My husband is doing me a favor and reviewed The House That Ruth Built: A New Stadium, the First Yankees Championship, and the Redemption of 1923 for me. I hope you enjoy his review.
In his first book, columnist Weintraub examines the 1923 season of the New York Yankees as the team opens there new stadium and won the first of the Bronx Bombers’ record 27 world series titles. The center of this work is the clash between the Yankees star player, Babe Ruth, with his “bashing” style of playing the game, and the classic, “scientific baseball” epitomized by the manager John McGraw and his New York City Giants. While the Giants got the best of the Yanks during the 1922 fall classic, Ruth and the Yankees’ 1923 World Series victory over their cross town rivals would change the face of baseball and New York City forever.
On the cuff of opening the new stadium, this book reviews the opening of the original Yankees stadium. Incorporating the background history of an aspiring team called the Highlanders that rented playing space and ran in the shadows of the then NY Giants; to the construction of an grand stadium; and finally what it took for the Yanks to champion the game in 1923.
I personally live in New York and if pressured would claim to be a Yankee fan as default to not being a particular fan of the sport in general. In many ways I wish that I had read a book like this in my younger years during those impressionable days while playing little league. Surely it would have fostered more interest in the sport and definitely driven me to be a bigger fan. The book details the tale of constructing the teams first stadium, which is history upon itself and the grandeur should not be underestimated. For it is upon the adults in society to know that possession of skill is not reason to prosper. It is in the perils of pressure that fine men are made and tales are spun that prove the distinction between the average players and those of legend. The author does well in depicting the season that the Yankees prove this to be true to themselves and the city of their origin.
Weintraub nicely infuses modern references like “imagine Ruth as Rocky Balboa preparing to wreak vengeance on Ivan Drago “into his 1920’s descriptions. The book is comprehensive, and Weintraub details everything from the construction of the stadium and the careers of Ruth and McGraw to a detailed season overview and deconstruction of the 1923 World Series. The stories about Ruth and McGraw hold the narrative together, but it is the asides of forgotten personalities like Mose “The Rabbi of Swat” Solomon, Russ “Pep” Youngs, and the Yankees co owner Cap Huston that create a much-needed undercurrent of character and humor.
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