Ebook The Lean Years of the Yankees 19651975 Robert W Cohen 9780786418466 Books
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The New York Yankees' history is filled with great achievements, outstanding performances, and unprecedented success. For more than 40 years, from 1921 to 1964, the Yankees and their fans had much to cheer about--the team won 29 pennants and 20 world championships and featured such greats as Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Bill Dickey, Yogi Berra and Whitey Ford. Yankee haters waited endlessly for the fall of the seemingly unbeatable team from New York, and finally, in 1965, the Yankees began to flounder. The team didn't win anything for the next eleven years. Each losing season, from 1965 through 1975, is fully covered in this book. The author maintains that in their long losing streak and mediocrity, the Yankees somehow acquired a more endearing quality that had not previously existed. The team that had once offered its fans Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Mantle and other greats now offered Bill Robinson, Danny Cater, Jerry Kenney and Jake Gibbs, and standouts Bobby Murcer, Mel Stottlemyre, Thurman Munson and Roy White--men who knew the Yankees' long and glorious history, but also knew first-hand the decade of frustration and disappointment that Yankees players and fans had to live through.
Ebook The Lean Years of the Yankees 19651975 Robert W Cohen 9780786418466 Books
"Let's face it, winning is a lot more fun than losing. This book does a nice job in documenting the PAINFUL downward spiral of baseball's greatest franchise--starting the 1965 and taking more than a decade to re-emerge as a contender. Almost 40 years removed from this time, it is not well understood nor appreciated by younger Yankee fans as to what happened. The seeds of the Yankees downfall actually began around 1960 when GM George Weiss (as well as manager Stengel) were canned. Owners Dan Topping and Del Webb had decided that they would cut back in scouting and player development expenses in order to save cash--so that the bottom line would improve---the owners had contemplated putting the team on the market. They stopped looking for the best young talent and by 1965 the farm system had dried up.
For the prior decade, the Yankees farm system was almost unsurpassed---bringing up fresh talent year after year or using prospects to trade for players such as Roger Maris, Clete Boyer, Bob Turley, Johnny Sain, etc. As the pipeline of young talent began to dry up, the Yankees stars--Mantle, Ford, Kubek, etc were aging or retired prematurely due to injuries. For those of us who remember the 1964 World series, we didn't realize it at the time, but this was the Yankees "last hurrah" until 1976. Compounding these problems was the new rule passed by Major League baseball which began the amateur draft----so no longer could the Yankees (even assuming they had the money or the will to do so, could no longer sign any player they wanted). At the same time this was happening, CBS bought the Yankees and while their were howls of outrage from sports writers and other owners (this was the first corporate ownership of a baseball team) that CBS' unlimited resources would give the Yankees an advantage--actually the reverse happened--CBS didn't understand how to run a baseball club and weren't inclined to spend money in any case.
Although 1965 looked like it would be more of the same (on paper, the Yankees still had many great players in the late '20s or early '30), the disasterious hiring of Johnny Keane as manager (and Yogi's firing) as a PR disaster and demoralized the players. The bumbling, lovable Mets became the darling of New York for the until the early 1970's.
The author contends that these consecutive losing years made the Yankees more lovable---nonsense. They couldn't compete with the Met's in this respect and comparing attendence figures bears this out. Not lovable--just lousy."
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The Lean Years of the Yankees 19651975 Robert W Cohen 9780786418466 Books Reviews :
The Lean Years of the Yankees 19651975 Robert W Cohen 9780786418466 Books Reviews
- The Yanks of that era were a lot of fun.
