WHAT THEY SAID ABOUT THE BOOK
REMEMBERING YANKEE STADIUM (Fall 2008)
"I feel very fortunate that I experienced the mystique of playing in Yankee Stadium. There is no other stadium that had that aura. And Harvey Frommer captures it all in this terrific book." -- NOLAN RYAN
"In this biography of a building in the Bronx, Harvey Frommer, an accomplished writer about many facets of baseball, illuminates the truth of Winston Churchill's famous aphorism that "we shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us." This history of Yankee Stadium is a fine contribution to the history of the national pastime."
-- GEORGE F. WILL
"When you're a kid growing up in the Bronx in the 40's, a visit to Yankee Stadium is something you never forget. It was a thrill then and now all these years later, it means even more to me. In this terrific book, Harvey Frommer brings it all back again."
--REGIS PHILBIN
"Author Harvey Frommer brings the story of Yankee Stadium's past to us in its full and vivid glory." - - BOB SHEPPARD
"You're going to keep this book around the house for a long time. You're going to devour it. You're going to keep going back to it five years, 10, 20, 30 years in the future as you sit with kids and grandkids and tell them about the people who ran across a stretch of green grass in the Bronx." - - LEIGH MONTVILLE, "The Big Bam"
"Another instant classic from Baseball's greatest author, Harvey Frommer"
– SETH SWIRSKY, "Baseball Letters"
"As a Red Sox fan living behind enemy lines, this one's kind of hard to take: a lively, colorful, altogether winning illustrated biography of the House Our Former Pitcher Built. The pictures take you through the portals, and the voices of fans and players bring the place alive. The Stadium is preserved for eternity in Harvey Frommer's wonderful book."
ROBERT SULLIVAN, "Our Red Sox: A Story of Family, Friends & Fenway"
"This book is big and beautiful and filled with glorious memories, just like the ball park it memorializes. Harvey Frommer has the eye of a historian and the heart of a fan.
Fans will treasure this gem for many, many years.
--JONATHAN EIG, "Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig"
"Really want to surprise Dad? Buy him tickets to catch one last game in the legendary stadium, and tuck them into a copy of "Remembering Yankee Stadium: An Oral and Narrative History" ($45, Stewart, Tabri and Chang) by Harvey Frommer, with foreword by legendary Yankees announcer Bob Sheppard. The book offers a decade-by-decade look at the most famous ballpark in the world."-- courierpostonline.com, South Jersey
Now booking speaking appearances, book store signings, interviews, displays, museum exhibits, excerpts, internet postings, pod casts, reviews, publicity and marketing ops for the book.
This is the only book with a foreword by Bob Sheppard, Yankee legendary public address announcer.
It mixes and matches voices from as far back as the 1920s to today providing the perspective of the rank and file who give the nitty gritty that the you won’t find from heavier names, those who will say over and over again: “When I stepped out onto the Stadium . . .”
Instead, nearly one hundred voices give the book a sense of place and time and people. There are Hall of Famers, bat boys, fans, vendors, famed broadcasters and authors, Yankee players and managers as well as their rivals, and long-time observers of the Stadium scene. There are game calls from legends like Mel Allen, Frank Messer, Phil Rizzuto, Michael Kay.
There is the smell of mustard and the smell of jockstraps, the feel of being crushed, eight deep on the downtown D train after a game. And a sense of place you won’t find in any “official” history enhanced by more than 200 images, many of them archival and many never before published in a book. There are ticket stubs, baseball cards, program covers, scorecards. And there is a large “Stadiumology” section with stats and facts, first and lasts.
I learned many things about Yankee Stadium through writing this book. Here are 23 of them:
1. Some wanted the brand new Yankee Stadium in 1923 to be called “Ruth Stadium.” They settled for the nick-name “the House That Ruth Built.”
2. It took 500 workers 185 days to build the original Yankee Stadium.
3. At the start, names of Yankee players were imprinted in white chalk near the top of their lockers.
4. The practice of selling more tickets than existing seats endured until a 1929 stampede in the right field bleachers left two dead, 62 injured.
5. Negro League teams who played at the Stadium when the Yanks were on the road were not allowed to use the Yankee dressing rooms. Instead they were obliged to use the visitors’ dressing room.
6. “Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day” was staged before 61,808 on July 4, 1939 and his uniform number 4 was the first in baseball history to be retired.
7. In 1941, Yankee president Ed Barrow offered Civil Defense the use of Yankee Stadium as a bomb shelter in case of attack. He thought the area under the stands could provide a safe haven.
