YANKEES CENTURY

"History," writes Glenn Stout in his Introduction, "is not told through championships alone." The story of the New York Yankees, so often told by focusing on the team's victories, familiar moments such as the Subway Series of the 1950s and Roger Maris's amazing 1961 season, and a handful of key figures including Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, and Mickey Mantle, is actually an epic drama rife with struggle, constant change, politics, and passion. Yankees Century is the first book to tackle the larger story of how the Yankees became the most venerated of teams, known and loved the world over, and how it came to symbolize the vast potential and unparalleled energy of the city, and by extension the nation, they call home.
Yankees Century also includes a stellar collection of essays, both personal (the recollections of 92-year-old former pitcher Charles Devens, who witnessed Ruth's famous called shot during the 1932 World Series; Molly O'Neill on her brother Paul) and professional (Ring Lardner's hilarious 1927 piece advising the altering of rules for teams playing the Yankees; David Halberstam on George Weiss, who as general manager in the 1950s watched his teams win ten pennants and seven World Series). These give an even fuller picture of a team so storied that as Lou Gehrig once claimed, "Just putting on a Yankee uniform gave you confidence . . . made you better than you actually were."