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Hammerin' Hank, George Almighty and the Say Hey Kid

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I've always been fascinated with the 1973 baseball season, mostly because I was born hours after the conclusion of Game 2 of the World Series. I've been a Mets fan most of my life and always found it darkly funny that I was born during a year they lost the Series.

There have been a run of books in the past several years by authors celebrating individual baseball seasons: 1964 and 1949 (David Halberstam), 1975 and 1966 (Tom Adelman), 1908 (Cait Murphy); each one has a hook about what makes that year special. John Rosengren's concept for 1973 is that it's a transition year for baseball, a year of firsts and lasts: the first year of the designated hitter, and the first year of George Steinbrenner's ownership of the Yankees; the last year of Willie Mays' career and the first year of Reggie Jackson's superstardom. It was also the year Hank Aaron did not break Babe Ruth's all-time home run record, but any book with Aaron on the cover is likely to do well this year, thanks to Barry Bonds-inspired backlash.

"Hammerin' Hank" is an easy read, as chapters alternate between the book's five principal characters: Willie, Reggie, Hank, George, and Orlando Cepeda (the first great DH in his last great season). Interesting that all the players involved are minorities: three essentially winding up their careers, and one just beginning. Much attention is paid to the AL West and NL East division races, all three playoff series and the All-Star game. As with Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx Is Burning: 1977, Baseball, Politics, and the Battle for the Soul of a City, some politics are intercut as well: 1973 was a Watergate year as well as a watershed year (and wouldn't you know Steinbrenner was wrapped up in that too).

I only had a few quibbles with the book. There were some odd language choices, with Rosengren inserting some vulgarities in his prose that probably didn't belong. He also dropped in a few Spanish phrases to illustrate Orlando Cepeda's thought processes, over which your mileage will vary. There may have been an overreliance on the author's sourcing to biographies and the Sporting News: the short list of players interviewed for the book included none of the title characters. At least I couldn't find too many obvious factual errors, apart from some typos (after the chapter about the A's-Orioles ALCS, it's written in the next chapter that the A's played the Reds).

On the whole this was a quick but detailed read about a transitional year for MLB: the year of the DH, the year Reggie became a "hot dog", the year George started doing what he does best: tick people off. It's mostly a valentine to baseball and its endless capacity for re-invention. The only real villain of the book is Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, and I certainly don't have a problem with that.

The research that obviously went into this book would earn the

admiration of any historian, but it's the vivid, engaging writing that makes "Hammerin Hank..." such an appealing read. For fans who remember the 1973 season, and those who weren't even born yet, this book paints a picture with details and a story that live up to the title's hype. The effects of many of the events from that season are still being felt today.

This was the year that George Steinbrenner took over the Yankees, and 35 years later the Boss, and now his son, continue to loom over the game. In the book, we read the type of Steinbrenner tale - him demanding that three Yankees get haircuts - that made him such an easy target, yet Rosengren also shows the lengths he'd go to to make the Yankees a winner, no matter the cost.

The DH went into effect in '73, and years before chicks dug the long ball, Rosengren shows how Oakland owner Charlie Finley pushed for more offense in the game, believing it would bring fans back. The DH rule led Carl Yazstremski to say, "It's legalized manslaughter," because pitchers no longer had to worry about suffering the consequences if they beaned an opposing hitter.

1973 was Willie Mays's final season. Today, whenever an older athlete struggles, it's almost become cliche to say that he should retire because we don't want to see him "stumbling around like Willie Mays." Rosengren details exactly what happened to the baseball legend, and how he struggled through his final days on the field.

The book tells the big stories, as well as the memorable smaller ones - like Gaylord Perry's spitball-throwing antics, and the tale of the two pitchers who switched lives, including wives. The story of the champion A's, one of the game's great dynasties, is perfectly profiled, as is the rise of their superstar, Reggie Jackson. And, of course, throughout the book is the tale of Hank Aaron's pursuit of Babe Ruth's home run record. He'd finish one dinger short of Ruth, and we're there every step with Aaron - from the hate mail (275 letters a day at one point), to the remarkable fact that only 1,362 fans saw Aaron's 711th career homer.

For those who might question whether 1973 really was the year that changed baseball forever, all they have to do is read this book, and they'll be fully convinced that it did.

There is a vividness to the memories of when a boy (or maybe a child) first becomes a baseball fan. The players, the managers, the owners all seem larger than life. In the the 1973 baseball season, it was all for good reason. The personalities, in many ways, were larger than life.

The Oakland A's, and there mercurial owner, Charlie O. Finley dominated the landscape in many ways. Finley, with his out of the box thinking, his boorish behavior and his control tendencies. But also, the team, which had future Hall of Famers Reggie Jackson, Catfish Hunter and Rollie Fingers, as well as many perennial all-stars, like Bert Campaneris, Sal Bando, Gene Tenace and Joe Rudi. They had colorful stars like Vida Blue and Blue Moon Odom rounding out a mini-dynasty.

But the season offered contrasts, and the sad diminishment of Willie Mays, one of the five greatest players in baseball history, was a huge one. Brought back to a city that loved him, but a manager, in Yogi Berra, who really did not want him, his level of performance was that of a journeyman. The World Series ended with Mays sitting on the bench, being bypassed as the Mets were down to their final out, for another journeyman.

The other big story of the season was the onset of the Designated Hitter. The author focuses on the requiem for Orlando Cepeda, yet it was a huge change for the game of baseball.