8. On August 16, 1948, Babe Ruth died of throat cancer at age 53. His body lay in state at Yankee Stadium and was viewed by more than 100,000 fans.
9. The last home run at the original Yankee Stadium on September 30, 1973 was hit by Duke Sims in his seventh day as a Yankee. A coin toss that day tabbed him to play. It was not until much later that Sims realized the significance of his home run shot.
10. The film “61″ was filmed in Detroit, not at Yankee Stadium. Billy Crystal explained the Motor City ballpark architecture was better able to be made to resemble that of the Yankee Stadium of 1961.
11.Sal Durante, the guy who caught the ball Roger Maris hit for his 61st homer, bought tickets the day of the game at a less-than-sold- out Yankee Stadium.
12. Mickey Mantle originally wore Number 6, but equipment manager Pete Sheehy switched him to Number 7 after Mantle was recalled from Kansas City.
13. Twenty thousand letters that Mickey Mantle never answered were not bid on in the old Yankee Stadium fire sale in 1974.
14. There was widespread and indiscriminate disposal of valuable items during demolition of much of the Stadium in the mid 1970s.
15. Among the items sold in the refurbishment “fire sale” at Yankee Stadium were player jockstraps which had names on them for identification when they came back from the laundry. The selling was stopped because of sanitary reasons.
16. In 1976, a homer by Chris Chambliss gave the Yankees the American League pennant. Such a mob crowded the plate that Chambliss was taken back a few minutes after hitting the homer, and he finally touched home plate.
17. All kinds of crazy things went on in the bullpens - some of them outlandish and some of them sexy and lots having to do with food.
18. In 1988, behind a wall that was closed off for decades, a scorecard, a program and what was supposedly the bases for the 1936 team were unearthed.
19. The 1990 Yankees had but one starting pitcher who won more than seven games, nine-game winner Tim Leary. But he also lost 19.
20. On September 11, 2001 within 90 minutes of the horrific attacks on the World Trade Center, Yankee Stadium was evacuated.
21. Ron Guidry, a good drummer, once kept a trap set at Yankee Stadium and also played in a post-game concert with the Beach Boys.
22. Joe Torre was witness to all three perfect games in Yankee Stadium history: He saw Don Larsen’s beauty as a 16-year-old fan, and the gems spun by David Wells and David Cone from the dugout as Yankee manager.
23. Bob Sheppard holds the record for seeing the most games at Yankee Stadium.
Please check out my home page.
“Harvey Frommer brings a vast amount of experience in the art of the oral history, one of the many tools at the disposal of the historian. From his Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball to Red Sox-Yankees The Great Rivalry, Frommer shows that he is a baseball writer and historian of repute.” -SABR executive director John Zajc.
“First among equals is Harvey Frommer, with his wife Myrna Katz Frommer, a great expert on all things baseball and New York (and that city within a city,) Brooklyn” - John Thorn, Baseball Historian
BOOKINGS (in progress)
"BOOK TOUR" for REMEMBERING YANKEE STADIUM (as of July 16) *****************************************************************************
September 3 Wednesday/talk/signing 7:30 PM Barnes & Noble, 396 Ave. Americas NY (8th St.) (212) 674-8780
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September 4, 7:45 PM Varsity Letters 302 Broome St. NYC 212-334-9676
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September 5th, 7pm Friday Book Revue 313 New York Avenue Huntington, NY 11743 Ph. 631-271-1442
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Sept. 20, 2008 / 7 p.m. Northshire Bookstore 4869 Main Street Manchester Center, VT 05255 802-362-3565
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September 26 (afternoon) Fall for the Book Festival George Mason University Fairfax, VA 22030 Phone: (703) 993-3986 FftB@gmu.edu www.fallforthebook.org
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October 10,7pm/ BORDERS 59th &Park, NYC (212-980-6785)
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October 11th. Dartmouth Bookstore, Hanover, NH (afternoon) bksdartmouth@bncollege.com
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November 1 Saturday 11:30 AM Books & Greetings 271 Livingston St., Northvale,NJ 201-784-2665
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December 3 Wednesday 7PM /RJ JULIA, Madison, CT 800 747 3247 talk and signing
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Read more about this book at: Tower Books , Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble.com, Foyles Bookshop, Londonchapters.indigo.ca
What they have said about the book: Pinstripe Press, Baseball Guru.Com, Abrams Books,
