Bombers: An Oral History of the New York Yankees

by Richard Lally

Book Overview

No sports team in history has a following quite like that of the New York Yankees. With 38 pennants and 26 World Series victories, the Yankees are the most successful baseball team of all time -- and the first name in team sports. Featuring more than 100 authentic voices from Yankee history, Bombers retells their colorful stories, from the unparalleled abilities and appetites of Babe Ruth to the professional excellence that characterizes the current...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0609608959
• ISBN13: 9780609608951
• Release Date: April 2002
• Publisher: Crown Publishing Group (NY)
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.4" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

nostalgic for me; a Yankee fan since 1953

As a big Yankee fan growing up in the 1950s and 1960s this is certainly material that interests me and brings back many memories. Lally does some narration to set up the interviews. But the inside stuff is the interviews with players and managers involved in the games. He goes all the way back to Babe Ruth's called home run in the 1932 World Series and covers a lot of controversial plays and events including the Phil Linz harmonica incident in 1964 (mostly a media build-up. But was it a turning point for the Yankees? It was interesting to learn how the Giants stole signs in 1951 to make their comeback against the Dodgers but refused to use this proven system in the World Series against the Yankees because Durocher was afraid of being caught. On the other hand Lally relates how the 1961 Reds stole the Yankee signs in the Series. But that did them no good at all! I remember how nervous I was when Terry was pitching to McCovey with the tieing run at third and the winning run at second in the 1962 series. I was watching the game with my parents but couldn't stand it when the Giants appeared capable of pulling out a dramatic victory in the ninth inning of the seventh game. So I ran to my room to watch by myself with the sound off. Before I could be alarmed by the line shot he hit, I could see Richardson holding on to the ball. It was a great surprise to me to hear that Clete Boyer was so scared of what might happen if the ball were hit to him that he was glad when they decided to pitch to McCovey. This meant that the ball would not likely be hit to him! If they walk McCovey to pitch to Cepeda the pressure would definitely be on the third baseman. This revelation was amazing comong from one of the all-time great fielding third basemen. This is the flavor of the book which follows the history of the Yankees in roughly chronological order. Lally reused some interviews he had gotten from an earlier book with some revision by discussants such as Jim Bouton. I give it 4 stars because I was a little disappointed with the coverage of the 1996-2001 Yankees. With five World Series to cover, Lally chose a long discussion of the 2000 Subway Series between the Yankees and Mets and said nothing about the 1996, 1998, 1999 or 2001 series. I can understand neglecting the unexciting 1998 sweep of San Diego but the others had their dramatic moments especially Torre's first win in 1996. There was no more drama than the 2001 series with two dramatic Yankee wins and that horrifying ninth inning loss in game seven. Since I wrote this the Yanks missed the World Series in 2002 and lost to the Marlins in 2003 and then that unthinkable loss of 4 straight to the Red Sox in the 2004 championship series after winning the first three. With playoff losses in 2005, 2006 and 2007 Torre has elected to go to the Dodgers and Joe Girardi will take the helm in New York. Steinbrenner gave the free agents what they wanted and so Posada, Rivera and Rodriguez are still Yankees with th

Great Hot Stove League reading for any baseball fan

"Bombers: An Oral History of the New York Yankees" does not cover the entire history of baseball's most storied franchise. Richard Lally is limited to living voices, which is why this book begins with Babe Ruth's "Called Shot" in the 1932 World Series. It ends with a look at the 2000 Subway Series between the Yankees and the Mets, but there is a giant gap between that section and the previous way, which is about the Kansas City Royals winning the 1980 League Championship Series. "Bombers" features oral testimony from more than a hundred people, most of them Yankee players, but some of the better ones come from some of their opponents. Whether you have heard of some of these great moments in Yankee history or not, you will enjoy the insights these players bring.However, be forewarned that periodically Lally sets up these oral histories with introductions in which he writes with exaggerated rhetorical flourishes. For one excessive example, Lally writes about the 1939 Cincinnati Reds "they made mental errors about as often as Dorothy Parker flubbed bon mots." Rule #1 for the editor of an oral history should be not to get in the way of the people doing the actual talking about history. I would rather hear what Lonny Frey (major-league infielder, 1933-48; second baseman, 1939 Cincinnati Reds) has to say about being swept by the Yankees in the World Series a lot more than anything Frey has to say beyond setting up the historical context. But Lally is so determined to wax poetic that it becomes quite oppressive at times.But despite his sporadic linguistic excesses, Lally does have his moments, the best of which is "Blackballed," a concise indictment of the refusal of Yankee management to bring black baseball players to the club, ignoring Ernie Banks, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron and others to sign Artie Wilson, Luis Marquez, and Frank Austin (i.e., ignore future Hall of Famers to go after lesser talent that would not last longer than a season in the minor leagues but give the team window-dressing regarding possible integration). This is one of Lally's longest pieces and it introduces one of the longest testimonies, from Vic Power. Reading about what the Yankee management did just infuriated me and just proved once again that racism makes people stupid. Lally also does a nice job of editing some of the oral histories together to create a seamless narrative, like the beginning of Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak. This book will appeal to baseball fans, not just Yankee fans. In fact, the character who most caught my interest was Elden Auker, a submarine pitcher who was told by both Ruth and DiMaggio that they could not really pick up his pitches. Auker's recollections are sprinkled throughout the first part of the book and, as he points out himself, he came close to being the man who ended the two most famous streaks in baseball history: Gehrig's consecutive games played and DiMaggio's consecutive games with a hit. Ultimately, the point is th

