout, watching him when he is alone in a restaurant after a game, and enjoying his thoughts on baseball and its participants. On the other hand,even Torre's recital of the sadness in his childhood didn't really affect me. I suspect that part of the difference may lie in the differences in personality between the intellectual and passionate LaRussa and the working class Torre. And I was disappointed in "Chasing the Dream" even before I began reading it. Part of the fun when you open a baseball book to read it for the first time is to check the index to find your favorite players. You read the parts about them first and then go back and read the whole book. I checked for an index to read about Tino. No index. I see that other reviewers like this book a lot better than I do. I don't think the book is really bad - it's just too ordinary. It doesn't do justice to its subject. I gave it four stars instead of the three I really think it should get, because I like Torre.

This book is a must for die-hard Yankee fans and admirers of Joe Torre. Joe speaks about his life and the 1996 World Champion New York Yankees in an critically honest and emotionally revealing manner. Joe takes us on his journey in such a way that you feel as if you are side-by-side with him every step of the way. His roller coaster journey of the highs and lows of the 1996 baseball season compounded by personal tragedy, and the miracle of his brother Frank's successful heart transplant are especially riveting. I loved this book!

Joe Torre's dream has taken him along a road in life from Brooklyn to the Bronx NY, a short drive by car but a lifetime of speedbumps and detours. That dream was to be a baseball World Champion which took him three decades of walks, balks, sacrifice flies, and a grandslam homerun. Joe Torre's autobiography depicts the "Courage, Tradition, (and) Heart," of a son, brother, ballplayer, father, husband, manager, and champion. This is a well-written hero-story with a passionate insight into baseball and life