The 50 Greatest Yankee Games [Paperback]

Cecilia Tan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 14, 2006

"Cecilia Tan has written a Yankee Doodle Dandy of a book. The reader is taken through the dramatic ebb and flow of the 50 greatest Yankee games. We learn a lot about the team from the Bronx in this fact-filled, entertainingly written opus. Should be required reading for all fans of the New York Yankees."
--Harvey Frommer, author of A Yankee Century and The New York Yankee Encyclopedia

Every Yankee fan has a memory they will never forget or a game they wish they had seen. Covering an entire century of New York Yankees baseball, The 50 Greatest Yankee Games brings together the best (and sometimes worst) moments experienced by the most successful sports franchise on the planet. You'll be there as:
* Babe Ruth performs the most debated gesture in sports history
* Joe DiMaggio reaches one milestone on his way to another
* "The Wild Man" tames the Dodgers, but the Bombers fail to score
* Bobby Murcer delivers the game-winning hit just hours after delivering the eulogy at Thurman Munson's funeral
* Dave Righetti throws his no-hitter against the Red Sox
* Don Mattingly shines, but Seattle savors the day
* Derek Jeter saves the game and the season with a "shovel pass"


From the Yankees' first World Series to the pennant race that pitted Joe DiMaggio against Ted Williams to the Bucky Dent home run game, you'll have the best seat in the stadium as you experience all the excitement and drama. Featuring fascinating anecdotes and vintage photographs, The 50 Greatest Yankee Games is the perfect book for every Yankee fan and anyone who cherishes the game.

"Tan does a fine job choosing the most important contests from 100 seasons of Yankee baseball and recounting them in a gripping style . . . developing entertaining, dramatic story lines."
--Publisher's Weekly

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

How do you pick just 50 great games from among the thousands played by the most successful franchise in pro sports? It's not easy, but Tan does a fine job choosing the most important contests from 100 seasons of Yankee baseball and recounting them in a gripping style. From Babe Ruth's "called shot," to Bucky Dent's devastating 1978 playoff homerun, to Aaron Boone's clinching blow in the 2003 American League Championship Series, most of the biggest events in Yankee history are brought to life in this book. One can argue with some of Tan's choices-and Yankee fans inevitably will-but that's half the fun. Tan, an experienced baseball writer and devoted Yankee fan, draws on research, contemporary press accounts and interviews she conducted with players such as Yogi Berra, Dwight Gooden, Reggie Jackson, Bobby Murcer and Whitey Ford to recreate the games and illuminate key moments. Tan displays a knack for narrative, developing entertaining, dramatic story lines even though the outcome is never a surprise. If you saw one of the games (or watched it on television), long-forgotten details will come flooding back. If you didn't see the game, you'll almost feel as if you were there. Yankee fans should enjoy this celebration of their favorite team. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

Tan, a baseball writer and die-hard New York Yankees fan, presents brief examinations of the 50 purportedly greatest games ever played by her team. The volume opens with the last-season game in October 1904, when 41-game winner Jack Chesbro flung a wild pitch, dashing New York's hopes of winning the American League pennant, and closes with Aaron Boone's walk-off homer against knuckleballer Tim Wakefield to defeat the Boston Red Sox in the 2003 American League Championship Series (ALCS). In between, Tan places Don Larsen's perfect game against the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1956 World Series at the top of the Yankees's memorable contests, followed by game three of the 1932 fall classic when the Bambino supposedly belted the "called shot," and the single-game playoff for the 1978 pennant when Bucky Dent's roundtripper broke the hearts of the Red Sox nation. Given the astonishing collapse of the Yankees in the final four games of last year's ALCS, this work already seems in need of an update. Nonetheless, it provides light enjoyment, with the appearance of all the usual suspects: Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Jackson, Jeter, and the rest. Recommended for general libraries.-- R.C. Cottrell, California State Univ., Chico ("Library Journal, May 1, 2005)

"Tan does a fine job choosing the most important contests from 100 seasons of Yankee baseball and recounting them in a gripping style . . . . developing entertaining, dramatic story lines." ("Publisher's Weekly)

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (April 14, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471763136
• ISBN-13: 978-0471763130
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,700,385 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I write about my passions, which include baseball, erotica, gourmet food, martial arts, and travel. I write fantasy, science fiction, erotic fiction, paranormal romance, and anything else that stimulates my imagination.

In the erotica field, I've been published everywhere from Ms. magazine to Penthouse, and I'm in many, many anthologies and the Best American Erotica series. Susie Bright called me "simply one of the most important writers, editors, and innovators in contemporary American erotic literature." Erotic books I've authored include Black Feathers, White Flames, The Velderet, Mind Games, The Hot Streak, and The Siren and the Sword (Magic University, Book One). I've also edited many anthologies including Women of the Bite, Cowboy Lover, Sex In The System, Wicked Pleasures, SM Visions, for many different publishers, and many many books and ebooks for the independent publishing house I founded, Circlet Press. Those include Best Fantastic Erotica, Erotic Fantastic, Like an Animal, Like Crimson Droplets, and many others, both for Kindle and in paperback.

In science fiction/fantasy I have been published in Asimov's magazine, Strange Horizons, Absolute Magnitude, and many other places.

In baseball, I am the editor of the Maple Street Press YANKEES ANNUAL, author of The 50 Greatest Yankee Games, co-author of 50 Greatest Red Sox Games, the co-editor of THE FENWAY PROJECT, and co-editor of '75: The Red Sox Team That Saved Baseball. I write features for Yankees magazine and other publications. I have a web site of baseball essays, called Why I Like Baseball, at http://whyilikebaseball.com.

You can find out way more about me and my obsessions at www.ceciliatan.com