The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty: The Game, the Team, and the Cost of Greatness (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "MARIANO RIVERA sometimes paused to stand behind the crowd of teammates watching The Jerry Springer Show in the Yankees' clubhouse..." (more)
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Nothing succeeds like success. But human nature being what it is, some people get a thrill when the successful fail. Is it a matter of rooting for the underdog or bringing the haughty and powerful down a peg? Olney, who covers the Yankees for the New York Times, addresses the question in this sympathetic assessment as he selects their seventh-game loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks in the 2001 World Series as the turning point in the team's decline. Recounting the details of the contest, he flashes back to reveal how individuals contributed to the Yankees' accomplishments in recent years. Of course, the one person who demands success, and for whom even victory doesn't seem to be enough, is owner George Steinbrenner. Much of the ill will generated by the legions of Yankee-haters can be traced to Steinbrenner, with his bullying and deep pockets. Olney's work puts the team under a microscope, as if the daily exasperations, disappointments and even boredom suffice to explain why their fortunes reversed. Olney gives a good account: success is hard work that, like prayers, sometimes does not yield the hoped-for result.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Many readers of this book, starting with fans of the other American League teams, might find laughable the notion that the "Yankee Dynasty" has ended, the team having played in two of the last three World Series, after winning four of the previous five. Still, Olney makes a good case that the championship-winning Yankees were a divinely built team whose talents fit perfectly together: "[Derek] Jeter's confidence, [Paul] O'Neill's intensity, [Tim] Raines' humor, [Joe] Girardi's professionalism." Add manager Joe Torre's calming intelligence, closer Mariano Rivera's unhittable fastballs, owner George Steinbrenner's maniacal competitiveness, and a series of tragedies that bonded the team--and the Yanks were unstoppable. Until Game 7 of the 2001 World Series, which Olney details here inning by inning, interspersing his account with profiles of the Yankee principals involved. Olney, now a writer for ESPN, delivers a winning valedictory to the five years he covered the team for the New York Times. Alan Moores
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 346 pages
• Publisher: Ecco; First Edition Stated edition (August 17, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060515066
• ISBN-13: 978-0060515065
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (44 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #152,262 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Hefty Payroll Includes Accountability, November 14, 2004

By	C. W. Emblom "Bill Emblom" (Ishpeming, Michigan USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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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.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The benefits of covering the beat., September 10, 2004

By	C. W. Repak "Chaz Repak" (Somerville, NJ) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.)

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Heavy Weighs The Mantle..., May 21, 2006

By	Bill Slocum (Norwalk, CT USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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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.