I was very pleased by the large number of high-quality reproductions. Still, as far as I'm concerned there should have been *more*. The book contains (a rough count) about 280 pages containing text or mostly text, out of about 630 total pages. However, I'm very happy with the book.

Best book, I have ever bought

The problem with art books is that they go out of print too quickly. This is a beautifully presented book on Rauschenberg that was released with the big retrospective at the Guggenheim in 97/98. Barnes and Noble still had copies avaiable as of Sept. 99, so check there -- they were even discounted!

If you are a fan of baseball, then you have to read this book! It's an excellent combination of history and fiction, while also utilizing humor, to create a very enjoyable book. I would highly recommend this to everyone!!

If you're a fan of baseball stories, then this is the book for you!! This is the greatest collection of fictional baseball stories I have ever read!! Morningstar is a genius when it comes to combining fact and fiction!!

This book is very well written and explains Eminem very well.I'm only 12 and I listen to Eminem's language and know not to take his expressions personally.[....]To get to the point argue about his slang all you want .He makes his music for his self not for people to diss him. if you can say no to a ciggrate than you should be able to say no i don't like this,walk away ,turn off the t.v. or the radio.this book is great i give it two thumbs up and two toes up 2. [....]Peace!!!!!

It's a shame this book is out-of-print. It took Amazon.com a few weeks to find it and ship it to me, but it was well worth the wait. Billy Martin is the type of subject who causes a potential biographer to salivate. He was one of the most remarkable characters the game has ever produced and it's amazing that there aren't more books about his turbulent life. Given his limited talents as a ballplayer, Martin overachieved on the diamond and made a name for himself in the 50s as the scrappy second baseman of Casey Stengel's New York Yankees. In the sixties, he managed in the minor leagues before making it back to the majors. In his very first year as a big league skipper, he lead the Minnesota Twins to the American League West title and was fired despite the strong showing. Almost everywhere he went he won at least one division championship, usually with the type of ballplayers who would have sent most managers to an early retirement. As a stategist, Martin was the most brilliant manager of his time, considered the greatest captain ever by no less an expert than the Elias Sports Bureau. Unfortunately, Martin's attachment to booze and his violent temper marked him everywhere he went. He was too prone to outbursts and alcoholic rage to suit the tastes of his employers, most of whom eventually grew tired of his constant shenanigans both on and off the field. Despite his amazing abilities as a manager, he was fired from every major league job he ever received. Most noteworthy among his stops was the New York Yankees. He could never get along with owner George Steinbrenner, who hired and fired Martin a ridiculous five times. Martin was too obsessed with being a Yankee to ever let rational thought keep him from taking over the reins of the team. His much-publicized bar fights were the stuff of legend and he never admitted to starting a brawl; it was always someone else's fault. He died tragically in a drunk driving accident in which he may or may not have been at the wheel (depending on whose story you believe). One of the reasons this book is such a fascinating read is that Falkner doesn't outdo himself in telling the story. He doesn't try -- as many authors surely would have -- to add his own personal touch to Martin's legend, but instead allows his readers to form their own opinion on the subject. Only in the epilogue does the author give his own opinions on Martin's career as a baseball genius. All of the controversies from the on-going feuds he had with Reggie Jackson to ordering pitchers to plunk batters to punching travelling marshmallow salesmen are reported in sufficient detail. It's a shame people don't have better access to such a fine book.

Have you ever read a Deb Ralston mystery? If you haven't, this is a good book to start with. Deb is an average police-mom trying to solve a murder case with almost no evidence. The suspect always cleans the house spic and span after each murder. It is almost impossible to guess who is doing the murders, but if you're good, you just might figure it out. The plot of the story is very deep and easy to understand. If you enjoy police procedurals, this is close to the TV series C.S.I. I hope this review will help you chose if you would like this book or not.

Only if you really know your New York sports would you realize that Marty Appel's in a much more unique position to write a tell-all book about the 1970s Yankees than many other athletes. During his progression over 10 years from Yankees' fan-mail gopher during the Horace Clarke years, to PR director during the 1976 World Series, Appel had once-in-a-lifetime encounters (with the likes of Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Mike Burke, Gabe Paul, George Steinbrenner and ... Oscar Gamble) every single day.

"Now Pitching...", finally out in paperback, shows Appel's origins as a Yankees fan when everyone else was rooting for the Brooklyn Dodgers, and how he turned his love for the game into a career (when everyone else was watching the NFL). Most of the book covers the Yankees from 1968 to 1976, Appel's reign. Although many of the stories are familiar to baseball readers from what seems like 100 other books, only Appel is giving you the inside view. Nowhere else will you get such insider detail about Oscar Gamble's infamous haircut, Sparky Lyle's theme music, or George Steinbrenner's management style.

