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Book review: The Yankee Years
by Chris Jaffe / April 03, 2009
No new baseball book this year has achieved quite as much attention or
notoriety as The Yankee Years by Tom Verducci and Joe Torre. This story of
Torre's time in the Bronx has drawn attention primarily for its
less-than-flattering information about some of the team's high-priced stars,
most notably Alex Rodriquez's high-maintenance insecurity and the time Kevin
Brown almost quit in the middle of a baseball game.
Such clubhouse gossip is in the book, but it is not necessarily its main focus.
In fact, one should note this has a rather odd feel for a tome that contains
the name of an author and big leaguer on its title page. Nine times out of 10,
those works are first person narratives of the jock's experiences. He has the
stories and thoughts about them, and it's the writer's job to put them down in
a readable format.
The main narrative of the book is third person. Verducci is clearly the writer,
and Torre's contributions come from a series of extensive interviews he gave
Verducci. Sure, that's normally the case in a book like this, but the result
makes Torre a character in the story rather than the storyteller. Torre is
still at center stage, but it's Verducci's stage. This is especially true
because others, most notably David Cone and Mike Mussina, also have gone
several rounds with Verducci's tape recorder, adding their thoughts and
insights. This book is more Verducci's history than Torre's biography.
This format allows Verducci to stray away from Torre on occasion. Entire
chapters go by where Torre is a somewhat incidental character in the narrative.
This does not happen too often, but chapters that provide context on the game
as a whole and how it changed, such as one on steroids and another on the rise
of statistical analysis, make Torre a bit player in a book with his name on it.
It is an extremely good read. Verducci knows how to string a series of
sentences together, allowing the book to flow easily and naturally. You'll
hardly notice the length as the 470-plus pages go by because you quickly get
caught up in its current.
Verducci wrote it loosely chronologically, rarely engaging in a day-by-day "and
then this happened" account of the seasons. In fact, some regular seasons are
gone in a flash. The postseasons are given more coverage, especially some of
the later ones, but the book aims at something more ambitious than just
providing accounts of games that have long since ended.
Instead, Verducci is more interested in examining the whos and the whys than
the whats. He is more interested in understanding the people behind those
seasons (and Torre's view of them), and why the Yankees rose and fell as they
did. As a result, you get almost all the Jeter and Steinbrenner stories taken
care of quickly. That way you get a sense of what they provided to the team
during Torre's run—and if that means an anecdote from 2003 appears before
1998, so be it. Despite that, I never found myself confused as to where
Verducci was in his story.
Even more than the whos, the book focuses on the whys. In particular, the main
focus of the book is why Torre's time in New York ended. Torre and Verducci are
primarily occupied with explaining why a combination of manager and franchise
that produced three straight division titles and four in five years came to an
end.
According to the book, the main problem was that Torre found himself
increasingly isolated and alienated in a Yankee culture that veered ever
further from the halcyon days of the late 1990s. Not only did the players
change, with high-priced free agents replacing a core who had possessed
desperation to win, but Torre found himself on the outs with the front office.
Though George Steinbrenner could be as obnoxious as anyone, Torre at least
always knew where he stood with him. As he declined mentally and physically,
other powers grew in the Yankee franchise, and those new forces neither trusted
Torre nor were trusted by him. His most important surviving ally from the Good
Ol' Days, GM Brian Cashman, eventually turned away from Torre's methods of
dealing with players as he came to focus more on the new wave stats approach.
Focusing on Torre's slow motion falling out with the Yankee franchise has an
odd impact on the book. The glory years of the late 1990s, which normally would
constitute the heart of a book like this, instead become merely a first act.
Though the Yanks won their last world title in the fifth of Torre's 12 seasons,
their final rings are handed out on page 143, barely 30 percent of the way into
the book. New York's last World Series, which came two-thirds of the way
through Torre's New York stay, comes halfway into the book.
Verducci spends the most time on 2007, Torre's final season. That is the only
case in which he spends a considerable amount of time reviewing the regular
season. The book spends three full chapters on 2007, including the postseason.
In comparison, Verducci covers the 1998-2000 three-peat in three chapters (and
one of those largely focuses on steroids).
Can you imagine a book about the Joe McCarthy Yankees that concerns itself more
with the 1945 season that their 1936-39 period? Or a work on Casey Stengel that
gives greater emphasis to the late 1950s than their five-peat? That's what
happens here. It doesn't make it a bad book (again, I enjoyed it immensely) but
it is a bit odd. The story it wants to tell isn't quite the conventional
baseball story one might expect.
