Travel World guide

As interesting as I thought this book would be, it is actually more interesting and engaging than I had anticipated. Tom Stanton takes us through the careers of Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth by taking us through their intense rivalry. This works so well because Cobb was considered, by far, the greatest baseball player of all time and epitomized the “deadball” era that emphasized base hits, base running with lots of stealing, and intense gamesmanship. The trash talking of our era would have seemed tame back then.

Ruth was a very fine pitcher who could also hit very well (an exceeding rare combination). There was even resistance to his wanting to emphasize hitting and playing everyday because he was so valuable an asset on the mound. As Ruth changed the game in favor of power and home runs, Cobb and the other veterans derided it as a fluke. However, as others adopted Ruth’s style and the number of home runs exploded (and the ball became livelier), the number of people attending ball games exploded. The patrons decided which style of ball they wanted.

The older proponents of Baseball Science who loved the old style of play complained that the new fans understood nothing of the game and that the power game had changed things for the worse. What is undeniable is that the game was changed forever.

Stanton also helps us see Cobb and Ruth more as real human beings rather than as two-dimensional myths. Again, their competitiveness and their rivalry for baseball supremacy helps us understand them as flesh and blood men through the stories of their encounters. In the appendix, the author provides us with a short summary of every game that Cobb and Ruth played against each other. Fascinating stuff.

Both Cobb and Ruth were avid golfers of some skill. Ruth had a lower handicap, but Cobb never ever stopped competing no matter the situation. They had challenged each other to a golf match that finally took place, for charity, in 1941. There were three match-play events with the last being played in Detroit, Cobb’s baseball home. This is another fascinating story and shows us these men after their glory days were behind them.

I also appreciate that Stanton takes on the wholly negative image that Cobb has in today’s popular mind. This is in part due to a scurrilous writings of Al Stump and a movie made from his book. We should remember how he was regarded by the men who played with him and by the writers of his time. It is true that we judge baseball according to the lights of the power game, but to disregard Cobb’s manifold achievements is to show disrespect to the history of the game. For heaven’s sake, Cobb stole home 54 times! No one is even close.

I do wish that Stanton had taken a couple of extra pages and shown their records that both Cobb and Ruth held when they retired and who surpassed them and when (and which they still hold today). That would have been a helpful touch.

Stanton also provides us with a great bibliography of material of these two greats. I believe that once you read this fine book you will want to read more and this well done reading list will make that desire easier to fulfill. The index is also very usable.

If you love baseball or are even mildly interested in it or either of these two players, this is a book you will certainly enjoy and should buy and read right away. It will make for a few enjoyable evenings of reading and you will know these men better than you ever have before (unless you are a deep historian of the game). I know I was interested in reading it and it surprised me how much I enjoyed it.

Could not lay the book down. A must for Baseball fans. The personalities are described in depth, sometimes shockingly so. It’s a great follow-up to Moneyball, with the same system of recruitment playing a big part of this book also.

Ty and The Babe captures the early history of American baseball in all its glory. Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth defied the simplicity of early American baseball through their intense rivalry and their personal mission to change the game. Stanton gives new insight into this rivalry, the strategic strengths of Cobb and the outstanding physicality of Ruth.

Beautifully written in language that will be appreciated by the true baseball fan, Ty and The Babe reveals a thoroughly researched journey into the backgrounds of these baseball legends. Stanton’s book is highly enjoyable and lends to any fan’s understanding of baseball history.

This is a strange little book. For one thing, it presents a far more positive picture of Ty Cobb than one often encounters. Second, golf becomes a key part of the relationship between two bitter antagonists–Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb.

Ty Cobb was an exemplar of the old fashioned “scientific” approach to baseball, bunts, stolen bases, sacrifices, etc. Babe Ruth was a harbinger of a new era–focusing on the home run.

Cobb versus Ruth, while they were in the major leagues together, had a pretty negative relationship. Cobb had little respect for Ruth; Ruth despised Cobb.

The book tells of their slowly evolving relationship, to the point where they expressed respect toward one another by the end of Cobb’s career.

Their rivalry took a turn after their respective retirements. Both became avid golfers. They took part in a series of golf matches, where there was much greater camaraderie than when they played baseball.

The book chronicles that strange evolution in their relationship.

There is a nice appendix, which chronicles those games in which they opposed one another. Interesting. . . .

An offbeat little book that ends up humanizing Cobb.

