October Men: Reggie Jackson, George Steinbrenner, Billy Martin, and the Yankees' Miraculous Finish in 1978 Review

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October Men: Reggie Jackson, George Steinbrenner, Billy Martin, and the Yankees' Miraculous Finish in 1978 ReviewI bought this book because I thought Boys of Summer was one of the greatest baseball books I've ever read, I love the Yankees, and the 1978 Yankee story is a great tale to tell, particularly in the hands of a good storyteller like Kahn. Unfortunately, the formula did not work. What we have here is a mess. Kahn does a terrible job with a great story. The text is peppered with an unnecessarily high proportion of Kahn's pretentious opinions on everything under the sun. I found his knock on David Halbertsam particularly odd, since Kahn seems to be trying to mimic Halberstam's approach to telling the story of the 1964 World Series by focusing primarily on the distict individuals involved rather than trying to tell a chronological history; the only difference is that Halberstam pulled it off while Kahn presents a disjointed series of seemingly unrelated topics. For example, he tries to tell the history of baseball in his prologue, tying that somehow to the 1978 season, but as a reader I was never sure what it all meant. In addition, Kahn focuses on the most idiotic details possible. Do we really have to know that Hoss Radbourne dies of syphilis in 1897 or the name of the girl that Cleon Jones got caught with in a van during spring training? The connection that Kahn draws from the latter incident to the 1978 Yanks is weak at best and is not worthy of coverage at all in comparison to other relevant topics that are infinitely more interesting. Kahn then spends well over half the book "working up" to the 1978 Yankee season, which (by what the cover said) was supposed to be the topic of this book. I normally wouldn't have minded that, because the years leading up to 1978 were also interesting times for Yankee fans. The problem is that Kahn totally blows it here. He does a horrible job of telling the story of how the 1978 team was built and misses several key events and influences. The 1978 team was built painstakingly over a thirteen-year period, beginning with the arrival of Bobby Murcer in 1965 and Thurman Munson in 1969, nurtured by the arrival of Sparky Lyle in 1972 and Graig Nettles in 1973, and supercharged with the arrival of George Steinbrenner and Gabe Paul in 1973. Kahn, for such a self-described insider, misses many influences (some subtle, some not) - the role and influence of Bill Virdon, Bobby Bonds, Elliot Maddox, how the Yankees changed from a medicore club where losing was cheerfully tolerated to the revival of the winningest sports franchise in history, culminating with the conclusion of the 1978 season.
I'm not sure what to make of this book. As a work of history it is useless - much better histories of that era of the Yankees have already been written. As entertainment is is also weak - Sparky Lyle's "Bronx Zoo" was much better in this regard. I was hoping for a engaging read, but instead found myself forcing myself to bull my way through it for fear of wasting my money and in the hope that it would get better. It didn't. Baseball fans - spare yourself the pain and save your money.October Men: Reggie Jackson, George Steinbrenner, Billy Martin, and the Yankees' Miraculous Finish in 1978 Overview

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