Yankees Century: 100 Years of New York Yankees Baseball

I'm sure the 14 percent have this book already and that they're reading it aloud to their kids every night before bed, wiping tears from the kids' faces, letting them know how deep and wide the Yankees history is.

If you're the other 86 percent, you ought to be reading it too. First, because there's something devilishly satisfying in reading about the early days, when the team was nearly shut out of Manhattan, playing on a sloppy, cobbled together frield with a sawamp in right. Second, because as you turn the pages you come to realize that from DiMaggio to Mantle, from Bucky Dent to Reggie to Paul O'Neill and El Duque, these guys and the things they've done (sometimes to you, sometimes in spite of you) are part of your history, part of how you remember and imagine your life. An third, because it's insanely thorough, full of details you've forgotten or never knew, and very good looking.

Stout started this series with Red Sox Century in 2000. Dodger Century is in the works. These are rich, dazzling books, standard-setters, fully-realized, complicated portraits of the ways a team and a game weave in and out of politics, history and popular culture.

O'Neill's sister contributes an essay that sums up the series appeal much better than I can: 'In our family we tell stories. We don't really Talk. We let baseball articulate the hopes and fears that we'd never consider telling each other.'"

In this case, I found the review was completely accurate. Of the spate of books out now that claim to tell the history of this team, this book, in almost 500 pages of words and photographs, is the only one up to its subject. If you don't believe me, or ESPN, I suggest you read the excerpt about the birth of the team - even hard core Yankee fans will learn something new.


Wow!   September 6, 2002
 12 out of 15 found this review helpful

As a Giants fan I've never had much love for the Yankees, but I picked up this book for a friend after reading RED SOX CENTURY. I started flipping through it and was totally engrossed -- what Stout has done is give us the full story of this team, not just the same old stuff about their wins, the famous players, and George Steinbrenner, although that's all in here too. And the photos are just great. I'd recommend this one to any Yankees fan, as well as anyone interested in reading a good, multi-layered story about baseball.