By Peter Lathan - It Happened on Broadway is a collection of interviews with 107 Broadway luminaries, including Carol Channing, Betty Buckley, Joel Grey, John Kander, Fred Ebb, James Hammerstein (son of Oscar), Mary Rodgers (daughter of Richard) and Kitty Carlisle Hart (widow of Moss). It tells the story of Broadway from the point of view of those who were deeply involved in its development as the centre of American theatre. It takes us behind the public faces and into the private thoughts and feelings of the stars, writers, composers, directors, producers, designers, press agents, playwrights, and even the restauranteurs (Vincent Sardi Jr. is there, too). It tells about the great successes (and some of the spectacular flops). It reveals much about the great writers - Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II, Moss Hart, Irving Berlin, Cy Coleman - and the performers - the portrait of Carol Channing in her own words is stunning. And we see the great directors and choreographers - my own favourite, Bob Fosse, is talked about at length - through the eyes of those who worked with them. I thoroughly enjoyed it. What this book shows very clearly is the deep love of theatre, of live performance, which these Broadway luminaries share with the rest of us. In their words I could hear echoes of myself and all of my theatre friends.

"It Happened On Broadway" is nothing short of living, breathing theatre history. Carol Channing's first appearance on stage at a grammar school in San Francisco; Patricia Neal's subsistence jobs cutting pies and scooping ice cream while waiting for her career to bloom (which really didn't take all that long by today's standards); the advent of the Theatre Guild; Celeste Holm and John Raitt on creating the grand-daddy of musical theatre, Oklahoma; Kim Hunter on Marlon Brando; Donna McKechnie on Michael Bennett; Linda Lavin on Neil Simon and Len Cariou on Stephen Sondheim, it's all in there.

"It Happened On Broadway" is told by those who have spent the past 50 years in the trenches, the actors, designers, press agents, choreographers, directors, and even their offspring. With vintage photos, drawings, posters and Playbills the Frommer's provide us with a look at theatre history from a time when $1.50 would buy you a movie and six or eight vaudeville acts to the impact of the AIDS crisis on the theatre community to the vast corporate culture now responsible for many of today's Broadway shows. An invaluable and engrossing book for anyone interested in an insiders perspective on the business of the Great White Way.

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"Myrna Katz Frommer and Harvey Frommer have penned their fourth oral history: IT HAPPENED ON BROADWAY. The Frommers are considered the quintessential word-of-mouth authors of modern-day America. In this book they take the reader from the dramatic successes of the years before and after World War II, through heralded rise of the book-musical in the 50s, the great dance musicals, up to the current trend of the long-running mega-hit. Lavishly illustrated with rare photographs, playbills, set designs and tons of hand-delivered memorabilia, the book ultimately finds itself standing alone as the only history of the Great White Way told by those who actually lived it. A narrative historical composite has been drawn with photos and interviews of actors, directors, producers, set designers, stage managers, publicists, composers, lyricists and playwrights (not to mention highlights by well known newspaper and radio critics). Among some of the high points are Kim Hunter's remembering her onstage mishap with Marlon Brando in the original production of "A Streetcar Named Desire." Donna McKechnie's discussion of "A Chorus Line," and her backstage relationship with its creator Michael Bennett, and the breaking-in stories of Richard Kiley, Leslie Uggams, Jerry Herman, Betty Buckley and Carol Channing."

To gather material for the book, Myrna and Harvey Frommer conducted over 100 interviews. Among those who contributed their personal recollections are an ex-ticket taker at Ebbets Field, a former Mr. America, a Baptist pastor, a retired garment worker, and an opera star. Their stories evoke a special place and time, a more innocent era when Brooklyn really was the world. Although that world is gone, the Frommers' book brings it all vividly back to life.

