- Lyle, [Albert] Sparky and David Fisher.
The Year I Owned the Yankees.
New York: Bantam Books, [1990] 1991.
ISBN 978-0-553-28692-2.
-
“Sparky” Lyle
was one of the preeminent baseball relief pitchers of the 1970s. In 1977, he became
the first American League reliever to win the
Cy Young Award.
In this book, due to one of those bizarre tax-swap transactions
of the 1980–90s,
George Steinbrenner,
“The Boss”, was forced to divest the New York Yankees to
an unrelated owner. Well, who could be more unrelated than Sparky
Lyle, so when the telephone rings while he and his wife are
watching “Jeopardy”, the last thing he imagines is that
he's about to be offered a no-cash leveraged buy-out of the Yankees.
Based upon his extensive business experience, 238 career saves, and
pioneering in sitting naked on teammates' birthday cakes, he says,
“Why not?” and the game, and season, are afoot.
None of this ever happened: the subtitle is “A Baseball
Fantasy”, but wouldn't it have been delightful if it had?
There's the pitcher with a bionic arm, cellular phone gloves
so coaches can call fielders to position them for batters
(if they don't get the answering machine), the clubhouse at Yankee
Stadium enhanced with a Mood Room for those who wish to mellow
out and a Frustration Room for those inclined to smash and break
things after bruising losses, and the pitching coach who performs
an exorcism and conducts a seance manifesting the spirit of Cy Young
who counsels the Yankee pitching staff “Never hang a curve
to Babe Ruth”. Thank you, Cy! Then there's the Japanese
pitcher who can read minds and the reliever who reinvents himself
as “Mr. Cool” and rides in from the bullpen on a
Harley with the stadium PA system playing “Leader of the
Pack”.
This is a romp which, while the very quintessence of fantasy
baseball, also embodies a great deal of inside baseball wisdom.
It's also eerily prophetic, as
sabermetrics,
as practised by
Billy Beane's
Oakland A's years after this book was remaindered, plays a major
part in the plot. And never neglect the ultimate loyalty of a
fan to their team!
Sparky becomes the owner with a vow to be the anti-Boss, but discovers
as the season progresses that the realities of corporate baseball in
the 1990s mandate many of the policies which caused Steinbrenner
to be so detested. In the end, he comes to appreciate that any boss,
to do his or her job, must be, in part, The Boss. I wish I'd read that
before I discovered it for myself.
This is a great book to treat yourself to while the current World Series
involving the Yankees is contested. The book is out of print, but used
paperback copies in readable condition are abundant and reasonably
priced. Special thanks to the reader of this chronicle who
recommended
this book!
October 2009 