A Recent Read Number 18

" The Stranger chuckled, "My name is Applegate,but that's of no importance" he said. "What's important right now at the moment is that punk baseball team you've been rooting for all these years." "

NOTE: This review may contain SPOILERS.

Since my transition time between reading a book and finally getting around to reviewing it is super long and getting longer this will be the next to the last "A Recent Read" review. Future book reviews I will just use the book title. To date I've been reviewing the books in the order that I read them, but I need to crank out a super late review for a book I got from a giveaway and it is far from the "next" book in my recently read queue. On to this book's review.

The Year The Yankees Lost The Pennant by Douglas Wallop

The Year The Yankees Lost The Pennant was written in the mid 1950s when the New York Yankees were all but unstoppable and were the Kings of the baseball diamond. It was first published in 1954. The story is the typical "Faustian bargain" of making a deal with the devil. In this case middle-aged Joe Boyd a diehard Washington Senators fan is tired of seeing his beloved Senators in the basement during the pennant race. One summer evening he meets a Mr. Applegate (aka: the Devil) they talk baseball, The Senators. They agree the team needs a super slugger and a great fielder they end up making a deal that will get the Senators into the pennant race. Applegate turns frumpy middle-aged Joe Boyd into young studly Joe Hardy the super player that the Senators need to pull them from the division cellar and put them on top of those "Damn Yankees".

Yes this is the book that inspired the Broadway musical "Damn Yankees".  The musical keeps the basic gist of the story and leaves out a character or two. One of the characters left out of the musical that I enjoyed reading in the book was a pitcher for the Senators who begins to suspect the truth about young Joe Hardy and tries to expose Joe as a fraud of some kind but fails.

The musical also doesn't really tell you that Lola is not just one of Applegate's subordinates for the fun of it. She had also made a deal with him to get a man to truly fall in love with her.

In 1955 when the musical "Damn Yankees" opened on Broadway a special paper flyer/wrapper (with actress Gwen Verdon in a baseball jersey, stockings, high-heels and not much else) like a cigar band was placed on the book's dust jacket. I think these were only produced in May 1955 for the musical's opening (I haven't found any good specific reliable info on this rare gem). Due to the rarity of this advertisement on the dustcover, which in themselves are somewhat of a rarity now, the copies with it on the cover are very expensive. I would love to get a copy of it, but I don't think I ever will due to the price.

Some of the later printings of the book have updated the year the story takes place from 1958 to 1964.


The Year The Yankees Lost The Pennant by Douglas Wallop 1954 W.W. Norton & Company Inc 250 pages. - *****

Back To Classic Pinstripes.

I should have posted this a week or two ago, but didn't get around to writing it until now.

Anyway... Nick Johnson who at one time was the first baseman for my beloved Washington Nationals was traded to the Florida Marlins during the 2009 season. I first blogged about that on 31 July in my NO Nats NOT NICK! post.


Nick began his Major League Career with the New York Yankees in 2001. Around the time I wasn't really paying much attention to baseball let alone the "Damn Yankees".

Well then in 2003 at the end of the season he was traded to the Montreal Expos, it was around this time that I was beginning to get back into paying attention to baseball, a little before the talks about getting an MLB team back into DC started. Nick was with The Expos when they made the transition to become the Washington Nationals. Once the Expos/Nationals were established in DC I immediately followed them, since I had been a Senators fan from way back. Nick when he was healthy with the Nats was one of the best at finding a way to get on base. His On Base percentage is exceptional. I got used to seeing number 24 on first base for DC. That was until around the middle of this past 2009 season when the Nationals traded him to the Florida Marlins just before the deadline for mid-season trades. The Marlins switched his number to 20.

Well now Nick has traded in his "fishstripes" for the classic pinstripes of the Yankees. He signed a one-year contract 23 December, 2009 with the Yankees for a cool $5.5 Mil. Well he's back to his roots, I'm not too thrilled with the team he is on now, but I will still sort of keep track of his career (at least through baseball cards LOL). Well it looks like both numbers 20 and 24 are already taken on the Yankees Roster so I don't know what number he'll end up with.

Next Up World Series 2009

UGH. The world series will be between last years champs the Philadelphia Phillies (their fans can be worse than those fair-weather Patriots fans from a few seasons ago) and the Bronx Bums New York Yankees (or are the Mets those bums?).

I'm not a fan of either team. I'm not sure which team I dislike more. I don't really hate the Yankees, except the musical "Damn Yankees" was one of my favorite musicals growing up, maybe it was just because it was based around the Washington Senators. The Phillies have been really really nasty to my Washington Nationals these past 5 seasons.

From my rough World Series research it looks like the last time these two teams met in the big show was back in 1950 and the Yankees swept Phillie. Phillie won last year and are trying for a repeat. The question is can they do it? We shall see very very soon.

So who will I root for? Not sure. If I root for the Phillies in a way I'm kind of dissing the Nationals. If I route for the Yankees then I'm dissing the National League of which the Nationals belong. Dilemma dilemma dilemma. Oh it would have been soooooooooo easy if one of those other play-off teams had won. Is it possible to watch (or keep track of the series) without really rooting for either team?

Nats + Mets Trade = Uh Oh.

OMG!

The Washington Nationals and New York Mets made an off season trade today (Friday 30 November, 2007), that has upset me. If this sort of thing goes on again I might have to switch to being a Dang Mets fan. The Mets traded outfielder Lastings Milledge for outfielder Ryan Church (one of my faves) and one of my Favorite Nationals ever catcher Brian Schneider. I first heard about the trade on my way home from work, I almost had a heart attack and crashed. Here is the Yahoo News article about the trade http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_ylt=AgwiFA4jlwbvGQz1ioxhnqgRvLYF?slug=ap-mets-nationalstrade&prov=ap&type=lgns Both now Ex-Nationals are among my top faves especially Schneider-Man. IMO he is one of the most Underrated Catchers in the entire League, and is the number 5 catcher in picking off base stealers. Oh man the Nationals are going to be aching in the catching department, sure they have Jesus Florez but he is still a little green in my opinion, I think he needs another couple of years before he is a high caliber catcher. Dang it. Now I'm mixed about Church because although he is a pretty good outfielder he isn't great.

The Nationals think they are getting a great deal in the young Lastings Milledge, they mostly want him for his power hitting and the hope that he will solve their centerfield problems.

Dang it, Dang it, Dang it. Two of my favorite Nationals that I hoped would never be traded away. I used to think the same thing about closer Chad Cordero but I never imagined they would trade away someone like Schneider. Oh Man, I hope the Nats never ever trade away my other fave players first baseman Nick Johnson and third baseman Ryan Zimmerman. Well at least Ryan and Brian were not traded away to the Damn Yankees.

http://washington.nationals.mlb.com/index.jsp?c_id=was