The inspiration for the Frommers' new celebratory album came about as they were traveling around the country to promote It Happened in the Catskills. They kept meeting people who, like themselves, were born and bred in Brooklyn. " We could be in places as diverse as Los Angeles, Brenham, Texas, and Canaan, New Hampshire, and invariably we's run into prople from Brooklyn. As soon as the connection was discovered, it was always the same question: What high school did you go to?, followed by memories of that special Dodger game, of trying clothes on the floor of he original Loehmann;s on Bedford Avenue, of eating the shorefront dinner at Lundy's or Nathan's franks in Coney Island, or the incomparable Ebinger's blackout cake. When we finished the Catskill book, which was filled with stories by Brooklynites, we thought it might be a good idea to apply the same interactive oral history approach to a book on Brooklyn, and try to discover what there was about life in the borough at mid-century that still exerts such a powerful pull."

I just finished the book and I enjoyed it so much. Its easy to see why
Brooklyn has been the inspriation for so many novels and movies.

It was so interesting to see how so many different ethnic groups had such
similar stories of growing up. A real shared memory .

Well this book is a treasure and I am so glad to have it.

Satisfies a persistent hunger for details about the inner workings of New York City, shared by the native and outsider alike. Frommer and Frommer have assembled a playful, interestingly arranged, and stimulating collection of extracts from oral histories. Organized topically, the comments span such issues as street life, school life, the not-so-private worlds of Brooklyn apartment dwellers, Coney Island, ethnicity, and assimilation. Over 100 voices include famous entertainers (e.g., Betty Comden, Jerry Stiller, and Marvin Kaplan), obscure teachers and school principals, and ordinary individuals. Asked to reflect on the three decades between World War II and Viet Nam, they offer comments that add up to a mosaic of the life and extraordinary times of a borough.

FROM;
BOY OF SUMMER.COM

Harvey Frommer's Rickey and Robinson, recently re-released in paperback (Taylor Trade Publishing, $18.95), has lost none of its poignancy in the two decades that have elapsed since the first edition in 1982. The new forward by Hall of Famer Monte Irvin underscores the history lesson that none of us should ever forget: Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey made Michael Jordan and Jim Brown and Wilt Chamberlain and a host of other African-American athletic superstars' careers possible.
Sure, the color line was bound to fall at some point, but this story is more than just a case of being in the right place at the right time. As Frommer details in Rickey and Robinson, Branch Rickey spent years planning the 'stunt' he pulled on 15 April 1947. He had a seven-step plan that started way back in 1943, that had been carefully orchestrated, with the player painstakingly chosen, at the expense of great financial and other resources, to maximize the possibility of the Experiment's success.

Frommer's book outlines not just the events of the meeting of these two men, but starts you out with their respective upbringings, their backgrounds and histories, so that the reades has the feeling that he has at least known, if not lived, some of the joys and hardships of these two mens lives even before the events that would forever associate their names int he record books. You get to learn about Robinson's family history in Georgia, and upbringing in southern California, as well as his exploits in collegiate sports and the Negro leagues. You get to learn about Branch Rickey's country bumpkin background, his religious and political convictions, and his achievements in St. Louis before he ever came to Brooklyn. You even get to learn what each of them did after they left the Dodgers organization, how their passions drove them to strive for what they believed in even when most ordinary men would simply have conceded to diabetes, or retirement.

For that matter, you may get a little too much in the way of details. Make no mistake, Frommer's thorough and engaging research is a trademark of his work. His quotes from Rachel Robinson, Roy Campanella, Walter O'Malley, Irving Rudd, Mal Goode, Pee Wee Reese, Monte Irvin, and so many others help the reader to feel like he's getting a first-hand account of the events from those who lived them. Heck, I guess you are. But if you start reading the book hoping only to learn what Jackie's first year was like, you'll be in way over your head. Besides, you should know better than to think that Frommer would leave you with so truncated an account of such a significant occurrence in American History. Shame on you.

The book, as always, is well written. Eloquent without being excessively verbose (I suppose I could learn a thing or two about writing from Frommer myself!), Frommer is nothing if not a great author, and shows no disdain for the vernacular. But he also has a sense of the importance of his subject, and does not leave stones unturned where there are questions. He doesn not play up mythological events (like Reese's alleged gesture of freindship toward Robinson in Cincinnati) and does not seem to take a side on most of the political and personal conflicts depicted in the book. In all, this seems a fair and even-handed account, if not without Frommer's (also trademarked) slant toward new York sports. Can't say that I blame him.