Author Tom Stanton has provided us with a unique look at the rivalry that existed between two players, one representing the superstar from the dead ball era while the other represented the changing of the game to that of the slugger. Babe Ruth gave baseball a much needed boost with his ability to draw fans out to the stadiums with his ability to hit home runs following the infamous Black Sox scandal, and Ty Cobb believed the game of baseball that he symbolized was being threatened by this newcomer who posed a threat to his position and popularity in the game. Both Cobb and Ruth were initially bitter rivals fighting for supremacy of the baseball public. Each had their own way of playing the game suitable to the skills they possessed, and each had an ego that needed to be fed. Each was viewed as a threat to the other, and author Stanton provides us with a number of anecdotes involving games between Cobb’s Tigers and Ruth as a Red Sox and Yankee. This is not a rehash of stories you have heard several times before. Cobb and Ruth came to have a mutual respect for one another as the seasons progressed. Cobb, for his part, never forgot the support he and Tris Speaker received from Ruth when scandal reared its ugly head following their retirement from their respective teams in 1926. Ruth described Cobb and Speaker as “the finest names that baseball has ever known.” Cobb felt Commissioner Landis kept them unduly waiting before exonerating them of the charges causing Cobb to later purposely miss the group photo at Cooperstown in 1939 to avoid being photographed with Landis, who wasn’t in the photo anyway. Speaker, as is well known, did show up for the photo of the game’s immortals on that day. The final section of the book covers the best two out of three golf meetings Cobb and Ruth did for charity in 1941 when their rivalry was renewed with good-natured ribbing although each was still competitive enough to want to beat the other. A lot was taking place in the game at that time. DiMaggio was on his way to hitting in 56 consecutive games, Williams would become the first batter to hit .400 since Bill Terry in 1930, and Gehrig died on June 2nd. The text of the book is 238 pages long in addition to an appendix that includes how Cobb and Ruth did against each other in each of the games they appeared together. Also included is an impressive bibliography from which the author has done research. I would like to point out that Ruth also had to deal with a tense rivarly with Giants’ manager John McGraw who viewed Ruth as an intruder in New York City in addition to the one he had with Cobb. I do not hesitate to rate the book five stars even though there are a few profanities sprinkled throughout the book that make me question whether I should order extra copies for some kids who might appreciate reading it.

It was with much anticipation that I picked up my copy of “Feeding The Monster – How Money, Smarts, and Nerve Took a Team to the Top” by Seth Mnookin. After all, this award-winning author had been given unlimited access to behind-the-scenes goings-on at Fenway Park during the entire 2005 season. Early excerpts from the book held the promise of several hundred pages of juicy revelations of what really goes on behind the Wizard’s Curtain on Yawkey Way. So, I made my way expectantly through over 400 pages of Red Sox related material, and came to the past page feeling as if I should cue up on my stereo an early rendition of Peggy Lee’s hit, “Is That All There Is?” And I was not sure why I was so disappointed. There were tidbits that were fun to read. Mnookin makes it clear in this book that he does not have much respect for Dan Shaughnessy and the whole “Curse of the Bambino” boondoggle. Nor does he harbor much admiration for Dr. Charles Steinberg, whose over-eager passion for ensuring the Red Sox ubiquitous and ever-expanding press coverage ultimately pushed Theo over the edge and played a large part in the contretemps that led to Theo’s decision to resign.

Listening to Bill Simmons of ESPN last Friday helped me to begin to put a finger on my disappointment with Mnookin and his writing. Simmons made the observation, while talking on WEEI, that in reading this book, he could not figure out what audience Mnookin was trying to address. If he were targeting diehard Sox fans, then why spend over 100 pages rehashing well-known Red Sox history and the curse of the Bambino nonsense? Add, why feel the need to explain in a footnote what “OPS” is all about!

As I thought about my disappointment with this book, I came up with a gastronomic metaphor. Assume that I had learned that a great chef, with unlimited access to live lobsters of enormous size and to the finest ingredients in the world, after a year of working on a secret recipe, was going to be selling lobster rolls to the public. I would line up to have a chance to sink my teeth into one of those lobster rolls – anticipating the subtle spices, huge chunks of fresh lobster meat from the tail and claws – served on a freshly baked bun with some unexpected special twist thrown in. Then, imagine my disappointment when the lobster roll is actually served on a stale hotdog bun, and the bun is stuffed mostly with filler – limp chopped celery, gobs of Hellmann’s mayonnaise – and the meat has clearly been previously frozen and consists of small, stringy pieces from the body of the lobster. It does not taste bad, but it is a far cry from what I expected the gourmet chef to serve up.