George Steinbrenner took over the Yankees, and for better or worse, baseball was changed forever.

The feature entree, however, was Hank Aaron's pursuit of the most hallowed of baseball's records. In this season, as Aaron sped toward history, he endured pressures and hatreds which were still very open in 1973. His was a very lonely journey, yet led with heroic dignity.

For the most part, a very well written chronicle of a bellweather time in our National Sport.

This is a nicely readable trip down baseball's memory lane. Author John Rosengren focuses on three players (Hank Aaron, Willie Mays & Reggie Jackson) to present baseball circa 1973, when attendance was smaller, arbitration and the DH brand new, and before free agency, split-fingered fastballs, steroids, interleague play, and retro ballparks. Readers follow Henry Aaron as he approaches Babe Ruth's career home run record against a backdrop of fan adulation, racist abuse, media crush, and depressingly small crowds in Atlanta. Aaron found the process draining, but gained a forum for speaking out against racial injustice. Willie May returned to New York City, but at 42 barely contributed as the Mets won the year's pennant with a mediocre 82-79 record. Still, the fans rooted for Willie. We also follow Reggie Jackson's feud with both his teammates and owner Charles Finley, who was as abrasive and devious as Jackson was foul-mouthed and egotistical. Much turmoil, but the talented Oakland Athletics won their second of three straight World Series titles. Finally, there are some words about new Yankee owner George Steinbrenner, Gaylord Perry's spitballs, Orlando Cepeda's bad knees, plus managers Dick Williams and Yogi Berra, all set against the backdrop of the Watergate scandal.

These nicely readable pages bring fans back to a different but hardly innocent era of baseball. I'd have liked more coverage of other players and teams, and didn't care for the occasional factual error. Still, this is an interesting and well-written book.

Basic rehash of the 1973 season, centered around the A's and Reggie Jackson, the Mets and Willie Mays, Hammerin' Hank and George Steinbrenner. Not awful by any means, but no new research or new angles. Disappointing.

Who knew so much was going on in baseball in 1973. Excellently written very informative.

Not many books can transport you back to your childhood, but Hammerin' Hank, George Almighty & the Say Hey Kid does just that, providing 'box seats' for an era of baseball and American society not often examined. 1973. Nixon stares down Watergate. Baseball experiments with the designated hitter. And George Steinbrenner begins his long 'reign of terror' in the American League. Meticulously researched, John Rosengren's book explores the growing rift between owners and players that would eventually lead to free agency, while offering a look at the human side of things with stories of Hank Aaron and Willie Mays, Hall of Famers struggling through the end of storied careers. Rosengren's love for these baseball greats shines through on every page, as does his disdain for Steinbrenner, A's owner Charlie Finley, and egomaniacal superstar Reggie Jackson. If you're disgusted with the inflated stats, meddlesome owners, overpaid players and performance enhancing drugs of today, dive into a copy of Hammerin' Hank, George Almighty & the Say Hey Kid to see where it all began. And while you're there, enjoy the smell of the grass, the heat of the sun and the crack of the bat from a summer worth revisiting. Salmon Run

A book covering the 1973 season, with the advent of the DH, Willie Mays retiring, etc. - this book will be appreciated by those growing up during this time - I dare say a little too much print was spent on Mays, and not enuff on Jackson and Aaron and the A's, and about the right amount on George Steinbrenner. I also agree with the other reviewer's opinion about wondering why the author went through Cepeda's thought processes and the sort, and maybe a little more time could have been spent on the other good teams that year. All in all, an enjoyable read.

Nineteen seventy-three was a memorable year for major league baseball. John Rosengren brings the outsized personalities who populated the game, on and off the field, back to life in the pages of this book. His subtitle, "The Year That Changed Baseball Forever," may seem a bit audacious, but a look at the developments of that remarkable season will back up that claim.

It was the year Willie Mays said good-bye to the game. It was the year Hank Aaron pulled to within one home run of Babe Ruth's cherished career home run mark. It was the year the American League introduced the designated hitter, and although the Yankees' Ron Bloomberg went into the books as the first official DH, it was Orlando Cepada, in the last great season of his career, who put his stamp on the job. It was the year when the Mets went from worst to first, manager Yogi Berra declaring "It ain't over until it's over" (sort of). It was the year the swaggering, brawling Oakland A's, resplendent in their green and gold uniforms, took their second consecutive World Championship. That World Series was the first for the A's' budding superstar Reggie Jackson (Reggie had been injured during the '72 series) who began putting together the performances that would earn him the title of Mr. October.

It was also a year dominated by two oversized personalities in the owners' box--the A's Charley Finley and the new Boss of the Yankees, George Steinbrenner. Older fans will recall (and younger ones will learn) why the A's won in spite of, not because of Finley. And Yankee lovers and haters will see how the early months of Steinbrenner's reign laid the path for what was to follow in the decades ahead.

The larger world of 1973 doesn't intrude too deeply into these pages, with the notable exception of the Watergate scandal that was beginning to engulf the Nixon presidency. However, the nexus with baseball is clear--Steinbrenner ended up being caught in the web of scandal for illegal campaign contributions.

Rosengren's narrative is engaging and holds the reader's interest from the first page to the last. His focus is as much on the colorful personalities as in the play on the diamond. Although he was only able to talk to a handful of players, executives and broadcasters from 1973, his research in newspapers, magazines and books has been exhaustive. The result is a must-read for any baseball fan who wants to relieve the memorable summer of '73.--William C. Hall