Customer Reviews

Chasing Steinbrenner: Pursuing the Pennant in Boston and Toronto

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I just finished this book and thought it was terrific. I would buy this book just for the chapter on Jose Contreras. Bradford goes into great detail about how Theo Epstein and the Sox tried to sign him, only to lose him to the hated Yankees. That chapter reads like a novel, with turns and twists that leave you wanting more.

The book focuses on two GM's, Epstein and the Blue Jays J.P. Ricciardi. Both are fully realized characters, and we really get to know both of them as they chase the Yankees but in different ways. Epstein deals with an impatient Red Sox Nation, while Ricciardi rebuilds his farm system as an apathetic Toronto yearns for the Glory Days of the early 90's.

The little stories are what makes this book a keeper. Ricciardi being sabotaged by his own scouts, Epstein driving across the country, Theo's first day on the job.

An impressive debut book. A fun read.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book. When I bought the book I expected to read stories of behind the door wheeling and dealing, and wasn't disappointed. The part I enjoyed the most was reading about the "real" lives of these people. Bradford does an excellent job portraying the professional and personal sides of these individuals. The whole section on Jose Contreras was intruiging. I highly recomend it.

Moneyball was a great read for me as a diehard baseball fan. Unfortunately it had little or nothing to do with the Red Sox. Luckily, now there is Chasing Steinbrenner. The half of the book that deals with the behind the scenes operations of the Toronto Blue Jays is to be forgiven since it is also interesting.

Among the unforegtable stories is when Toronto GM JP Ricciardi gets a phone call from the local Worcester newspaper (JP is a Worcester native). Turns out the reporter was dying for a story about the high school basketball team that Ricciardi was several years removed from being the coach of. The exclusive with the local MLB GM would have been a bigger story, but the reporter is disappointed.

This book is a must read for those with any curiosity about what goes on upstairs at Fenway with the Sox brass.

Though the Red Sox finally "caught" Steinbrenner (for one year at least), the frustrations and challenges of being a franchise forever obsessed with the Bronx Colossus remain. This book is as relevant now that the Red Sox have won their World Series title as it was when the sting of Aaron Boone was fresh. Rob Bradford provides the reader an entertaining look into the sub-$200 millon world of Red Sox GM Theo Epstein and his Toronto counterpart J.P. Ricciardi, Massachusetts natives both, who work to overcome Yankee dollars with good old-fashioned Yankee ingenuity , and yes, luck. After all, Theo was heartbroken over losing Jose Contreras to the Yankees. It's all in the book.

A good read.

Picked this up after reading Peter Gammons' recommendation on espn.com last month, and finished it as the Sox were in the middle of the greatest comeback in sports history last week. The timing was perfect, as this postseason is partly the result of the brilliant 2003 teambuilding effort by Theo Epstein and company that is covered here. The chapter on the adventure of signing Kevin Millar alone is worth the cover price. A great look into the inner workings of what may go down in history as one of baseball's best back offices. Reading about the Jays making do with a relatively tiny payroll is interesting too, but it's the Sox that caught Steinbrenner.

Bradford does an amazing job telling the story of how the "underdogs" compete. This book showed me, without a doubt, that there is so much more to baseball than payroll.

Between the behind the scenes story-telling, and the details waiting around every corner this is a great book to pick up. It delves into what some of the decision-makers in Boston and Toronto had to go through over a most extra-ordinary season, not so much why the decisions were made. It is a great summertime page-turner.

I received Chasing Steinbrenner for Christmas and, being a 40-year fan of the Red Sox, I enjoyed the read immensely. Knowing the joyous outcome of the 2004 MLB season made reading about Theo's first season as GM enjoyable. I don't think I could have read it had the Red Sox -gulp- lost to the Yankees in 2004. We know the amazing story of the 2004 season, and Bradford's entertaining and informative book gives us the inside story of the ups and downs of two franchises, the Blue Jays and Red Sox, that led to Aaron "What's the Big Deal?" Boone's 2003 ALCS Game 7 homerun. Bradford gives readers the stories-behind-the-stories of some of the deals that, in retrospect, led to the 2004 World Series championship. What if Theo had succeeded in signing Jose Contreras or did not obtain Kevin Millar? There's no Game 4 comeback in the ALCS. The details of the players' lives and the focus on certain 2003 games allow diehard fans to relive, without anguish, from whence the 2004 championship came. Bradford's chapter on Theo's first game as GM makes me believe that one day Carl Crawford will be stealing bases and hitting walk-off HRs for the Red Sox.

Juxtaposing Toronto's general manager J.P. Ricciardi, his limited resources, and Blue Jay fans with Boston's young general manager, sizable yet still somewhat limited revenue, and the Red Sox maniacal fan base allows readers access to the front office machinations about which newspapers, television, and radio shows only speculate.

For fans, Bradford opens the front office doors. He also opened my eyes that the GM's care as much if not more than many of the diehards. Read it and no longer weep!

I picked this up after reading positive reviews in the Boston press, and wasn't disappointed. I was specifically interested in how baseball's youngest GM, Theo Epstein, handled the pressure of his first year. The author's unprecedented access to his subjects results in a book that brings the reader squarely into Theo and JP's worlds.

The most talked-about chapter in this book deals with the attempted Contreras signing, but while you will get the best account of that debacle here, it's only one of dozens of anecdotes that show how intense these guy's lives are. The chronology of the book makes it clear that it was being written before Moneyball was released, but you'll know after the first chapter that they're two completely different books - Moneyball is a top seller among stockbrokers and economists, while this one was clearly written for baseball fans.

To be honest, I thought the actual content of this book was fantastic. It was really entertaining. I knocked it down to 4 stars because there are some grammatical mistakes, which I can't stand in published writing. The writing is overall pretty good, and there were only a few occasions where I had to stop and read a sentence 2 or 3 times to figure out what exactly was wrong with it so I could move on, but those times irritated me.

Rob Bradford provides a very involved look at the 2003 Red Sox and Blue Jays. A lot has happened since then, so the book is a little dated, but the close contact he had with Jays GM JP Ricciardi and Sox GM Theo Epstein is worth the price of the book alone. In terms of baseball analysis, there really isn't any, so if that's what you want, I'd recommend "Mind Game" or some other such Baseball Prospectus publication. But if you want an inside look at running a baseball team, replete with entertaining anecdotes (Theo's dad is a real piece of work), this is the book for you. Rob Bradford is not that great at involved sports analysis, but he's great at working with his subjects, which has me wondering why he's still stuck at the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune. After his exclusive interview with Sox owner John Henry last year, one would think the Herald or the Globe would come calling.