Having laid out my sense of disappointment at the paucity of “claw meat,” let me hasten to add that the book offers some insights that make it a worthwhile read for those who love the game of baseball. Mnookin offers a fascinating peak into the tortuous behind-the-scenes process by which the John Henry group was awarded the right to purchase the Boston Red Sox from the Yawkey Trust and a bevy of limited partners.

He offers a wonderful paean to the glories of Fenway Park – worth sharing here:

“Fenway Park was, inarguably, a gorgeous monument to American baseball. It still used a manual scoreboard, and scoreboard operators could sometimes be glimpsed peeking out from behind the numbers to catch the action on the field. The very same steel beams that blocked some patrons’ views allowed the second deck to be built almost directly on top of the infield grandstand, creating an intensely intimate setting. Unlike most stadiums, Fenway didn’t have an upper deck, and first-time visitors could not help but be struck by how Fenway allowed fans to gaze out onto the Boston skyline, with the Prudential and the John Hancock buildings rising behind right-center field and the famous Citgo sign blinking over the Wall in left. The odd triangle of grass that was delineated by the end of the Red Sox bullpen and Fenway’s centerfield wall was as inexplicable a patch of outfield territory as exists in baseball, and a point of stubborn pride. The Green Monster rose majestically over the outfield grass, where it turned screaming line drive shots into harmless singles and transformed breezy pop flies into home runs. It was here that Carlton Fisk had willed his walk-off home run in the sixth game of the 1975 World Series. It was this field Babe Ruth and Ted Williams once roamed. `The ballpark is the star,’ Globe columnist Marty Nolan wrote in 1999, trying to explain the Red Sox’s – and Fenway’s – sway over New England. `A crazy-quilt violation of city planning principles, an irregular pile of architecture, a menace to marketing consultants, Fenway Park works. It works as a symbol of New England’s pride, as a repository of evergreen hopes, as a tabernacle of lost innocence.’ Baseball commissioner Bart Giamatti compared Fenway to `Mount Olympus, the Pyramid at Giza, the nation’s Capital, the czar’s Winter Palace, and the Louvre – except, of course, that it was better than all those inconsequential places.’ Pitching great Tom Seaver said simply, `Fenway is the essence of baseball.’” (Page 67)

So, read the book and enjoy it, but don’t expect Mnookin, graduate of Newton North High School and Harvard University, to be Todd English or Ming Tsai! The fare he offers up is more pedestrian and mundane, but still contains some tasty chunks of meat.

Al

I too felt much of the book was what we already knew. Much of the difficulties had been in the local press and I live in Hartford CT. Having been able to attend Fenway back in the 60′s with my Grandfather’s season tickets and many skipped high school days from Newton North High and Northeastern I was really looking to hear some juicy tidbits that failed to materialize.
Boston press has always been demonized and it is a city obessessed with sports. We deify our athletes until their first mistep and then they area treated to the local torture treatment. I never really got the feeling of being inside the clubhouse and knowing the real players during this time. It does make a good summer read by the pool and found myself gripped by his descriptive play by play of the 2004 comeback series with the New York Yankees. For those interested in statistics it will be even a more interesting read.

I burned through this book, as I do believe it’s a great read for true Sox fans. To disagree with a few reviews: 1) I don’t think you can get this sort of behind the scense glimpse at the management level info from reading the Globe/Herald. You can’t believe 1/2 of what they print. 2) It doesn’t focus on the clubhouse/players, as someone pointed out, but that’s not the goal.

It’s a review of what got the Sox to the ’04 title. At the same time, it shows the greed of the Sox owners and the stubborness of Lucchino that made them fall down in ’05 and now ’06, and I fear will probably prevent them from getting another title soon. It’s true that the Sox brass treat the team too much like a business (yes, I know it’s a business) on the baseball operations side than they should. There is plenty of money to be made elsewhere.

So it definitely focuses more on the management than the players (which was it’s goal, no less) so if you’re looking for that kind of detail, this is a great read.

Reading all the pre-publication marketing and press, it seemed as if Mnookin was going to provide lots of inside, “behind the scenes” scoop from the front office. All of the author’s blog entries and the bits and pieces released through the media indicated that. What this book actually is, is quite different. There is some of that stuff – and it’s completely and utterly fascinating. But the vast majority of the book is a season-by-season chronology of the team’s on-field performance from 2002 through 2005. Diehard fans already know what happened each season. We don’t need a summary. What we do want is the inside story, the stuff Mnookin’s special access was supposed to provide. Unfortunately, he didn’t really live up to the hype in that area. It’s still worth reading, just don’t expect too much.