A central irony haunts this book; one the authors do not seem to be entirely
aware of. One of the central points this book makes over and over again is the
centrality of trust to Torre and his relations to people. Throughout the book
it is noted that Torre bases the relations with his players on trust, holding
that as a paramount virtue. Arguably the main thrust of the book is the story
of how Torre gradually ceased to trust the higher-ups in the Yankee
organization, causing him to walk away from their final contract offer for
2008.
Yet, this book made headlines for itself because of some of the less flattering
information it brings to light about Yankee players. Players like Kevin Brown
or Alex Rodriquez would have a legitimate gripe that this work violates their
trust in Torre.
This paradox is never addressed or commented on in the book. A big blind spot
exists in its view of the main character. One can offer several different
hypotheses explaining this oddity, but none are necessarily satisfactory.
One could argue the book's structure absolves Torre from the embarrassing
tidbits it reveals about players. After all, it presents Torre appears as a
character, not the storyteller. That doesn't pass the smell test, though. His
name is on the cover so he must be held responsible. Besides, it's clear he
told Verducci many of the unflattering stories, even if they are written in
third-person by the sportswriter.
Besides, Torre has publicly stood up for the book, not backing away or
distancing himself from the contents. As well he should—it's bad enough when a
young star claims to be misquoted in his autobiography, it's that much worse if
someone in a position of managerial oversight attempts the same rationale.
Or you could say that it shouldn't matter because he's no longer the Yankees
manager, so it's okay to open up about things now that they are all in the past
tense. Maybe, but the idea of putting a statute of limitations on trust seems
to negate the primacy Torre places on that attribute.
Besides, he may have left New York, but he hasn't left the dugout. He's still
managing in LA, and one assumes attempting to foster relations with his players
based on trust. In that regard, Torre's involvement with the book damages his
current credibility as a manager. Though I think the book is excellent, I
question Torre's decision to be a part of it. Even though The Yankee Years is
not especially salacious, it doesn't have to be to make him look hypocritical.
One final, somewhat random note should be made: In some ways this book offers a
testament to how the statgeek (and I say that knowing full well that I am one)
view has infected mainstream opinion. Not only does it approvingly note the
influence of Moneyball, and bring up OBP several times, but Verducci's
discussion of Derek Jeter's defense is perhaps the most telling aspect of how
people's opinions have changed. Verducci writes:
If there was any downside to Jeter, it was his range at shortstop, which
statistical analysts annually derided as among the worst in baseball. When
Jeter arrived in the big leagues, he had a habit of reaching for balls to his
left with two hands, which effectively reduced his reach. Jeter worked to
improve his technique, but according to the number crunchers who charted batted
balls, he never conquered the difficulty ranging to his left. Part of the
problem was that he often played through leg injuries without making it known
publicly. If limited range was Jeter's Achilles' heel, Torre was more than
willing to live with it because of everything else he gave the Yankees.
There is plenty a student of sabermetric fielding might disagree with. Verducci
certainly tries to minimize the complaints about Jeter's shortstop
shortcomings. What is most notable about that blurb is what it doesn't say,
though. It never says the number crunchers are wrong.
Instead, this section ends by passively accepted this critique by saying "If
limited range was Jeter's Achilles' heel." This is a major publication by a
well-respected sportswriter in a book that largely praises Jeter to the high
heavens. But the sabermetric criticisms of Jeter's defense are explained away
to some extent, but not rejected or denounced.
Look, I realize Jeter still has plenty of defenders who will argue until the
end of time that he is the greatest defender ever, but it's impossible to
imagine something like being said in a mainstream publication 10 years ago.
For perspective, in the early days of the Internet, an unknown flannel-clad
writer named Rob Neyer wrote some pieces denouncing Jeter's range and oh my
golly—you think the people who firebombed Dresden committed a crime. I'm sure
any piece attacking Jeter's defense will still cause angry responses, but the
field has changed. Now Jeter's defenders are often on the defensive.
References and Resources
Obviously, The Yankee Years by Tom Verducci and Joe Torre (New York: Doubleday,
2009) was the main source here.
History instructor by day, statnerd by night, Chris Jaffe leads one of the most
exciting double lives imaginable; with the exception of every other double life
humanly possible to imagine. Despite his lack of comic-book-hero-worthiness,
Chris enjoys farting around with this stuff and welcomes responses to his
articles via e-mail. He recently signed a contract with McFarland to write
"Evaluating Baseball's Managers" tentatively slated to be done in 2009.
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