The book flags a little -- only a little -- when Appel leaves the Yankees and makes his mark in other ventures, such as team tennis and local NYC broadcasting. The most interesting part focusses on Appel's brief fish-out-of-water turn with the 1996 Atlanta Olympics organizers.

Marty Appel's been a very lucky guy -- who else gets to be friends with both Mickey Mantle and Billie Jean King? "Now Pitching for the Yankees" is several cuts above your standard baseball autobiography.

When I bought this book I thought I was in for just a number of inside stories on the Yankees. I was pleasantly surprised to learn about the ups and downs of the career of Marty Appel. True, much of the book covers his years with the Yankees as their PR director during the 1970's. He was there for the years when the Yankees played in Shea Stadium in 1974 and 1975 and during the time big trades were made involving Bobby Bonds, Mickey Rivers, and Willie Randolph in addition to the signing of Catfish Hunter. He enjoyed working with George Steinbrenner but did have one particular low moment with George following the publication of a Yankee yearbook which contained photos of players with hair longer than what suited the Boss. Marty took a chance one day to ask clubhouse attendant Pete Sheehy to tell him all about the Babe and Pete provided a revealing secret in four words. After leaving the Yankees with Joe Garagiola Jr. Marty worked at a number of baseball related jobs, some of which proved to be more rewarding than others. One of those jobs was with Topps Chewing Gum, and I believe I found a mistake on pages 294-295 where Marty states that Topps began issuing trading cards in 1950 with All-American football players before they did baseball cards. The All-American football cards he refers to were issued in 1955. Topps first issue of baseball cards came in 1951 with the Topps Red Backs and Topps Blue Backs which were cards designed to be used as a baseball game. The low point was his move to Atlanta to work with the Olympic games that were going to be held there. This move proved to be a mistake, but it was a risk that he took. Interesting advice is given to young readers to never take anything for granted, be a good listener, read everything you can, and respect those you deal with. Marty Appel hit a grand slam home run with this book just as he did with an earlier effort on Michael Kelly entitled Slide, Kelly, Slide and in working with Bowie Kuhn on his book entitled Hardball. His latest effort, Now Pitching for the Yankees,is another first rate job.

Oddly enough, the year's best "New York baseball book" is one that you might not have seen: Now Pitching for the Yankees, by Marty Appel. Appel, who spent most of the 1970s working for the Yankees, is a fine writer, a wonderful storyteller, and doesn't shy away from revealing something about himself. The sections of the book concerning his brief periods of non-baseball employment didn't particularly interest me, but the great majority of the book is about Appel's positions in the Yankees PR department and with WPIX-TV, which broadcast Yankees games. Appel clearly adored Phil Rizzuto, then one of the Yankee broadcasters, but that doesn't mean he can't be honest about the Scooter ...

"Phil always did play-by-play, never color. If he was the color commentator, you might as well not have him there at all. His concentration would be gone, he would be saying hello to everyone walking by the broadcast booth, he would be running out for cannolis, and he couldn't add much about the players because he didn't really know them ..."

The problem with most baseball books is that they're written by people who don't write particularly well. But this is Appel's 16th book, and he knows what he's doing. If you want to know what the Yankees were like before (and during) Billy Martin's various turns at the helm, Now Pitching for the Yankees just might be the best place to start. By ROB NEYER

I guess the main reason this book was written was to provide a more balanced account of Billy Martin. He certainly had a number of people who didn't care for him and a number of derogatory stories have been told about him. This book relates experiences about people such as Willie Horton, Paul Blair, Rod Carew, Mike Heath, and others who had positive experiences regarding Billy Martin. Any manager has individuals who can tell both positive or negative stories about them so Martin would not be unique in this respect. I find Billy Martin to be an interesting individual to read about in baseball, but I found the book to have pretty much the same people commenting on him throughout. It is not a story of his life, but one that is told by those having positive experiences with him. I buy baseball books to save for my baseball library, but if I had the chance to do it again, this book would have remained in the bookstore. I found it to be repetitious and boring at times.

I found this to be an extrememly interesting baseball book, with numerous valuable insights regarding management as well. (By the way, Dugout Days perhaps should get a 5-star rating based on what I typically see in review, but I tend not to give 5 stars except for truly extraordinary books. This is, however, a very good book, well worth the money and time.)

Dugout Days presents a great perspective on the legendary manager/player. DeMarco has interviewed scores of former players and teammates, lending the book a firsthand quality often missing from biographies, especially those in the sports field. Furthermore, the subject inherently adds some value to the equation, as Martin was an intriguing figure within one of sports' legendary franchises.

