Rob Bradford's inside look at the 2003 Blue Jays and Red Sox provides an engaging read that entertains. It has great portraits of many of the Jays and Sox players, as well as the two central characters, J.P. Ricciardi and Theo Epstein. Don't look for a magnum opus... this is a lively baseball book, and it delivers on that promise.
Fortunately or unfortunately for Rob Bradford, comparisons to Michael Lewis's Moneyball are inevitable. Much as his two main subjects are the object of constant comparisons with Oakland's Billy Beane (Lewis's main subject) Bradford has been portrayed as riding Lewis's coattails. This isn't even remotely fair - Rob Bradford had begun on Chasing Steinbrenner long before anyone even knew Moneyball was coming out, or what it was about. It says a lot for the power of Lewis's book (and its sales) that I feel the need to spend a huge chunk of my text at the top of a Chasing Steinbrenner review talking about it.
As we discussed on Da Box earlier this season, Moneyball is one of the most consistently misunderstood books on baseball we've seen recently. Mostly, this stems from the fact that it isn't even really about baseball; it's a book about b business. Now it happens that the case study for this business book is the baseball business; but in the end, Moneyball isn't a baseball book.
Chasing Steinbrenner is. This is a baseball book through and through; there's really no talk of business approaches, valuation systems, or asset allocation here. Rob Bradford wanted to follow two baseball teams and two general managers through a season, not write a manifesto for quantitative analysis. As a result, for the typical fan, Bradford's book may well be more engaging because he has a deeper and better-rounded knowledge of the game, and he tells the story in a chronological chunk (the 2003 season) that we are more familiar with.
Unfortunately, this is where one of Bradford's problems begins. By opening the book with an account of Aaron Boone's home run in Game Seven of the Red Sox-Yankees ALCS, Bradford seems to blow what should have been his huge, stirring climax in order to provide a compelling beginning to the book. It certainly works as a beginning; before you know it, you find yourself turning pages as the scene moves from Yankee Stadium to J.P. Ricciardi's suburban Boston home, to Paul DePodesta and J.P. on a California airliner coming back from scouting Barry Zito, and you are subsumed in the story.
A story that works, to be frank, because Rob Bradford had the skill and good fortune to find himself the right subject. J.P. Ricciardi comes across as a rounded, passionate and interesting character. He loses a little of the abrasiveness that we (the fans) see in him from his appearances in the local sports media, and his inborn sense of humour shines through. Moreso than Theo Epstein, who really doesn't have enough baseball experience to tell an interesting story, Ricciardi is the "star" of the book even though Epstein (with his pursuit of Kevin Millar and the Red Sox trip to the postseason) provides its most climactic moments. Ricciardi's instructions to his scouts (and his love for his scouts and the scouting business), his generosity, his unmistakeably Massachusetts roots, and his joyful taunting of the Red Sox faithful after a Fenway sweep (which we ran as an excerpt right here on Batter's Box) shine through the book as the most insightful parts of a relatively illuminating book. Both Ricciardi and Epstein are portrayed from childhood to the present day, and it works - we come to understand more of them than is reflected through the media.
General Managers, for better or worse, are the new baseball heroes. They don't turn any double plays, hit any home runs, or strike out any batters, but they are the building block on which modern teams build their successes and failures. For the longtime fan, that can be a bit depressing, but it reflects the increasingly overwhelming part the business of baseball plays in the modern game. Chasing Steinbrenner revels in this, though, to the point where baseball becomes "GM-ball"; untraditional, but fascinating to watch. One of the unspoken assumptions of the book is that "GM-ball" is the baseball of the future, and the sort of game we are all going to be watching as the coming years unfold; and we get to observe two of its most able young proponents (young prospects?) at work.