My husband brought this book home and I could not have been less excited: I’m a Cardinals fan (married to a Yankees fan, which is hard), and I didn’t think I ever wanted to think (or read) about the 2004 World Series again. Then I started reading the introduction and felt this was the most amazing book about baseball ever written. It’s poetic, gripping, and full of juicy information and so knowledgable and detailed at the same time. The two of us fought over it at night – and neither of us would have expected to read it (or enjoy it!) when we started. Some of the statistical information will seem common sense to fans (like explaining batting average) and some will seem obscure (like talking about “defensive metrics”) but that’s a tiny thing in a majestic book. I loved it!

GREAT FOR BASEBALL — AND GOLF — FANS: Face it, not many people confess an equal love for both sports. I’ve always been a “baseball — first, last and always” type fan. That’s why Tom Stanton’s TY AND THE BABE surprised me so much.
Imagine a slugger like Barry Bonds versus a pure hitter like Ichiro Suzuki about 30 years from now. Not on the diamond, but the golf course! Once-intense athletes and enigmatic personalities transferring their remaining skills, attitudes and philosophies to a new sport. That’s what I imagined as I read Stanton’s insightful recreation of a little-known momentous encounter between baseball legends more than 60 years ago. Yes, Stanton made me like golf. At least, this tournament had the same drama and charm of a Mid-Summer Classic. I suspect golf fans would be just as charmed by his accessible reports of Cobb’s and Ruth’s baseball years.
Other reviewers have rightfully praised Stanton’s ability to look beyond the stereotyped depictions of both stars. Most importantly, the author hasn’t penned a fawning love letter to either Hall of Famer. He depicts both Ruth and Cobb as fascinating but flawed PEOPLE.
A superb historical detective, Stanton has given new life to an overlooked chapter of American sports. I can’t wait for his next work!

No two figures loom over the game of baseball like Tyrus Raymond Cobb and George Herman “Babe” Ruth. Even those unfamiliar with the Great American Pastime would probably give a nod of recognition at the utterance of these titanic names. As such, they have transformed into legends worthy of mythology – and myths about them continue to perpetuate. The sport itself seems eternally intertwined with their contributions almost to the extent that baseball as we know it doesn’t seem possible without them. They changed the game, and along with it American popular culture, forever. Not only that, the two were contemporaries and maintained a turbulent lifelong relationship on and off the playing field and, surprisingly, on the golf course. “Ty and The Babe” tells the story of this sometimes brutal sometimes touching love-hate relationship between baseball’s towering archetypes.

The book begins, appropriately, in the verdant little city of Cooperstown, New York. 1939 saw the first batch of inductees enshrined into the Baseball Hall of Fame, among which were Cobb and Ruth. By this time both were already larger than life celebrities. Cobb had retired in 1928 and Ruth in 1935. Since then, each man had taken up golf as a kind of surrogate sport. Their athletic passions thus passed from the diamond to the rough, from bats to clubs, from high to low scores. Though neither putted professionally, they nonetheless maintained their chops. As memories of an old rivarly unfolded in Cooperstown, thoughts brewed within heads rife for new competition or for a settling of old scores. On that very day, Cobb challenged Ruth to a game of golf with these incendiary words: “I can beat you any day in the week and twice on Sunday at the Scottish game.” Who could know that this blunt note, handed to Ruth classroom-style, would play a part in cooling one of the hottest duels in baseball history?

Part two of the book, called “The Baseball Years,” outlines the careers of Cobb and Ruth with an emphasis on their game day confrontations. Their fierce antipathy became as legendary as their athletic prowess. Fans ate up the spiteful venom-spitting that occurred when the two played on the same field. They seemed to downright hate one another. This part of the book relates many tales about Cobb’s and Ruth’s often ugly confrontations. An appendix gives the nitty gritty details and statistics on how the two performed against each other in over two hundred games. Ruth first faced Cobb as a pitcher for the Boston Red Sox. Cobb, considered the greatest player of all time in 1915, didn’t seem to notice. Only gradually did Ruth become the home run beaner we know today. Also, the book tells the fascinating story about how Ruth changed the game, something that Cobb resented for years. Cobb embodied the “science” of baseball: winning by hits, filling the bases, and by strategy. Ruth represented walloping the ball out of the park. Cobb took Ruth’s brutal methods as an affront to his more brainy style, especially when Ruth’s long balls started filling stadium seats and newspaper headlines, giving Ruth an unprecedented celebrity. This threw gas on the fire of an already flaming relationship.

