Review Quotes:
"Cecilia Tan has written a Yankee Doodle Dandy of a book. The reader is taken through the dramatic ebb and flow of the 50 greatest Yankee games. We learn a lot about the team from the Bronx in this fact-filled, entertainingly written opus. Should be required reading for all fans of the New York Yankees." -- Harvey Frommer, author of "A Yankee Century and "The New York Yankee Encyclopedia
Tan, a baseball writer and die-hard New York Yankees fan, presents brief examinations of the 50 purportedly greatest games ever played by her team. The volume opens with the last-season game in October 1904, when 41-game winner Jack Chesbro flung a wild pitch, dashing New York's hopes of winning the American League pennant, and closes with Aaron Boone's walk-off homer against knuckleballer Tim Wakefield to defeat the Boston Red Sox in the 2003 American League Championship Series (ALCS). In between, Tan places Don Larsen's perfect game against the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1956 World Series at the top of the Yankees's memorable contests, followed by game three of the 1932 fall classic when the Bambino supposedly belted the called shot, and the single-game playoff for the 1978 pennant when Bucky Dent's roundtripper broke the hearts of the Red Sox nation. Given the astonishing collapse of the Yankees in the final four games of last year's ALCS, this work already seems in need of an update. Nonetheless, it provides light enjoyment, with the appearance of all the usual suspects: Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Jackson, Jeter, and the rest. Recommended for general libraries.-- R.C. Cottrell, California State Univ., Chico (Library Journal, May 1, 2005)
Tan does a fine job choosing the most important contests from 100 seasons of Yankee baseball and recounting them in a gripping style . . . . developing entertaining, dramatic story lines. (Publisher's Weekly)