Now more than thirty years after Robinson's death at the age of only 53, more athletes, not just the black ones, would be well served to remember the debt they owe these two great men.

Reading Rickey and Robinson would be a good start.

From Black Athlete Sports Netwrok
This N' That with Tony Mack:
Book Review: Rickey and Robinson

-"It is not the critic who counts, nor the man who points out where the strong man stumbles, nor where the doer of deeds could have done better. On the contrary, the credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena -- whose vision is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives vallantly; who errs and comes up again and again; who knows the greatest devotions; the great enthusiasms; who at best knows in the end of the triumph of high achievement."

-- Theodore Roosevelt

Harvey Frommer lived in Brooklyn that summer in 1947 when two men, one black and one white, came together to right a long overdue wrong in the sport of baseball. Just two years removed from the end of World War II, the climate in America and the world had taken on a major change.

More than 50 years later, Frommer gives us a brief snapshot of the life and times of Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey. Blending exclusive interviews with Rachel Robinson, Mack Robinson (Jackie's brother), Hall of Famers Monte Irvin, Duke Snider, Pee Wee Reese, Roy Campanella, Ralph Kiner, and others, Frommer evokes the lives of Brooklyn Dodgers manager Branch Rickey and heralded baseball player Jackie Robinson to describe how they worked to shatter baseball's color line.

"Rickey and Robinson: The Men Who Broke Baseball's Color Barrier" gives a vivid account on the lives of these two men and how their collaboration helped bring change to the game of baseball and to society. "Many Blacks had just returned home from the war, including Jackie", said Frommer. "They had just served their country in a war and were tired of being considered second-class citizens."

In an excerpt from the book, Frommer talks about that day in April when Robinson played his first game in Brooklyn:

"With the blue number 42 on the back of his Brooklyn Dodger home uniform, Jackie Robinson took his place at first base at Ebbets Field on April 15, 1947. It was 32 years to the day since Jack Johnson had become the first black heavyweight champion of the world."

Writer James Baldwin had noted: "Back in the thirties and forties, Joe Louis was the only hero that we ever had. When he won a fight, everybody in Harlem was up in heaven. On that April day the large contingent of blacks in the crowd of nearly 40, 000 had another hero to be "up in heaven" about, another hero to stand beside Joe Louis."

Frommer's book also examines the decisions and oppositions that existed during a time when black athletes underwent the kind of scrutiny that would be embarrassing to this day. In many instances, we can still see them existing in a subtle fashion now, but it showed how Robinson had to be the first to endure such indignities.

"Rickey and Robinson" is a dual biography tracing the convergence of the lives of two of baseball's most influential individuals in a special moment in sports and cultural history.

For anyone that wants to learn and grasp the period that these two men lived, this book does an excellent job of weaving that story.

I highly recommend that you check this book out.

This year has been very, very good to baseball books. Harvey Frommer: "Rickey and Robinson" (Taylor paperback). This recent re-release of Frommer's 1982 hardcover shows it to have lost none of its relevance. The book tells the story of Jackie Robinson's breaking of baseball's color line, and the important role played by Dodger general manager Branch Rickey in getting Robinson into the majors. -

On city streets and suburban sandlots, millions of boys have played the nation's game. Growing Up Baseball recounts the stories of those few whose childhood dreams of playing in the big leagues came true.

Noted oral historian Harvey Frommer joins his son Frederic in collecting interviews and published commentary together with photographs to create the first thorough oral history of the "growing up" years of baseball's greatest heroes. Readers will discover new experiences in the words of those who lived them, including:
-- Bob Feller, the winningest pitcher in Cleveland Indians history
-- George "Sparky" Anderson, the only manager ever to have won championships in both leagues
-- Monte Irvin, who was already past 30 years of age when he made his major league debut in 1949
-- Jim Palmer, who won three Cy Young Awards and four Gold Gloves with eight 20-win seasons

In addition, Growing Up Baseball features interviews with singular figures such as Bobby Thomson, Don Larsen, Red Murff, Keith Hernandez, Mel Parnell, and Ralph Kiner, and is framed with inspiring commentary by coaches, relatives, teachers, friends, rivals, and scouts.

