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Murderers' Row:
The 1927 New York Yankees
by G.H. Fleming
Wm. Morrow & Co., 1985I've long thought that Bill James had a
pretty good idea when he wrote that one of the
best ways to evaluate a player's career was to
rely on the sportswriters who wrote actively
during that particular player's career. After
all, those guys were paid to watch the games in
an active manner, they should have informed
opinions, they would have seen every other team
in their respective leagues, they were more aware
of the conditions of the day than we can be from
our viewpoint...
Sure, there are limitations to this method. It's
not perfect, everyone has individual preferences
and prejudices after all--and lord knows, there
are a lot of writers who wouldn't know their
teepee from their bunghole...but it is one of the
many tools available to us in trying to make
sense of the past, and it seems to me to be a
tool that should be used.
What G.H. Fleming has done is to recreate the
1927 season in this book, by utilizing articles
and columns written by some of the legendary
sportswriters of the day.
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The author has ordered the
articles, picked and chosen which to use to represent any
given day, edited the pieces to keep them brief rather
than using the entire column or article...
and, I have to say, he produced a hell of a book.
Check out the writers whose work is included here: Fred
Leib, Grantland Rice, Paul Gallico, Damon Runyan, Ring
Lardner, Ford Frick, Frank Graham, Charles Segar, Rud
Rennie, Dan Daniel, Bozeman Bulger...shoot, even Ed
Sullivan has a few pieces included. Yes, that Ed
Sullivan...
If Fleming had chosen to print, verbatim, the complete
articles or columns available to him, I have to believe
the book would not be as intriguing as it is. I've spent
some time digging through microfilms of old newspapers,
and after awhile, your eyes begin to glaze over and your
brain turns to moooosh. It was not his intention to give
us a primer on all these great writers' greatest written
works. Rather, he was using what these writers wrote in
the day-to-day performance of their jobs to illuminate
for us what it might have been like to have been there,
following the Yankees through their legendary season.
In addition, he has added inserts and asides that clarify
references the writers made to the world they traveled in
(and in which the Yankees also traveled), many of which
add a great deal of flavor and background to the
unfolding season. One example would be that Benny
Bengough often played saxophone at a roadhouse called The
Blossom Heath Inn, which was a regular hangout for a
number of Yankees in those years.
The book begins with an excerpt of an article written by
Ford Frick for the Monday, January 3 edition of the New
York Evening Journal. In it, Frick informs his readers
that he figures that Babe Ruth places a dollar sign on
himself that is in excess of his real worth to the
Yankees. Ford Frick wrote that? Who would have thought?
It ends with several articles written for various papers,
which appeared on October 16...the day after the Yankees
completed their sweep of the overmatched Pirates. The
lead article in this group expresses concern over the
fact that the short Series probably cost the Yankee
organization quite a pile of cash in lost revenue, a real
concern with their payroll and the absence of the
media-money safety net, written by Bozeman Bulger for the
New York Evening World.
In between? A wonderful collection of pieces, covering
every facet of the long season...
Ruth's salary demands, played out in the papers until he
meets Ruppert face to face and immediately caves, the big
baby...the unlikely emergence of Wilcy Moore as an
important part of the team...the sudden development of
Lou Gehrig, the first player in the American League to
give Ruth a run for his money...Bob Meusel, a slugger who
choked waaaay up oh his bat...Meusel, again, charging the
mound after a HBP and drawing a ten game
suspension...Ruth playing to the crowd, batting right
handed during his last at bat in the second game of a
doubleheader blowout in Philadelphia, the same game in
which A's centerfielder Al Simmons climbed a ladder set
into the centerfield wall to perch and watch the
proceedings during a Yankee at bat--tuckered out from
chasing balls all over the outfield...add to that choice
bits about unsung players who had heroic moments,
insights into forgotten men who played a part in the
team's success, transcripts of dugout banter prior to the
start of the games, insight into the conditions of the
various parks in the league at the time...
golly...what a fine book.
Waite Hoyt, the mainstay of the Yankee staff in '27,
responded to Fleming's request by writing a lengthy
forward for this book which was delivered to the author
four months prior to Hoyt's death. Hoyt produced a
thoughtful effort, much better than what I would expect a
modern player to submit fifty years from now for a
similar book. But perhaps I underestimate Ryan Klesko's
literacy...
The book is not without it's drawbacks, of course. But I
can think of none that would make me hesitate
recommending it highly.
Fleming wrote two very similar books previous to this
one...and none since. I've always wondered why. Each of
these three works is well worth finding and reading. The
other two books are:
The Unforgettable Season...dealing with the 1908
NL Pennant Race, considered by many to be the greatest
race of all time.
The Dizziest Season...concerning the 1934 Gas
House Gang Cardinals.
--Pure Bull, September 13, 1999
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