About this item
The untold story of the time when the New York Yankees were a laughingstock - and how out of that abyss emerged the modern Yankees dynasty, one of the greatest in all of sports The New York Yankees have won 27 world championships and 40 American League pennants, both world records. They have 26 members in the Hall of Fame. Their pinstripe swag is a symbol of "making it" worn across the globe. Yet some 25 years ago, from 1989 to 1992, the Yankees were a pitiful team at the bottom of the standings, sitting on a 14-year World Series drought and a 35 percent drop in attendance. To make the statistics worse, their mercurial, bombastic owner was banned from baseball. But out of these ashes emerged a modern Yankees dynasty, a juggernaut built on the sly, a brilliant mix of personalities, talent, and ambition. In Chumps to Champs, Pennington reveals a grand tale of revival. Readers encounter larger than life characters like George Steinbrenner and unexplored figures like Buck Showalter, three-time manager of the year, Don Mattingly, and the crafty architect of it all - general manager, Gene Michael, who assembled the team's future stars - Rivera, Jeter, Williams, O'Neill, and Pettitte. Drawing on unique access, Pennington tells a wild and raucous tale.
About the Author
BILL PENNINGTON is an award-winning sportswriter for The New York Times. A former syndicated columnist, Pennington was a beat writer who covered much of Billy Martin's tenure with the New York Yankees. A 14-time finalist and six-time winner of the Associated Press Sports Editors annual writing award, Pennington lives with his family in Warwick, New York. This is his fourth book. A CONVERSATION WITH BILL PENNINGTONWhy did you decide to write this biography about BILLY MARTIN? As a young reporter in the mid-1980s, I was a traveling beat writer with the Yankees and covered two seasons when Billy was manager. I knew him well, and even 25 years after his death, I always considered him one of the most magnetic, entertaining, sensitive, humane, brilliant, insecure, paranoid, dangerous, irrational and unhinged people I had ever met. He was a completely unforgettable character and personality and I always wondered if I would write a biography of him. It seemed like his story needed a little time to percolate and to find its place in history.Finally, with the perspective of time - and a little nudging from my editor - I knew it was time to tell the whole story of a complex, flawed, renowned, and yet largely misunderstood, figure in American sports.What was your relationship with Billy Martin? For years, we were together for hours daily before and after games, even longer during spring training or on the road when I accompanied Billy on countless team planes or buses (beat writers traveled with the pro teams in those days) . He and I were friendly, albeit more like business associates. I knew his many moods, his pet peeves and little known interests, like Western-themed novels and Civil War history.What research did you perform for the book? I spent nearly three years researching the book. In addition to persuading each of Billy's four wives to communicate with me - something no other journalist has done for a book or article -- I interviewed nearly 250 people, going as far back as Billy's childhood friends from the 1930s in Berkeley, California. I spoke with his minor league teammates from the 1940s and dozens of his teammates and enemies when he was a star player for the Yankees in the 1950s. I retraced each of his managerial stops from Denver to Minnesota to Detroit to Texas to New York to Oakland and back to New York during four more stints in the dugout. I conducted dozens of interviews with players, coaches, rivals, umpires and team executives in each of those cities. I benefitted from the cooperation of Billy's only son, Billy Joe, and Billy's sisters, brother and many cousins. Moreover, I returned to the site of his fatal 1989 auto accident and talked with dozens of people living in upstate New York - like Billy's housekeeper and neighbors - who spent ample time with him in his final days.The baseball community is a large but tight circle. I lived within it for two decades before branch