It was, I think, maybe '71-'72. I and my Met-fan buddy sat in the rightfield general-admission (were they still 75 cents?) Uecker seats. There was a guy a few rows in front of us two-fisting beers, totally pounding, tray after tray, inning after inning. And then he began puking. And man, was he ever a volcano! Blurching massive heaving waves of spew, a flood-tide of foam and battery acid and undigested weenie chunks. The patrons in the seats around him scattered as he shotgunned it in all directions. And it just went on and on and on... he'd empty (or so one would think) his belly of another load, hang his head between his legs for a few minutes, then bang! he'd begin convulsing and up would come another blast. Again, and again, this went on for innings. A true Guinness-book performance. Until finally he runs out of liquid but he's still retching, dry-heaving, to the point where it sounded like he was going to rip out his groin, and then miraculously voila! He coughs up an object which to this day I cannot identify-- a green GLOWING bolus made of lord-knows-what. I've never seen anything that color come out of a human body except maybe in "The Exorcist." It was literally luminescent! I don't think it was bile, or digested food, or a section of spleen. But whatever it was, getting it up and out finally ended the barf-o-rama. Guy sits slumped over a few minutes, recovering from his ordeal, eventually stands up, steps out into the aisle, and promptly slips in his own puddle of vomit. He goes flying headfirst down the Old Yankee Stadium upper-deck nosebleed-section concrete steps, rolling head-over heels, probably twenty rows, crack thud bang row after row until finally he comes crashing up against the upper-deck facade from which they hang the flag bunting. Ohmigod, he must be dead, no one could survive that fall. Nope. Amazingly, he gets slowly up, shakes the vomit he's rolled through off of himself like a wet dog, and goes stumbling off through the tunnel out into the concessions concourse to exit. We sit stunned by the magnitude of what we've just witnessed. The game no longer matters. THIS was the real thing-- the existential pageant on display-- human drama, and comedy, 75 cents truly well-spent this afternoon...
And the kicker? The ultimate cosmic punchline? The guy COMES BACK an inning later with another tray of beers! God's-honest-truth! We thought for sure they'd have to cart him away in an ambulance but no, there he is, bigger than life itself, covered in his own effluent, bruised and scraped, with another couple of quarts in his lap, diving back into the depths from which he had just moments earlier barely emerged alive. What a man! What a hero!
God, I loved the Old Yankee Stadium... - Let's face it, winning is a lot more fun than losing. This book does a nice job in documenting the PAINFUL downward spiral of baseball's greatest franchise--starting the 1965 and taking more than a decade to re-emerge as a contender. Almost 40 years removed from this time, it is not well understood nor appreciated by younger Yankee fans as to what happened. The seeds of the Yankees downfall actually began around 1960 when GM George Weiss (as well as manager Stengel) were canned. Owners Dan Topping and Del Webb had decided that they would cut back in scouting and player development expenses in order to save cash--so that the bottom line would improve---the owners had contemplated putting the team on the market. They stopped looking for the best young talent and by 1965 the farm system had dried up.
For the prior decade, the Yankees farm system was almost unsurpassed---bringing up fresh talent year after year or using prospects to trade for players such as Roger Maris, Clete Boyer, Bob Turley, Johnny Sain, etc. As the pipeline of young talent began to dry up, the Yankees stars--Mantle, Ford, Kubek, etc were aging or retired prematurely due to injuries. For those of us who remember the 1964 World series, we didn't realize it at the time, but this was the Yankees "last hurrah" until 1976. Compounding these problems was the new rule passed by Major League baseball which began the amateur draft----so no longer could the Yankees (even assuming they had the money or the will to do so, could no longer sign any player they wanted). At the same time this was happening, CBS bought the Yankees and while their were howls of outrage from sports writers and other owners (this was the first corporate ownership of a baseball team) that CBS' unlimited resources would give the Yankees an advantage--actually the reverse happened--CBS didn't understand how to run a baseball club and weren't inclined to spend money in any case.
Although 1965 looked like it would be more of the same (on paper, the Yankees still had many great players in the late '20s or early '30), the disasterious hiring of Johnny Keane as manager (and Yogi's firing) as a PR disaster and demoralized the players. The bumbling, lovable Mets became the darling of New York for the until the early 1970's.
The author contends that these consecutive losing years made the Yankees more lovable---nonsense. They couldn't compete with the Met's in this respect and comparing attendence figures bears this out. Not lovable--just lousy. - This is a great book for anyone who does not know Yankee history during this period. The author "Robert Cohen", does an excellent job explaining what happened each year from 1965 to 1975 in detail. He also explains the players background as well as where they ended up. This is a must read for any Yankees fan. Great read!!!! 5 Stars!!!
- Brought me back to my childhood!
- This tells the story of some lean years for all of us Yankee fans. For me it was the time that I became a Yankee fan and it brought back some very pleasant memories. Thank you Mr Cohen for rekindling some very pleasant memories for me!!!!!!