For the Blue Jays fan, then, or even the baseball fan, Chasing Steinbrenner will provide an enjoyable read simply for the insight they will get into two of the game's most interesting front office people. For the non-baseball fan, though, the book probably won't work. Chasing Steinbrenner employs an utterly huge and shifting cast of characters, and this is the book's biggest weakness. Instead of picking out a few major, memorable characters and using them as the backbone for his book (like another writer who shall now remain nameless) Rob Bradford populates his story with hundreds of people; Vernon Wells, Eric Hinske, Brian Cashman, Epstein and Ricciardi's friends and families, Abe Alvarez, Vito Chiaravalloti, Bobby Kielty, Jose Contreras and a shifting cast of dozens surrounding his contract negotiations, Shea Hillenbrand, Keith Law, Paul DePodesta, Rob Godfrey, Mike Gonzalez, Casey Fossum, Bill Lajoie, Country Joe West, Brian Butterfield... I could go on, but you get the idea. J.P.'s father John Ricciardi makes a couple of fascinating appearances (he's by far my favorite character in the book - a former ballplayer like his son and a neophyte to the world of cornbread.) Ken Huckaby gets a memorable cameo - Huckaby and Rob Godfrey attempting to one-up each other with practical jokes is a highlight of the book. But then Huckaby disappears. In addition, the book jumps backward and forward in time so much that the casual fan or non-fan (or the fan years hence who doesn't remember the texture of the season as well as we do now) will be mightily confused about where and when action is taking place. Because some of the natural rhythm of the season is lost, "plot" (to use a novelistic metaphor) is sacrificed to character development.
Rob Bradford's only really extended player portrait is of Kevin Millar, and it works because again Millar is an interesting man caught in the midst of a compelling story. Bobby Kielty, who gets a somewhat extended look-in near the end of the book, is less compelling and as a result his picture seems less three-dimensional.
So yes, the book can sometimes be jumbled. Does that matter? Perhaps from someone else's point of view. Perhaps from the point of view of a literary critic. From my own point of view, not a bit. The jumble is one of insight into a cast of characters I'm often moderately familiar with; Bradford's portraits (often, like Vernon Wells's, rendered in miniature) have depth and colour. I'll take the fun and interesting stories, take the substantial insights into J.P. Ricciardi, and then I'll take it again by re-opening the book at page one. I received this book on a Thursday night, started reading it later that night, put it down to go to sleep, woke up six hours later, picked up the book, and literally started reading again. If you're a baseball fan in general, or a Blue Jays fan in particular, and I suspect some of you are, I couldn't recommend Chasing Steinbrenner more highly. It's a page-turner, a very enjoyable read (Bradford doesn't get bogged down, he keeps things moving) and yes, I am now re-reading it.
A final word of warning: the local sports media in Toronto are probably going to hate this book. It's a flattering portrait of a very unpopular GM, and a book written about the Blue Jays by an "outsider"... someone not in the day-to-day proximity to the team. Take with a grain of salt the reactions of those who see themselves as the primary interpreters of the Blue Jays to the public. And do yourself a favour; buy and read Chasing Steinbernner. You’ll enjoy it.
Chasing Steinbrenner is published by Brassey's
Fortunately or unfortunately for Rob Bradford, comparisons to Michael Lewis's Moneyball are inevitable. Much as his two main subjects are the object of constant comparisons with Oakland's Billy Beane (Lewis's main subject) Bradford has been portrayed as riding Lewis's coattails. This isn't even remotely fair - Rob Bradford had begun on Chasing Steinbrenner long before anyone even knew Moneyball was coming out, or what it was about. It says a lot for the power of Lewis's book (and its sales) that I feel the need to spend a huge chunk of my text at the top of a Chasing Steinbrenner review talking about it.
As we discussed on Da Box earlier this season, Moneyball is one of the most consistently misunderstood books on baseball we've seen recently. Mostly, this stems from the fact that it isn't even really about baseball; it's a book about b business. Now it happens that the case study for this business book is the baseball business; but in the end, Moneyball isn't a baseball book.
Chasing Steinbrenner is. This is a baseball book through and through; there's really no talk of business approaches, valuation systems, or asset allocation here. Rob Bradford wanted to follow two baseball teams and two general managers through a season, not write a manifesto for quantitative analysis. As a result, for the typical fan, Bradford's book may well be more engaging because he has a deeper and better-rounded knowledge of the game, and he tells the story in a chronological chunk (the 2003 season) that we are more familiar with.
Unfortunately, this is where one of Bradford's problems begins. By opening the book with an account of Aaron Boone's home run in Game Seven of the Red Sox-Yankees ALCS, Bradford seems to blow what should have been his huge, stirring climax in order to provide a compelling beginning to the book. It certainly works as a beginning; before you know it, you find yourself turning pages as the scene moves from Yankee Stadium to J.P. Ricciardi's suburban Boston home, to Paul DePodesta and J.P. on a California airliner coming back from scouting Barry Zito, and you are subsumed in the story.
