|
Chasing Steinbrenner: Pursuing the Pennant in Boston and Toronto |  | Author: Rob Bradford
Publisher: Potomac Books Inc.
Category: Book
List Price: $17.95
Buy New: $4.94
as of 9/9/2010 02:11 PDT details
You Save: $13.01 (72%)
New (7) Used (7) from $1.39
Seller: internationalbooks
Rating:  17 reviews
Sales Rank: 1846918
Media: Paperback
Edition: Revised
Pages: 316
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.8 x 5.8 x 0.9
ISBN: 1574888706
Dewey Decimal Number: 796
EAN: 9781574888706
ASIN: 1574888706
Publication Date: October 15, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
| |
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
| |
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
The most storied rivalry in baseball is the Yankees and the Red Sox, despite what had always seemed like an annual exercise in disappointment in New England. When Rob Bradford originally penned CHASING STEINBRENNER, he followed the Red Sox and Blue Jays in the wake of both teams pursuit of the Yankees in the 2003 season, and that years unhappy ending seemed no different than those of previous years. Bradford covered the young general managers of the Red Sox and Blue Jays, showing fans a season through the eyes of Bostons Theo Epstein and Torontos J. P. Ricciardi. Throughout the long march of the 2003 campaign, both men solved problems while relying on new ways of evaluating talent. With a blend of financial good sense, scouting know-how, and baseball analysis such as that pioneered by researchers Pete Palmer and Bill James, Epstein and Ricciardi did their best to chase the financially supercharged Yankees. Before the Red Sox caught the Yankees in 2004, they chased them in 2003. See the chase, and learn more about how they finally caught the Evil Empire.
|
| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 17
Up close January 2, 2010
WDX2BB (New York State)
"Chasing Steinbrenner" certainly came out of nowhere.
The book, subtitled "Pursuing the Pennant in Boston and Toronto," hasn't received a great deal of publicity since its release. I stumbled on it on a Web site, and I'm glad I did. This is the best up-close look at the life of a baseball general manager (two of them, in fact) in the present day that I've read so far.
Author Rob Bradford covers the Red Sox for the Lowell (Mass.) Sun, and apparently had a relationship with non-former Blue Jays' GM and former Massachusetts resident J.P. Ricciardi beforehand. In addition, he got to know current Red Sox GM Theo Epstein. The two general managers gave Bradford plenty of access to them and their assistants during the 2003 season, and this book is the result of that.
The theme of the book essentially is, how does a team try to compete with the New York Yankees (a.k.a. The Evil Empire) without having their resources? It applies to the Blue Jays in particular, since they have a much smaller payroll than the Yankees and Red Sox. But even Boston must make decisions based on budgets, as opposed to the more free-spending Yankees.
(One quick point: I don't want to imply that all of the Yankees' success is due to extra revenues. New York has an advantage in that department, but it has spent generally wisely over the years.)
So how do you try to chase George Steinbrenner's team? The Blue Jays and Red Sox have decided that smarts are the answers. It's pretty obvious that Ricciardi and Epstein are extremely intelligent people, based on the anecdotes in this book. They surround themselves with smart people, and they are willing to try any idea in an effort to help their respective teams win.
While reading this book, the reader gets to visit the executive offices of the teams, see the homes of the executives, listen in on trade negotiations, and go on scouting trips. If you didn't realize it already, you'll realize that chasing Steinbrenner is hard work.
There also are some good-sized profiles of players. For example, Bill Mueller's story was a remarkable one in 2003. The Red Sox signed him as a free agent in the previous winter, even though they didn't really have a position for him at the time. However, they figured they would trade incumbent third baseman Shea Hillenbrand for pitching at some point. When they did, sending him to Arizona, Mueller was waiting ... and he won the American League batting title. That's good scouting.
There's one little drawback to the book, in that it is rather episodic in nature. The "story" jumps from place to place in the season, without a great sense of drama building. If you followed the 2003 season and still remember the highlights, you probably can fill in the gaps in the story. But those who haven't memorized the ups and downs of the baseball campaign might not pick up everything.
For those who need a more introductory course into what baseball management is like these days, I would read "Moneyball" by Michael Lewis first. But this is an excellent second book on the subject, and most big baseball fans will zip through this book in no time.
Slightly myopic, but overall very good November 29, 2006
soxfan87
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
To be honest, I thought the actual content of this book was fantastic. It was really entertaining. I knocked it down to 4 stars because there are some grammatical mistakes, which I can't stand in published writing. The writing is overall pretty good, and there were only a few occasions where I had to stop and read a sentence 2 or 3 times to figure out what exactly was wrong with it so I could move on, but those times irritated me.