Growing Up Baseball contains a rich and varied montage of memories from players and fans across generations and cultures. Compelling, informative, and overflowing with a deep and abiding love of America's Pastime, it will delight and inspire anyone who's ever treasured a well-worn glove or thrilled to the crack of a bat.

Growing Up Baseball is the first oral history that reveals the dreams of a select few who actually made it to the major leagues. In their own words, players like Nolan Ryan, Bob Feller, "Sparky" Anderson, Jim Palmer, and Bob Tewksbury share their early memories of playing catch with their dads or baseball with their brothers in the neighborhood or on the farm. These experiences ignited the dream and indelibly shaped the futures of the sixty-nine players highlighted in this book authored by father and son, Harvey and Frederic Frommer. During their first-hand interviews, the authors discovered such interesting facts as:
•Dom DiMaggio polished his fielding skills playing catch with brother Joe on the steep hills of San Francisco
•Bob Feller was lucky to have a father who built him a complete baseball field in a pasture on their Des Moines, Iowa far m in 1930-the first "Field of Dreams."
•Keith Hernandez started at age five to catch and hit tennis balls thrown to him by his minor league infielder father.
•Monte Irvin played many years in the Negro Leagues until his dream of making it to the majors came true at age 51.
•Bob Tewksbury still has memories of wet baseballs from playing in the early spring snows of New Hampshire.
From baseball's greatest players to those less frequently remembered, the heart-warming stories in Growing Up Baseball are a reminder that there is a time in a player's career when everything seems possible.

I thoroughly enjoyed GROWING UP BASEBALL. It was definitely a memorable reading experience. --David Dewse

New York City Baseball tells about how the Dodgers, Giants and Yankees dominated the late 40's and early 50's baseball.
I really enjoyed the opening chapters discussing the reasons for the departure of the Giants and Dodgers to the west coast.
It made me feel really in on the move.
The rest of the books talks about the feuds, history and outcomes of the seasons metioned.
Frommer is a gifted writer and it was a pity that the book had to end.
There are some neat photos and I would reccommend this book right up there with Dynasty (about the Yankees).

y Harvey Frommer, 1992, 219 pps, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. At one time New York had three major league teams: the Yankees, Giants and Dodgers. What a time! In the days after World War II, some of the most heady times ever in the city, there was one incredible Baseball Decade. From 1946-57 the New York teams owned baseball. Relive the golden days of the 1950s in this amazing account. And loaded with photos and stats that fans love. Here's to you, Jackie Robinson and Joe DiMaggio.

Don't hesitate to buy this marvelous book. It told with an exact and actually atmosphere everything about NYC baseball... when the Giants were called 'Polo Grounders' and the Dodgers 'Da Bums'. The dramatic move also is well explained.

Myrna Katz Frommer and Harvey Frommer look back to an earlier period of New York's history in 'It Happened in Manhattan.' Subtitled 'an oral history of life in the city during the mid-twentieth century,' the book covers a period from the end of World War II to the mid-1970s. Ordinary people and New York celebrities reminisce about the architectural and culinary glories of Manhattan and about the personalities and institutions that dominated business and the arts in those decades. Exclusively black-and-white photographs illustrate this backward glance at New York in the innocent '50s and the adventurous '60s and '70s.

