“Bums” and “Dynasty” SPORTS BOOK REVIEW

Peter Golenbock is one of the most widely published and highly regarded sports authors in the business. I have read (and reviewed) most of the terrific tomes he has penned.

Now from Dover Publications comes “Bums” and “Dynasty” – two of the best the prolific Dartmouth alum has written. Both have new lives in attractive paperback formats. Both are sensibly priced at $19.95. Both merit a special place on your sports bookshelf.

“Bums,” 0riginally published in 1984, has a splendid preface by Paul Dickson and is a true page turner about a beloved team and a special era in baseball history. The Brooklyn Dodgers come back to life through Golenbock’s concise and incisive prose and oral histories conducted with such as Rachel Robinbson, Larry King, Roy Campanella, Carl Erskine, Roger Kahn, Clem Labine, Karl Spooner and many, many more.

The team the Dodgers of Brooklyn could never beat in the world series until 1955 – the New York Yankees – is given its due in “Dynasty,” originally published in 1975. The book’s focus is the Bronx Bombers of 1949-1964. We are there in the stirring chronological account with Joe DiMaggio, Yogi Berra, Whitey Fors, Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Casey Stengel, Elston Howard, Billy Martin and more. We are there through the on field heroics and the off stage controversies.

I have written a great deal about both teams and about the time period that Peter Golenbock has covered. So I say with certainty that “Bums” and “Dynasty” are two gems that have only become more glistening, more appealing, more valuable through time.
VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

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Harvey Frommer is in his 34th consecutive year of writing sports books. "The prolific Frommer has a PhD in media and communications from New York University and his thesis focused on culture and sports." A noted oral historian and sports journalist, the author of 40 sports books including the classics: "New York City Baseball,1947-1957" and "Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball," his acclaimed REMEMBERING YANKEE STADIUM, an oral/narrative history (Abrams, Stewart, Tabori and Chang) was published in 2008 as well as a reprint version of his classic "Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball." Frommer's newest work CELEBRATING FENWAY PARK: AN ORAL AND NARRATIVE HISTORY OF THE HOME OF RED SOX NATION is next.
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