COMING FALL 2007

Coming in fall 2007 YANKEE CENTURY AND BEYOND - an updated and enhanced version of my book A YANKEE CENTURY. Look for it where all Yankee Books are sold.

Also Coming This Fall "Brand New"

FIVE O'CLOCK LIGHTNING:

Harvey Frommer brings the perceptive eye of an historian to what was arguably the most feared batting order of all time. Add to that his contagious enthusiasm for classic baseball and you have a most enjoyable book. -- Roger Kahn

The 1927 Yankees may or may not have been the best team ever, but surely this is the best book about that wonderful concentration of talent. --George F. Will

A great eye for detail and a wonderful ability to bring his characters to life. Jonathan Eig, "The Luckiest Man"

Baseball's greatest team as recounted by baseball's greatest author. -- Seth Swirsky, "Baseball Letters" and "Something to Write Home About"

Engrossing and entertaining look at a mythical baseball team. --Leigh Montville, 'The Big Bam"
Home run. Sweet look back -- Dan Shaughnessy, "Senior Year"

The Book Review: "The Joy of Keeping Score" and Other Interesting Reads

It's not what one might call ideal baseball weather in many parts of the United States. In fact, reading and reviewing baseball books with the snow still on the ground and more coming down on my New Hampshire acreage - it seems like spring will never come.
But sources of consolation and interest are all the baseball books prolific publishers send for review. They come in all sizes and shapes with all kinds of subject matter and approaches but all in varying degrees have much to offer.

Paul Dickson's "The Joy of Keeping Score" (Walker, $14.95, 117 pages) is a slim but choice volume that definitely fulfills its sub-titles claim that the book is about "how scoring the game has influenced the history of baseball." From basic info on how to tend a scorecard to advanced scoring techniques to scoring and baseball history from A to Z and a unique section containing reproductions of scorecards of historic games - this book is the alpha and omega on this topic. Dickson has scored big here!

In "The Great Book of Inspiring Quotations" by Peter Klavor and Dave Chamber (Sports Books Publisher) there are over 1500 quotations - and many of them cover the gamut of advice and inspiration. So if you are looking for the right words for the right sports or life situation - this book should work for you.

BACKLIST BEAUTIES: From Rich Marazzi Productions comes the winner: THE DVD "Win With Ruleball" which educates players, coaches and fans about the rules. It focuses on commonly misunderstood rules and explains how players and coaches can utilize the rulebook to win games. User friendly with a 26 chapter menu, the DVD is priced at $25 including postage. (Rich Marazzi Productions, 105 Pulaski Highway, Ansonia, CT 06401)

"Baseball Players of the 1950s" by Rich Marazzi and Len Fiorito (McFarland & Co., Inc., $55, 450 pages) has over 200 photographs and chronicles the lives and playing careers of all 1,560 players who appeared in a major league box score between 1950-1959. It is the most definitive and exhaustively researched book of the halcyon decade of the 1950s.

"How About That" by Stephen Borelli (SportsPublishing, $24.95, 257 pages) truly belongs on your sports bookshelf filled as it is with all kinds of "inside information" based on solid research and illuminating interviews. This is a "Ballantine Blast" and a "White Owl Wallop" of a book. Pick it up.

"Baseball's Most Wanted" Floyd Conner (Potomac Books) is a few years past its pub date but one to look for dealing with as it does all types of oddities, asides, lists and info on the national pastime.

More than 300 pages, filled with eye popping photographs - archival, contemporary in color and black and white, "100 Years of Football" by Pierre Lanfanchi (Weidenfeld and Nielson/Sterling Publisher is a lavish celebration and retrospective on 100 Years of FIFA Football. The book is a collectible and still available, from Sterling @ (212) 532 7160.

FIVE O'CLOCK LIGHTNING: BABE RUTH, LOU GEHRIG AND THE 1927 NEWYORK YANKEES, THE GREATEST BASEBALL TEAM EVER

COMING FALL 2007

FIVE O'CLOCK LIGHTNING: BABE RUTH, LOU GEHRIG AND THE 1927 NEWYORK YANKEES, THE GREATEST BASEBALL TEAM EVER.

Harvey Frommer brings the perceptive eye of an historian to what was arguablythe most feared batting order of all time. Add to that his contagious enthusiasmfor classic baseball and you have a most enjoyable book. -- Roger Kahn

The 1927 Yankees may or may not have been the best team ever, but surely thisis the best book about that wonderful concentration of talent. --George F. Will

A great eye for detail and a wonderful ability to bring his characters to life. Jonathan Eig, "The Luckiest Man"

Baseball's greatest team as recounted by baseball's greatest author. -- SethSwirsky, "Baseball Letters" and "Something to Write Home About"

Engrossing and entertaining look at a mythical baseball team. --LeighMontville, 'The Big Bam" Home run.

Sweet look back -- Dan Shaughnessy, "Senior Year"

The Book Review: Jonathan Eig's "Opening Day" and other Fine Reads

April 15, 2007 marks the 60th anniversary of the breaking of the color line by Jackie Robinson (and Branch Rickey). And rightly so Major League baseball and book publishers have taken note of the significance of the time with activities and new publications."Opening Day" by Jonathan Eig (Simon and Schuster, $26.00, 323 pages) is the best of the lot as it explodes myths, creates new awareness, spins an almost hypnotic narrative arc from its first page:
"April 10, 1947, The telephone rang like an alarm, waking Jackie Robinson from a deep sleep" and its last page "...Given a chance to change the world, he never hesitated, He played hard and won. After that it was a whole new ball game."
Reading "Opening Day" we are transported back to another time, another place, another world by a master story-teller. Buy this book!

"Branch Rickey, Baseball Revolutionary" by Lee Lowenfish (University of Nebraska Press, $34.95, 686 pages) is a mother lode of info about the man who along with Jackie Robinson broke baseball's color line. Lowenfish has done his homework here and it shows. We are with the man they called "the Mahatma" from cradle to grave. Scholarly, broad in its reach, this is the definitive book on the subject. A couple of small carps - the book is a bit pricey and also a bit repetitious. Scott Simon of NPR fame gives us "Jackie Robinson and the Integration of Baseball" (Wiley, $12.95, 168 pages, paper). Originally published in 2002, this is one of those brought out as timely reading as the headline on its cover says: "Celebrating the 60th Anniversary of Baseball's Integration."

For Red Sox fans especially - - a nice trip back in a kind of time machine is "Under a Grapefruit Sun" by Dan Valenti (Rounder, $27.95, 144 pages). This is a collection of photos and interviews and perception from the early 1980s when Valenti covered the Red Sox in spring training. This is a charming and enjoyable book, a look at much younger versions of Ted Williams, Roger Clemens, Yaz, Boggs and more.

Highly Notable: "The Voice: Mel Allen's Untold Story" by Curt Smith (Globe Pequot Press, $24. 956, 304 pages) is a book that belongs on your shelf. Detailed, definitive, dramatic - it is a splendid bio of the Hall of Fame Yankee broadcaster and "This Week in Baseball" superstar. Smith thankfully explodes some of the nasty myths about the man who was born in Alabama to Russian immigrants Anna Leibowitz and Julius Allen Israel. A lot of those genes went into the making of this man who had an impact on so many (Yankee) baseball fans. How about that!