19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The benefits of covering the beat., September 10, 2004
This review is from: The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty: The Game, the Team, and the Cost of Greatness (Hardcover)
Buster Olney dives behind the scenes to tell us about what it was like in the clubhouse and executive suite at Yankee Stadium during the first six years of the Joe Torre area, and it stays behind the scenes almost exclusively.
That yields lots of additional info even for this lifelong Yankees fan, though its pitch-by-pitch focus on the excrutiating Game 7 of the 2001 World Series is, unfortunately, far more detail than we get of many of the other gripping moments in those six years. Glossed over, mentioned in passing or omitted altogether are such moments as Mariano Rivera's coming-out party in Game 2 of the 1995 Division Series against Seattle, perhaps the most crucial founding moment of the dynasty; Derek Jeter's Jeffrey Maier home run; Scott Brosius's Series-changing homer off Trevor Hoffman in Game 3 of the '98 World Series; the emotionally shattering crowd chant of Paul O'Neill's name in the top of the ninth inning of Game 5 in the 2001 World Series; and the list goes on.
Granted, the team's on-field exploits weren't the focus of the book, but rather the building of the team, how its players, coaches and execs related to one another and to Boss George Steinbrenner; but if Olney is going to recount every pitch of the most painful loss of those six years, then he should dwell a bit more on the myriad moments of triumph that permeate those years. For example, what did O'Neill's teammates think of the chant? What was Steinbrenner's reaction? Torre's?
Still, the book is well worth reading, for anecdotes such as Jeter's and Chad Curtis's confrontation in 1999; the reaction to Bernie missing the team bus before Game 6 of the 2001 World Series; Steinbrenner's bullying, childish and just plain unbalanced antics throughout; and countless other insights available to Olney as beat reporter for the Yanks during most of the dynasty.
(One other cavil: In an interview on the book published on the Web recently, Olney mentioned that his epilogue included a narrative of Bud Selig's response to 9/11, which he said encapsulated the commissioner's management style well and which didn't reflect well on Selig. It was removed because it didn't fit with the rest of the epilogue. I agree with that assessment, but as an inveterate Selig-hater, I would love to read the passage, and hope Olney finds a way to put that account into print somewhere.)
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28 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Hefty Payroll Includes Accountability, November 14, 2004
This review is from: The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty: The Game, the Team, and the Cost of Greatness (Hardcover)
Forest have been felled in writing books about the New York Yankees, but Buster Olney has provided us with an interesting account of George Steinbrenner's 2001 Yankees. Each chapter discusses a different player or executive, and he does provide interesting anecdotes about each one. The final few paragraphs of each chapter discuss the progress of the 7th game of the 2001 World Series against the Arizona Diamondbacks. In addition to players chapters are devoted to Steinbrenner, Brian Cashman, and Gene Michael. The chapters on each individual are not a mundane recitation that you can find anywhere. Olney provides us with insights into the personalities of his subjects, and how they react to the stressful positions they find themselves in playing for an owner who insists on winning all the time. If not, "There are going to be changes. Meeting in Tampa in 48 hours." The book takes its title from the fact that several of the Yankees' winning type players have retired while the team has now become a collection of aging superstars with hefty contracts that don't necessarily mix well together as a team. That, and a barren farm system, spell demise for the Yankees' dynasty. I'm not a Yankees' fan, but I found the book to be worth my time and one that is worth keeping in my bookcase as part of baseball's glorious history. You won't be disappointed.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Heavy Weighs The Mantle..., May 21, 2006
This review is from: The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty: The Game, the Team, and the Cost of Greatness (Hardcover)
Buster Olney, a former beat writer for the New York Times, looks at the New York Yankees' run of baseball success from 1996 to 2000 from the vantage point of the night it all came to an end, Game 7 of the 2001 World Series against the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Published in 2004, the book's title seems overwrought. The Yankees haven't won a World Series in the last five seasons, but they have that in common with a lot of other good teams, and the Bombers remain impressive, winning the American League East every season since 1998, and well over .500 in 2006 as of this writing.
But something was lost in 2001, a spirit that departed along with Scott Brosius, Paul O'Neill, and Tino Martinez. One of the remaining Yankees, Derek Jeter, is quoted bemoaning at the end: "It's not the same team." Olney makes a convincing case for that non-quantifiable game element known as team chemistry, both its presence from 1996-2001 and its absence thereafter.
Olney seems to model his book, consciously or not, on the classic Dan Okrent book "Nine Innings," which focused on a single regular-season game in 1982, using each half-inning as an excuse to digress on different elements on the game and its players. The great thing about "Nine Innings," or one of them, was the fact the game wasn't that important, it was just another mid-season game and presented Okrent for a backdrop as he divided his focus between the two small-market clubs playing that day. Here, the game is the last one of the 2001 World Series, and all the focus is on the Yankees.
One weakness is instead of leading each chapter with the game, and then pulling the reader into the backstory, Olney starts with the story he wants to tell, whether it's about pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre fighting cancer or pitcher David Cone's ability to spin the media spotlight to the team's benefit, then throws in a half-inning's worth of business in the last few paragraphs, sometimes connecting it to the rest of the chapter, sometimes not.
While not a solidly constructed book, "Last Night" abounds with a lot of good behind-the-scenes copy, like Mariano Rivera's fatalistic locker-room speech before Game 7 and how George Steinbrenner's tirades caused his general manager, Brian Cashman, to think about wearing a mouthguard to bed, to keep him from grinding his teeth in his sleep.
There's also some funny dish on players ("It was taken as fact in baseball circles that Albert Belle was nuts") and nice insights on how they play the game (Cone's many different release points compensate for underwhelming stuff, Jeter's unorthodox playing style is re-examined by a former teammate who was critical but now thinks Jeter is right). If Olney comes across a little too kind to the Yankees' most vicious player, Roger Clemens, he is repaid by Clemens with some good quotes and worthwhile insights.
Overall, Olney is a sympathetic if not uncritical observer, and those expecting to read "The Bronx Zoo" may be disappointed. I'm not a Yankee fan, and I enjoyed it; I can only imagine how interesting it will be for those who bleed pinstripes and think five years without winning the World Series makes for some kind of drought.
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