Rob Bradford provides a very involved look at the 2003 Red Sox and Blue Jays. A lot has happened since then, so the book is a little dated, but the close contact he had with Jays GM JP Ricciardi and Sox GM Theo Epstein is worth the price of the book alone. In terms of baseball analysis, there really isn't any, so if that's what you want, I'd recommend "Mind Game" or some other such Baseball Prospectus publication. But if you want an inside look at running a baseball team, replete with entertaining anecdotes (Theo's dad is a real piece of work), this is the book for you. Rob Bradford is not that great at involved sports analysis, but he's great at working with his subjects, which has me wondering why he's still stuck at the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune. After his exclusive interview with Sox owner John Henry last year, one would think the Herald or the Globe would come calling.
 Entertaining behind-the-scenes look January 10, 2005
D. Pevear (Winthrop, MA USA)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Though the Red Sox finally "caught" Steinbrenner (for one year at least), the frustrations and challenges of being a franchise forever obsessed with the Bronx Colossus remain. This book is as relevant now that the Red Sox have won their World Series title as it was when the sting of Aaron Boone was fresh. Rob Bradford provides the reader an entertaining look into the sub-$200 millon world of Red Sox GM Theo Epstein and his Toronto counterpart J.P. Ricciardi, Massachusetts natives both, who work to overcome Yankee dollars with good old-fashioned Yankee ingenuity , and yes, luck. After all, Theo was heartbroken over losing Jose Contreras to the Yankees. It's all in the book.
A good read.
 Very Disappointing January 8, 2005
Noah (Boston, MA)
7 out of 11 found this review helpful
I'm a huge Red Sox fan, so the idea of a behind the scenes look at the team really appealed to me. And, I read a lot of baseball books, so I'm used to tolerating mediocre writing in order to get my fix. This book, however, was just awful. Unreadable. Bradford's final product reads like a college freshman's first draft. He simply doesn't have enough ability. You'll find yourself reading a paragraph and then stopping to wonder incredulously, who writes like that, and why didn't his editor stop him? Unfortunately, the problems didn't really show up in the excerpt available here, so now I'm out twenty-five bucks.
Before you disregard this warning and buy it anyway, ask yourself a couple questions. Why would a book that should have a similar appeal to Michael Lewis's bestseller, Moneyball, end up with a tiny publisher like Brassey's? Because the other publishers wouldn't take it, that's why. Why can't you find it in the brick and mortar bookstores? Because those stores won't stock it, that's why. And finally, have a look at Dan Shaughnessy's blurb on the back cover. Talk about damned with faint praise. I ignored the signs because I really wanted to like this book, but it really isn't worth your time or money. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but it's better for you to hear it now.
For the diehard in all of us December 31, 2004
John A. Mckeon (Red Sox Nation, MA, USA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I received Chasing Steinbrenner for Christmas and, being a 40-year fan of the Red Sox, I enjoyed the read immensely. Knowing the joyous outcome of the 2004 MLB season made reading about Theo's first season as GM enjoyable. I don't think I could have read it had the Red Sox -gulp- lost to the Yankees in 2004. We know the amazing story of the 2004 season, and Bradford's entertaining and informative book gives us the inside story of the ups and downs of two franchises, the Blue Jays and Red Sox, that led to Aaron "What's the Big Deal?" Boone's 2003 ALCS Game 7 homerun. Bradford gives readers the stories-behind-the-stories of some of the deals that, in retrospect, led to the 2004 World Series championship. What if Theo had succeeded in signing Jose Contreras or did not obtain Kevin Millar? There's no Game 4 comeback in the ALCS. The details of the players' lives and the focus on certain 2003 games allow diehard fans to relive, without anguish, from whence the 2004 championship came. Bradford's chapter on Theo's first game as GM makes me believe that one day Carl Crawford will be stealing bases and hitting walk-off HRs for the Red Sox.
Juxtaposing Toronto's general manager J.P. Ricciardi, his limited resources, and Blue Jay fans with Boston's young general manager, sizable yet still somewhat limited revenue, and the Red Sox maniacal fan base allows readers access to the front office machinations about which newspapers, television, and radio shows only speculate.
For fans, Bradford opens the front office doors. He also opened my eyes that the GM's care as much if not more than many of the diehards. Read it and no longer weep!
Showing reviews 1-5 of 17
|
|
|
CERTAIN CONTENT THAT APPEARS ON THIS SITE COMES FROM AMAZON SERVICES LLC. THIS CONTENT IS PROVIDED ‘AS IS’ AND IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE OR REMOVAL AT ANY TIME.
| |