No, this is not a quickie paperback rushed into print after September 11.
The Frommers' book, subtitled An Oral History of Life in the City During the Mid-Twentieth Century, is a loving look at a Manhattan that now seems impossibly distant, a Manhattan whose citizens worried about open admissions at City College and how they felt about the Beatles and whether they could afford to live on the East Side'but never about terrorist bombers. It is a Manhattan now lost to us forever, a Manhattan to be recollected in tranquility and cherished as never before.
The Frommers' mid-twentienth century ranges from the early post-World War II years to the mid-1970s, when the city nearly went bust. Like their earlier books (It Happened in the Catskills, It Happened in Brooklyn, It Happened on Broadway), this one is an oral history, an irresistible collection of interviews with Manhattanites rich and poor, talented and ordinary, famous and unknown, clearly united in their unanimous conviction that Manhattan was, is, and always will be the most exciting place on earth.
Here is a New York in which the Third Avenue el still existed and traffic on Fifth Avenue ran both ways, in which eleven daily newspapers covered the city beat and Walter Winchell and Ed Sullivan covered café society; in which proper young working girls still wore hats and white gloves and businesswomen couldn't get bank loans; in which Lincoln Center was going up and Penn Station was coming down and SoHo was still a dream in a gallery owner's eye.
Here are Jewish kids growing up on the Lower East Side, black kids growing up in Harlem, Italian kids growing up in the Bronx with Manhattan only a fifteen-cent train ride away. Here are politicians and performers, priests and rabbis, press agents and jazz musicians, restaurateurs and fashion designers and Tin Pan Alley songwriters, all talking in that excited New Yorker way about what a great time they had in their great city. You can almost see the hands waving.
Not many of these voices will be known to those unlucky enough never to have lived in Manhattan. Jimmy Breslin and Pauline Trigère and Robert Merrill and Jane Jacobs, most likely, but not that many others. Who but a Manhattanite will know Elaine Kaufman as the owner of a restaurant called Elaine's? Who outside of the advertising business will recognize Jerry Della Femina? Who but a New Yorker will remember the political ins and outs that brought us Robert Moses and Robert Wagner, Abe Beame and John Lindsay?
It really doesn't matter. with their tales of chocolate egg creams and 15-cent subway rides and standing room only at the old Met, are as stirring as those of the famous. The content . . . all of it is so fascinating.
As for that other thing that happened in Manhattan on September 11, there is one tiny reference to the World Trade Center toward the end of the book by Daily News sports cartoonist Bill Gallo: 'I always thought of buildings like heavyweight champions. The Empire State Building was the champion. Then the Twin Towers came up, and you felt sorry for the Empire State Building. That was still your champion.'
And is once again.

Contrary to the popular notion, nostalgia is pretty much what it's always been, judging by the latest offering from the Frommers ('It Happened on Broadway' 1998, etc.). The professors Frommer (Liberal Arts/Dartmouth) have gathered interviews with iconoclastic New Yorkers Jerry Della Femina, Robert Merrill, Jimmy Breslin, Monte Irvin, Elaine Kaufman, Saul Zabar, and 57 others. They recall life in Manhattan from the end of World War II to the mid seventies. The New York of wonder is evoked once more with as in Proust, the reference to indigenous food (e.g., entrees at Le Pavilion or classic egg creams). And from Harlem to Wall Street, Washington Heights to Greenwich Village, there are old churches and delis gone by, the surviving Guggenheim and the lost Automats, Lincoln Center newly built and Lewisohn Stadium since gone. There are shopkeepers with pencil stubs behind their ears and practitioners of the rag trades, artists, sportswriters, and gossip columnists. The memorists speak with the distinct flavor of Yiddish or of Italian. And there's a Hispanic rhythm and that of Lenox Avenue too. Study the ladies in gloves, the gents in fedoras, the haberdashers' billboards, the movie marquees, the street furniture. Self-congratulatory oral history, garrulous nostalgia, and great fun for those who recall the days of Tin Pan Alley and three baseball teams in one small, favored place

The New York Yankees are the most popular and successful franchise in major league baseball history. They have boasted such legendary performers as Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford, and Reggie Jackson. Those great players and teams can all be found in The New York Yankee Encyclopedia, the most complete record of Yankee baseball ever published.

The New York Yankees are the most popular and successful franchise in major league baseball history. They have boasted such legendary performers as Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford, and Reggie Jackson. Those great players and teams can all be found in The New York Yankee Encyclopedia, the most complete record of Yankee baseball ever published. From their humble beginnings in 1903 as the Highlanders through nine decades of unforgettable players, teams, and classic games, noted baseball author and historian Harvey Frommer has compiled everything about the history and lore of this fabled club in the one book no true Yankee fan can afford to be without.