A story that works, to be frank, because Rob Bradford had the skill and good fortune to find himself the right subject. J.P. Ricciardi comes across as a rounded, passionate and interesting character. He loses a little of the abrasiveness that we (the fans) see in him from his appearances in the local sports media, and his inborn sense of humour shines through. Moreso than Theo Epstein, who really doesn't have enough baseball experience to tell an interesting story, Ricciardi is the "star" of the book even though Epstein (with his pursuit of Kevin Millar and the Red Sox trip to the postseason) provides its most climactic moments. Ricciardi's instructions to his scouts (and his love for his scouts and the scouting business), his generosity, his unmistakeably Massachusetts roots, and his joyful taunting of the Red Sox faithful after a Fenway sweep (which we ran as an excerpt right here on Batter's Box) shine through the book as the most insightful parts of a relatively illuminating book. Both Ricciardi and Epstein are portrayed from childhood to the present day, and it works - we come to understand more of them than is reflected through the media.
General Managers, for better or worse, are the new baseball heroes. They don't turn any double plays, hit any home runs, or strike out any batters, but they are the building block on which modern teams build their successes and failures. For the longtime fan, that can be a bit depressing, but it reflects the increasingly overwhelming part the business of baseball plays in the modern game. Chasing Steinbrenner revels in this, though, to the point where baseball becomes "GM-ball"; untraditional, but fascinating to watch. One of the unspoken assumptions of the book is that "GM-ball" is the baseball of the future, and the sort of game we are all going to be watching as the coming years unfold; and we get to observe two of its most able young proponents (young prospects?) at work.
For the Blue Jays fan, then, or even the baseball fan, Chasing Steinbrenner will provide an enjoyable read simply for the insight they will get into two of the game's most interesting front office people. For the non-baseball fan, though, the book probably won't work. Chasing Steinbrenner employs an utterly huge and shifting cast of characters, and this is the book's biggest weakness. Instead of picking out a few major, memorable characters and using them as the backbone for his book (like another writer who shall now remain nameless) Rob Bradford populates his story with hundreds of people; Vernon Wells, Eric Hinske, Brian Cashman, Epstein and Ricciardi's friends and families, Abe Alvarez, Vito Chiaravalloti, Bobby Kielty, Jose Contreras and a shifting cast of dozens surrounding his contract negotiations, Shea Hillenbrand, Keith Law, Paul DePodesta, Rob Godfrey, Mike Gonzalez, Casey Fossum, Bill Lajoie, Country Joe West, Brian Butterfield... I could go on, but you get the idea. J.P.'s father John Ricciardi makes a couple of fascinating appearances (he's by far my favorite character in the book - a former ballplayer like his son and a neophyte to the world of cornbread.) Ken Huckaby gets a memorable cameo - Huckaby and Rob Godfrey attempting to one-up each other with practical jokes is a highlight of the book. But then Huckaby disappears. In addition, the book jumps backward and forward in time so much that the casual fan or non-fan (or the fan years hence who doesn't remember the texture of the season as well as we do now) will be mightily confused about where and when action is taking place. Because some of the natural rhythm of the season is lost, "plot" (to use a novelistic metaphor) is sacrificed to character development.
Rob Bradford's only really extended player portrait is of Kevin Millar, and it works because again Millar is an interesting man caught in the midst of a compelling story. Bobby Kielty, who gets a somewhat extended look-in near the end of the book, is less compelling and as a result his picture seems less three-dimensional.
So yes, the book can sometimes be jumbled. Does that matter? Perhaps from someone else's point of view. Perhaps from the point of view of a literary critic. From my own point of view, not a bit. The jumble is one of insight into a cast of characters I'm often moderately familiar with; Bradford's portraits (often, like Vernon Wells's, rendered in miniature) have depth and colour. I'll take the fun and interesting stories, take the substantial insights into J.P. Ricciardi, and then I'll take it again by re-opening the book at page one. I received this book on a Thursday night, started reading it later that night, put it down to go to sleep, woke up six hours later, picked up the book, and literally started reading again. If you're a baseball fan in general, or a Blue Jays fan in particular, and I suspect some of you are, I couldn't recommend Chasing Steinbrenner more highly. It's a page-turner, a very enjoyable read (Bradford doesn't get bogged down, he keeps things moving) and yes, I am now re-reading it.
A final word of warning: the local sports media in Toronto are probably going to hate this book. It's a flattering portrait of a very unpopular GM, and a book written about the Blue Jays by an "outsider"... someone not in the day-to-day proximity to the team. Take with a grain of salt the reactions of those who see themselves as the primary interpreters of the Blue Jays to the public. And do yourself a favour; buy and read Chasing Steinbernner. You’ll enjoy it.
Chasing Steinbrenner is published by Brassey's