From a business perspective, I consider Dugout Days better than most. (I generally am skeptical of the "business" book genre.) Whereas most other offerings pass off common sense observations as platitudes on how to succeed, etc., Dugout Days demonstrates a few key points with actual situations, how they were handled and what the results were. There is no sense of "stretching" to prove a point, thereby avoiding the bloat to which business writers succumb.

I highly recommend the book for any baseball fan.

According to the subtitle, DeMarco provides "untold tales & leadership lessons from the extraordinary career of Billy Martin" and indeed he does. I am among those who saw Martin play for the New York Yankees and I later followed his career as a Major League manager of several different teams, including one in Texas where I now live. He always fascinated me. DeMarco draws certain appropriate comparisons between Martin and George S. Patton. Indeed, many of the same qualities which explain Martin's success in the dugout and Patton's success on the battlefield help to explain why both had so many problems elsewhere.

Consider first Martin's and then Matt Keogh's explanation of "Billyball": "Just give me a little room, I'm going to take advantage of it. What the hell. When you're a leader, you have to lead. That's when you stick your neck out. Leaders ar not followers. They are innovators. They are gamblers. They're not afraid to take a chance, not afraid to fail....Billyball is nothing more than just aggressive, old-fashioned baseball where you're not afraid to make a mistake...forcing the opposition to make mental and physical mistakes. Going against the grain. Going after them all the time...Force the other team to execute perfectly...Always looking for an opportunity out there to create something. But get it quick. Right now. Not two innings from now." Now consider what what one of his former players, Matt Keough, has to say: "A definition of Billyball would be: What we did equaled making them worry. Talk about spitters and all that. stuff -- the whole thing was to create anxiety. And when you create anxiety, you beat 'em. That's all it was. He generated a tremendous amount of anxiety, because no one wanted to look stupid."

Especially the younger members of teams which played "Billyball" under Martin's leadership usually performed above their talent levels. They developed a swagger, a brawler's mentality, and a hatred of losing. Meanwhile, the values and principles which drove Martin the player and manager suggest why he was fired eight times and divorced three times as well as why he initiated so many heated arguments which often resulted in a fight with an individual or a brawl involving both teams. According to DeMarco, Martin "was a great leader, but like General George Patton and General Douglas MacArthur, he was not a great employee." Indeed, Martin eventually (and inevitably) shredded every welcome mat which greeted him when he first assumed the manager's position with a series of teams which include the Minnesota Twins, the Detroit Tigers, the Texas Rangers, the New York Rangers, the Oakland Athletics, and finally once again the New York Yankees whose owner George Steinbrenner hired and fired him five different times. Martin seems to have been most effective when entrusted with relatively inexperienced and less-talented players, players more inclined to be deferential to him, although a few of his World Champion Yankee teams are among the best during the last 30 years.

As indicated previously, the bulk of the material in this book is provided by 33 people who either played with or for Martin or were in some other way closely associated with him. All duly acknowledge Martin's flaws -- and some speak frankly about having been personally abused by Martin -- while suggesting (to a degree of agreement which surprised me) that Martin was also an uncommonly sensitive, thoughtful, loyal, generous, and (believe it or not) spiritual, if not precisely religious person. They knew him well, both in and out of the dugout; I knew of him only from a great distance and was almost wholly dependent upon how he was portrayed by the media.

Near the end of his book, DeMarco includes some insightful comments by Paul Stoltz, author of The Adversity Quotient: "So many entrepreneurs and leaders have some of Billy's profile -- a nontraditional path, childhood adversity, being made fun of or ridiculed, and an uncompromising track record of relentlessness. This is the high AQ [Adversity Quotient) Climber profile. These people can really irritate....Thank God! Without them, this world would be far less interesting and rich. It is It is the Climbers who shape whatever game they are in. Once the wounds are healed and the hurt feelings mend, we remember the Climbers most fondly and admiringly for the impact they have had and legacy they left." The 33 provide "untold tales" and DeMarco suggests several "leadership lessons." Read the book and then take your own measure of Alfred Manuel Martin.

The quarter mile of the Left bank in the early 1920s is what Marcel Duchamp called, "The first really international colony of artist we ever had". This book contains thousands of photographs of the Montparnasse in the 1920s. It's an excellent resource if you are researching Man Ray, Calder, Duchamp, Matisse, Hemingway, Picasso or Stravinsky. Alice Prin or Kiki, was the queen of the artists' quarter. She had a beautiful body and a fine voice. She was the Man Ray's lover and modeled for many Left Bank artists. The book adds the human side of the times, and the art that was made in them. I would recommend this book to any working artist or collector.