An in-depth volume that include statistics on every Yankee player and manager, more than 250 classic photos, chapters on different Yankee eras, rivalries, ball parks, and much more

In their heyday in the 1940s and '50s, the Catskills, in New York's Sullivan and Ulster counties, were less a place than a state of mind, according to the Frommers. In their wonderful collection of reminiscences by those who worked and played the mountains, anyone who ever vacationed there will find something between nostalgia and heartburn - or, perhaps, just hunger for borscht, the red-beet soup that became a staple at the region's most famous resort, Grossinger's.

This exuberant oral history of what Jewish comedians used to call the Borscht Belt re-creates a world now gone--a New York State vacation haven in the middle decades of this century primarily to New York City Jews. The Frommers, who collaborated on The Games of the 23rd Olympiad, have transcribed reminiscences of owners, executives, workers, entertainers and guests of establishments like Grossinger's, the Concord and the Nevele, which lured visitors as diverse as Nelson Rockefeller and an Indian maharajah and served as a proving ground for the developing talents of Milton Berle, Red Buttons, Neil Sedaka, Tony Martin and even opera star Robert Merrill. Besides stories of life in glamorous hotels, the coauthors recount adventures in the more modest bungalow colonies and smaller spots among the 500 resorts that populated the area. A wealth of ethnic jokes and photos also fill this unqualified treat.

While working at the Nevele Country Club, one of the many legendary Catskill resorts covered in this magnificent document, I briefly met Myrna and Harvey Frommer while doing their research. They probably don't remember me, I was too young at the time to offer the kind of history they were looking for, but the pair's enthusiasm and obvious love for the area's resorts and their unique (now long gone) familial atmosphere was readily apparent. When I finally got to read this book, it provided me with a sense of pride for being a part of its history. There's even an ancient picture of my father playing sax in the old Art Kahn Orchestra! But aside from personal connections, this book stands as a definitive oral history of an era. The people interviewed are true insiders, some of them legends in their own right among Catskill lore. And while the book provides some deep sociological perspective concerning its ethnic background, the authors know how to balance this with charming, amazing and often sidesplitting anecdotes. If you ever spent a weekend at Grossinger's, The Concord, The Nevele or one of the dozens of small bungalow colonies, this book will wash you in warm memories. And if you didn't have the chance, it will make you wish you did.

This is just a heck of a book - the best of all the Yankee books out there. As the flap copy says: "There are picks and profiles of the greatest (and worst) Yankee teams-sure to get a few arguments going. There are quotes, a quiz, lists, trivia, and tributes-as well as tales of fierce rivalries and unforgettable moments." A Yankee Century has it all

Winning more regular season games than any other franchise in the history of baseball, including 38 American League championships and 26 World Series, no team both defined and dominated the sport of baseball in the 20th century as did the New York Yankees. A Yankee Century captures the wonder and mystique that surrounds the team in a detailed album of stories, statistics, biographies, quotes and pictures. Harvey Frommer, a longtime Yankees fan, recreates the frequent highs and few lows of the franchise in an entertaining and accessible manner, relying on countless interviews with the players and coaches that made the Yankees great. The book is divided into a number of diverse sections detailing different aspects of the Yankees, including timelines, memorable moments, rosters, stadiums, and a 100-question quiz. An account by fan Barry Deutsch gives an example of both the power that the Yankees held and the passion that they inspired in their fans throughout the century:

When I was a kid growing up in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn, there was no television. You saw occasional glimpses of baseball games in newsreels. You traded baseball cards. But mainly, you listened to the radio and envisioned what was going on. My becoming a Yankee fan had a lot to do with hearing Mel Allen on the radio. I liked his mellifluous voice, the way he described the game and talked about the players. Listening to Mel Allen was my first exposure to baseball, so to me, the Yankees were baseball.... Since those days, I have traveled quite a lot and lived in a number of places outside the United States, and it strikes me as significant that wherever I am, if I mention the Yankees, almost everyone seems to know who they are

If you are a Yankee Fan like myself you probably have a lot of Yankees related books in your collection. Chances are that Harvey Frommer wrote more than one of them. Mr. Frommer, a life long Yankees fan wrote for Yankees Magazine for sixteen years. He also wrote more than thirty Sports books including The New York Yankee Encyclopedia and New York City Baseball. Recnetly he commemorated the Yankees 100th Season with his latest "A Yankee Century. Given 5 Stars by BehindtheBombers.com

This book is the perfect companion for the encyclopedia. It is written so that you can bounce from one topic to the next. It starts you out by looking at a chronological look at the Yankees first 100 years. It takes your from the birth of the Bambino to the dedication of Reggie Jackson's plaque in Monument Park.

