I've only gotten through the first 10 pages of "The Yankee Years" (long day), so I'm still on the chapter entitled, "Underdogs." It deals with the 1996 team.
If I come across anything that stands out to me, I will post it here.
Page 6 mentions the David Cone negotiations during the 1995 offseason. Cone was ready to bolt to Baltimore, but those talks died over complications regarding deferred money and interest rates. George Steinbrenner, who was visiting a sick friend in the hospital, called Cone from the hospital's pay phone.
"We want you not just for this deal," Steinbrenner told Cone, "but for the rest of your career. Before your career is over with the Yankees, you will be pitching in a new ballpark on the West Side of Manhattan and I hope we're drawing three million people a year."Cone, as you know, left the Yankees after 2000 and signed with the Red Sox. The Yankees, meanwhile, drew at least 4 million fans in each of the final four years of the old Yankee Stadium.
And here's another one I enjoyed. Page 8 talks about Joe Torre's meeting with the team during the first day of spring training in 1996.
"All of my coaches have been to the World Series," Torre told the team. "That's what I want. But I don't want to win just one. I want to win three of them in a row. I want to establish something here that's special. I don't want to sacrifice principles and players to do it one time. I want to establish a foundation to be the kind of ballclub that is going to be able to repeat."Little did we know that Torre would actually fulfill that promise.
3 comments:
But for Torre's bullpen mismanagement, they would have won six WS.
The beauty of this whole "Mr. KEEP IT IN THE HOUSE letting out all the darkest secrets" controversy is that any player who has a different opinion can write a book of his own to rebut The Yankee Years.
Who can think of a better way to pump up the withering publishing industry?
It definitely worked. I wouldn't have bought the book had it not been all over the Internet and newspapers.
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