Well Worth Reading

When I first saw this book and gave it a brief thumbing through in the bookstore I was put off by the fact that the title is really a bit of a misnomer because this book is not a comprehensive overview of the entire history of the Yankees and there are a number of leaps in chronology (from 1980 to the 2000 World Series just to name the most obvious one) but once you settle down and realize what this book is trying to do, you'll be hooked all the way. Lally, who wrote the fine overview of Yankee seasons from 1965-1982 in his 1983 book "Pinstriped Summers", sets out to try and tell stories about moments in Yankee history through the years that have not been told before by going back to the surviving players both Yankee and opponent alike who are still able to give their version of events. As a result, we get introduced to a large number of fresh and fascinating stories such as Cincinnati stealing signs in the 1961 World Series, and there is a postscript to the recent revelation of the 1951 Giants stealing signs in the pennant race as we learn that Leo Durocher refused to do that in the 51 World Series against the Yankees, fearing he would get caught.No Yankee fan should be without this!

A Baseball Book That Reads Like a Great Novel

This is something new, something different, something I've never seen in a baseball book. The prose in Bombers is accessible, but nearly poetic with the most memorable phrasing I've encountered in years. Lally's description of Sandy Koufax's fastball ('a living, punishing thing, it screamed at hitters as it flashed towards home plate to disarm and disrupt. Dismantle.) is worthy of Evelyn Waugh. Much of the book reads like a Jack Kerouac remembrance (not surprising since Kerouac was an avid baseball fan), witty, offbeat, but never obscure. Lally nails his subject time and time again, yet he always knows when to back off and let the players tell their story.And what a story it is. Who would have thought that any book could contain so much information on such a well-covered team, but every page of Bombers contains some gem of a fact I didn't know such as the Reds' illicit sign-stealing escapades during the 1961 World Series, or the unique way Roger Clemens stokes his emotions for each start. Lally saves the best for last, making the Subway Series come alive with word pictures any reader-not just baseball fans-can savor. He describes NY Mets reliever Armando Benitez thusly: "...all 6'4, 250 pounds of him, roamed onto the field resembling a character out of celluloid, the reliever as Godzilla...When things go against him, Benitez often steps from the mound, puts his hands on his hips, and tilts his nose skyward. It is the pose of a potentate raising his nostrils above a noxious aroma..." That's beautiful writing and Bombers is filled with it. Mr. Lally is onto something here, a new form of baseball literature for a new millenium. And it rocks. Mark my words, this book and its author are going to be the Next Big Things.

An Exciting Literary Find

Simply the best written baseball book I have every read. It is filled with information about the Yankees I've never seen anywhere else and the prose is positively exciting. Lally describes Babe Ruth as "A baseball revolutionary, a Che Guevera lacking fatigues or philosophy," describes Lew Burdette's sneaky fastball in this beautiful sentence, "Though he hailed from Nitro, Virginia, his best fastball was more expedient than explosive," and likens the Yankees first glimpse of Mickey Mantle to the debut of another phenom, "Watching him take his freshman swings against major league pitching, these rookies must have felt the same blend of awe and envy Salieri experienced when he first heard the adolescent Mozart tinkering at the piano." Pure bliss for anyone who loves the written word. I would recommend this book to anyone, even those who don't like baseball. Just a great, great read.