Sometimes you have the most fun when you're miserable, when a situation is so ridiculous it just becomes funny. Shropshire's ludicrous predicament -- covering baseball's worst team and craziest cast of characters in the 1970s -- turns into amazing hilarity for himself then and, later as we read, us. This has to be the funniest baseball book ever written. The great scenes are endless; Shropshire's description of manager Whitey Herzog accusing Milwaukee Brewers team mascot Bernie Brewer of stealing signs is absolutely side-splitting. Yes, the book runs out of gas, but it's already taken you on a long, laugh-filled journey. Enjoy.

The Texas Strangers--that's what the Lone Star State called the team in the 80s. And despite making the playoffs a couple of times recently (only to be swept by the Yankees), the team's legacy of frustration, futility, and fumbling continues to this day. What _Seasons_in_Hell_ succeeds in doing is reminding everyone old enough to remember just how much progress the Rangers have made.

Once you accept how bad the Rangers were, this book becomes delightful, and in some cases, laugh-out-loud funny. Hearing Whitey Herzog's evaluations of his charges are hilarious; Shropshire's account of Ten Cent Beer Night in Cleveland should be required reading for any student of the game. This book is not literature, but is a first hand look at the underbelly of the game of baseball as played by the underdogs--sort of like a cross between Ball Four and Hunter S. Thompson.

A perfect introduction to the "culture" of baseball.

If you're looking for a scholarly book on baseball, this one is not for you. If, however, you enjoy funny anecdotes about the game this book will keep you riveted. Here's an example: The author, who covered the Texas Rangers, decided to walk back to his downtown hotel in Detroit from Tiger Stadium following a night game. Upon arrival at his destination he congratulated himself on his safe arrival. After taking the elevator to his room he found the key wouldn't work. He went down to the front desk and berated the desk clerk about the key to his room not working. The clerk examined it and returned it to the individual by saying, "No wonder it doesn't work. You're in the wrong hotel, but don't feel bad because you only missed it by one block." With subjects like Billy Martin and Whitey Herzog at the helm of the Texas Rangers between the years 1973-1975 the book is loaded with funny stories. This book is a keeper.

Considering that the 1978 Yankee team is my all-time favorite, it was disappointing to realize that the first 200 pages of a roughly 360 page book was NOT really about the 1978 season. Kahn spends those first 200 pages talking about other "miracle" teams and great seasons, the origin of the Yankees, and Yankee owners and players pre-1978. If I hear about the "dreary CBS Yankees" one more time...

If you already have some grasp of baseball and Yankee history, that makes those 200 pages mostly a wash. That stuff, as well as mini-bios of 1978 Yankee ownership, executives, and players, should have been put into the first 10 pages or better integrated into an account of the '78 season.

Beyond that, Kahn seems a bit pompous and playing for history.
He has unfavorable things to say about more than one journalist from the era, while getting in things like how "The Boys of Summer outleaped (the New York) Times Snide and went to the top of the best-seller lists." (p. 247)

Great, Roger, but I was hoping this book would be less about your reminiscing about baseball, Yankee (and some Dodger!) history and more for the educated fan of the 1978 Yankees. "The Bronx Zoo," by Sparky Lyle and Peter Golenbock, while not up to the standard set by "Ball Four" by Jim Bouton, is still your best bet when thinking about picking up a book about the 1978 Yankee squad.

This is a terrific book that I could not put down.

I was so surprise by it's contents. Most sports books about a certain event, there is the obligatory "Background chapter" where a brief history is given and then a great deal of detail about the event. Not so here.

Mr. Kahn first presents a detailed history of the Yankees, a history involving money, sports and racism. In learning about the early Yankees and their special relationship with and the Red Sox, Mr. Kahn presents lot more pieces to the Babe Ruth Acquisition than I had known.

It was fascinating to read about the previous owners, their relationships with their Managers and General Managers. There are reminders of the days before free agency, when the owners virtually owned the players.

But more than just one pennant race, one great season, this is story about people. It is story about the self-destructing Billy Martin, the Powerful George Steinbrenner...it's a story about Thurman Munson, Reggie Jackson, Al Rosen and so many others. Its about how a baseball team is run and it is also a story about the reporters who covered them.

If you like baseball, if you like the Yankees this behind the scenes look at a century, a decade and especially a year is compelling. Just remember: The 1978 World series is the conclusion of a great tale, the book is about so muc more than one year.

Roger Kahn, who I consider the best baseball writer of all time, has done it again with October Men. In his gifted, wonderfully unique style, Kahn takes us through the zany 1978 season with the New York Yankees. But the book also gives us insightful backgrounds into the main Yankee characters and an interesting, informative historical perspective on the Yankee dynasty. By far this is his greatest work since The Boys of Summer (and he has had many great books since that 1971 classic) and is a MUST read -- not only for Yankee fans -- but for all sports fans in general. A truly great work from a truly great author.