Roy White was an all-star outfielder for the New York Yankees from 1965-79, finishing with 160 home runs, 758 RBI, and a .271 batting average and appeared in three ALCS and three World Series. White ranks among the top 10 Yankees in several offensive categories including, second in sacrifice flies, fifth in stolen bases, sixth in walks and intentional walks, seventh in games played, ninth in at bats, and eighth in times on base.
White was considered one of the classiest Yankees to don pinstripes, always the team player, never complaining. He recently published Then Roy Said to Mickey…: The Best Yankees Stories Ever Told (Best Sports Stories Ever Told), another volume in a long line of team histories from Triumph Books.
I was fortunate enough to have White as one of the coaches for my team at Yankees Fantasy Camp earlier this month. Even so many years removed from the game, the competitive juices still flow, as he guided us to a 5-3 record.
He took a few minutes from the hectic schedule to talk about his latest project with the Bookshelf:
Hear it here:



Joe Cronin: A Life in Baseball, by Mark Armour. Cronin was one of those baseball lifers, beginning his career as a player before becoming a team executive and finally president of the American League. I may be wrong, but I can’t immediately recall another major bio on him in recent years, although Robert Gorman published a book in 2007 through Baldwin Books, which, if I’m not mistaken, is a self-publishing outfit. Cronin, a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame, spanned several generations of ballplayers, so I’m quite interested in seeing how he’s portrayed. (Due in April.)
1921: The Yankees, the Giants, and the Battle for Baseball Supremacy in New York, by Lyle Spatz and Steve Steinberg. Yet another in a seemingly endless universe of New York-centric baseball books. I’m always fascinated with the huge popularity of baseball during the years before other entertainments — TV, talking movies, football — began pulling fans away. (April, although this one might be better suited for an October release, a la The First Fall Classic, The Machine, and Game Six, which all did well around World Series time this year.)
Final Innings: A Documentary History of Baseball, 1972-2008, Dean Sullivan. If you haven’t read the first three in this series, do so. Sullivan goes through the arduous process of picking through all the highlights of the eras to find the most interesting, not just in terms of the sports stories, but in pop culture and even American history. The editor includes not just portraits of players and events, but documents (and there are thousands of them floating along behind the scenes) that are just as important as box scores. Not quite a scrapbook, not quite a straight narrative, but always entertaining. (June)
UNP is also publishing what basically amounts to two reprints: On a Clear Day They Could see Seventh Place: Baseball’s Worst Teams, by George Robinson and Charles Salzbeger, and The Imperfect Diamond: A History of Baseball’s Labor Wars, by Lee Lowenfish. Both feature new introductions, and the latter a new epilogue. Imperfect should include more, in my opinion, since it was first published more than 25 years ago. There’s so much more to consider that such a book deserves more than a quick overview in a postscript.










* As Steve Martin used to say…
5 11 2009“But the most amazing thing of all: I get paid for doing this” (the closing lines for one of the comedian’s songs during his heyday in the late 1970s).
I bring it up because, once again, it goes to the folly of using sports pundits as a source of reliable information. At least when it comes to betting on games.
So I’m listening to the podcast of yesterday’s PTI in which the lead story is about Game Six of the World Series (Congrats to the Yankees, by the way).
Here’s the transcript, with my footnotes for ease of reading:
TK: Game Six starts in just a little bit from Yankee Stadium. Andy Pettitte is pitching on three days’ rest, the great Pedro Martinez,1 pitching on five days’ rest. Wilbon, you don’t like pitchers on short rest, so I assume you’re going to take my boy, Pedro.
MW: Yes, Tony, yes I am. Pettitte’s 37 years old, right? Thirty-seven?
TK: Well, Pedro’s got to be 371 also…
MW: Okay, fine, but Pedro’s not pitching on three days’ rest. My point is, if you’re 37 years old and you’re going through whatever Pettitte’s career — I mean a distinguished career of 15, 16 years…
TK: Fabulous post-season record… 2
MW: …you don’t do this thing, okay? You are not a hulking left tackle of a man like CC Sabathia, who seems to be able to, initially, pitch on three days’ rest. Why are you doing this?
TK: Pedro is much smaller than Pettitte. 3
TK: I think the critical factor is not so much the amount of rest, although that’s part of it. The weather is going to be in the 40s and these guys are almost in their 40s. I don’t think either pitcher will go five full [innings].
MW: Wow.
TK: I think this is going to be one of those 9-8 sorts of games4 and I think the bullpens will be in early and the bullpens on both sides aren’t very good until you get to Mariano Rivera5, and I don’t know that the Yankees will be able to get to [him].6
MW: That scenario makes sense, given the weather. But, Tony, if Pedro Martinez, having talked all the smack he’s talked and … to have been as great a pitcher as he’s been, I expect Pedro to go out there and get a quality start of seven innings, two or three earned runs… 7
TK: Seven innings!
MW: Yes.
TK: He’s like 90!
MW: Five days’ rest, Tony.
TK: I’m telling you, I don’t think either guy gets out of the fifth.8
MW: Pedro has been selling woof tickets {editor’s note: ?] for a week.
TK: I like him, but I don’t think he gets out of the fifth.
MW: Let’s see him pitch.
Later in the show, Kornheiser and Wilbon repeat their predictions to guests Tim McCarver and Joe Buck, the announcers for the broadcast on FOX, who have their own opinions, which I won’t go into here (you can listen to the podcast on iTunes).
So can we take away from this? Basically, in the majority of instances, these guys can’t forecast the outcome any better than you or I. Except they get on the air and are often paid handsomely for getting it wrong.
1 38, actually.
2 18-9 with a 3.90 ERA in 40 games. Pettitte appeared in one National League Divisional series, 11 ALDS, seven AL Championship Series, 1 NLCS, and eight World Series. Not too shabby.
3 Pettitte: 6′5″, 235. Martinez: 5′11″, 170.
4 The Yankees broke out to leads of 2-0, 4-1, and 7-1 before winning 7-3.
5 After Martinez and Durbin allowed the seven runs, four Phillies relievers combine for no runs (which, although statistically correct, is misleading since Happ was not penalized for the two inherited runners he allowed to score). Meanwhile, the two relievers preceding Rivera allowed just one hit.
6 Yes, they did, even bringing him in in the eighth inning, to record the final five outs. While the four run lead, however, he did not earn a save.
7 Martinez did not have a quality start, which is six innings or more allowing three earned runs or less. He was gone, as Kornheiser predicted, by the fifth.
8 Pettitte didn’t get a quality start either, but he did pitch into the sixth inning.
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Tags: ESPN, New York Yankees, Phildelphia Phillies, tleevision, Tony Kornheiser, World Series
Categories : Because I can..., Broadcasting, Commentary by Ron Kaplan, Podcast, Television