What is your favorite moment in Yankees History? Chapter 2 looks at them all and the perfect way to trigger your Yankee memories, both good and bad. The book continues with a Who's Who that cover just about everyone you could think of and a few you couldn't. Then a new twist is added when Harvey Frommer looks back at some of the great and not so great Yankee teams of the century.

Babe Ruth was known as the Sultan of Swat and Mickey Mantle was know as the Commerce Comet. But who what the Brooklyn Schoolboy? Bruiser? Or Dial a Deal? Well all those answers can be found in this book.

Although the Bombers were the first team to wear uniform numbers the next section, "By The Numbers" is more than that. For instance what does the number 4 mean to the Yankees? The most balks in a game by Vic Raschi on May 3, 1950. It is also Casey's streak of managing losing All Star games (1950 to 1953). And of course it is Lou Gehrig's uniform number.

There is a section on Yankee trivia entitled 100 Question Yankee Quiz. This quiz separates the men from the boys and the women from the girls. It covers the ridiculous to the sublime. See just how good a fan you are.

What Yankee Book would be complete without a section where you can find lists, charts, Yankee Firsts, Yankee Lasts, Yankee Longests and much much more.

With an introduction by Yankee favorite Paul O'Neill what more can you ask for. This definitive compilation captures the Yankee tradition in words, stats and photographs. It is the Yankees at your fingertips. It is light reading or something you won't want to put down. A perfect gift for the Yankee fan but buy two you wont want to give it away.

I might as well have read the back of a baseball card as have read the book, for all the insight into Jackson's personality it gave me. This book simply read like an extended sports column; I suppose that is all well and good if sports columns are all you ever read, but I expect more from a biography than a collection of blow-by-blow accounts of the games Jackson played in. The man, after all, spent 13 of his 62 years playing in the big leagues. There is scant discussion of his later years. Does Frommer suppose that the reader is not interested in how Jackson came to terms with his status as a disgraced former big-league ballplayer? One is left with the impression that Frommer did not even attempt to scratch the surface when dealing with Jackson's later years.

Couple this with Frommer's clumsy writing style, lack of citations, and bizarre style of quotation, and one is left with a book that was not worth the time spent reading it. I was left with no greater insight into Jackson the man than before I first picked up the book.

"He was the greatest ball player ever from South Carolina. His lifetime batting average was .356, topped only by Ty Cobb and Rogers Honrsby.But Shoeless Joe had to leave the game in disgrace, one of the members of the "Black Sox" accused of throwing the 1919 World Series. Author Frommer argues that Jackson got a raw deal and deserves reinstatement and enshrinement in the Hall of Fame. Frommer's book is something of a biography and partly the story of baseball in the first two decades of this century. He sees Jackson as symbolizing the game's more innocent era, and he calls Jackson a 'folk hero, the representative of a collective nostalgic yearning for an agrarian past.'"

"A tremendous account. . . I must refer anyone who has any interest in the Black Sox Scandal to Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball. There is a shiny gold sticker on the jacket of Frommer's book, by the way, announcing that it contains "Never before published -- Joe Jackson's complete Grand Jury Testimony." . . .The testimony is worth reading. Frommer quotes Joe Jackson: "I never said anything about it [the plot to throw the Series] until the night before the Series started. I went to see Mr Comiskey and begged him to take me out of the lineup .... If there was something going on I knew the bench was the safest place, but he wouldn't listen to me...." I would love to fill about ten pages with excerpts from Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball, but will not. Get the book. It's a fascinating and fast read.