Part three of the book changes the scenery to the golf course. Following up on Cobb’s 1939 challenge, the legendary duo played each other three times for charity. The old rivarly was reignited but by this time each had earned a friendly admiration for the other. Nonetheless, the games used the famous old animosity as marketing fodder. How Cobb and Ruth reconciled later in life is a touching story that suggests that even the fiercest competition has mutual respect at its foundation. Not only that, if Cobb and Ruth can come to terms, anyone can. The book thus demonstrates, via this famous clash of titans, that hope remains for reconciliation even in the most unlikely situations. Along the way, Cobb even gets vindicated as a rather nice guy, in stark contrast to his modern depiction as a heartless, brutal, anything-for-a-win ogre.

“Ty and the Babe” flys by with breezy prose, just enough detail, and fascinating historic photos. Fans of either player will find much to relish in the book’s 240 pages. But the book goes beyond baseball. It examines the lives of Cobb and Ruth and helps to answer questions such as “what did they do after they retired?” The quick answer: they stayed in the spotlight by healing a seemingly unhealable personal rift. Though both will be remembered mainly for their feats on the field, they had full lives off of it as well. “Ty and the Babe” tells the story.

This book was very interesting and informative and obviously well researched since the author is a baseball historian. It makes you feel as if you know the players and are living in their time period but it isn’t the most enjoyable book I’ve ever read. You rarely smile or laugh, there’s very little that’s amusing even though these are two very colorfull and bigger than life characters so I felt the book could have been a little lighter. Also check out two of my favorites – The Teammates by David Halberstam and When Life Was Baseball Teams and Egg Creams by Craig Howard, the last one being much lighter and more about life in the time period than baseball itself. Good nostalgia though.

Although both major Boston papers are filled with Red Sox stories, much of what is written is wrong, biased, or irrelevant. Because so much ink is slung so indiscriminately, many involved with the Red Sox don’t really want to open up to the press. In a remarkable departure from the policy of not providing any information, the team’s new ownership decided to let the public in to know more about the team. One aspect of that new philosophy was to allow author, Seth Mnookin, unparalleled access to the team’s management.

Now, that may not seem like a juicy subject, but it is if you are interested in how the Red Sox can hope to field teams that can compete with the New York Yankees and the unlimited budget for personnel in the Bronx. In Feeding the Monster, you get a realistic sense that the Red Sox are going to have bad years . . . in order to have good years. Now, that’s quite a contradiction to the constantly upbeat publicity that the club has put out since the new owners took over. That “promise them anything” philosophy in fact becomes a major bone of contention that almost drives Theo Epstein away.

There are places where the book seems to falter. Some players are dismissed as being a problem for the club based on a few incidents or characteristics. Most of us have our drawbacks. While we’re performing, no one cares. When we don’t perform, those drawbacks are often cited when we lose a job. The same happens to baseball players.

But the behind-the-scenes look at management is unprecedented . . . and dispels a lot of myths happily carried forward by the local media. I was glad to see the record set straight about how the club came into its current ownership hands, for example.

It was interesting that this book came out describing the 2006 season as a problem year just as the Red Sox collapsed in the five-game series in Fenway . . . and the Yankees went nowhere. In the excitement of the great wins early in the season, it was easy to overlook that the club didn’t have the pitching to make it very far. It was all the more remarkable that the early season went so well. Congratulations to the Red Sox for accomplishing as much as they did in 2006.

Wait until next year!

This book brings the Red Sox alive for even me, Ace from the Bronx, a die-hard Yankee fan.

Mnookin, dude — you rock!

My biggest complaint — why no pictures of the Red Sox in the olden times? Some pix of dem Sox from the early 20th century onward would have really been appreciated!!

I think Mnookin does a great job not only of tracing the long and involved history of the Red Sox, delving deeply into some particulars that only someone on the inside looking out would know, but I also REALLY like the way he patiently explains things like OBP and all those other VERY important stats-gathering processes that go beyond Batting Averages and ERA’s.

Great book. Seth Mnookin, they should create a baseball card with YOUR picture on it – you earned it.

As someone who has been reading baseball books for many years, I was blown away. This provides a better inside picture of what it’s like than anything I’ve read — it’s like Ball Four, but with the real story on everything and not just the players. There are so many new details in here – the sale, the amazing details about the Nomar trade, the Ortiz signing, Manny. But maybe the best part is how it gives an amazing picture of what being a part of a ball team is like, and does it in a way that’s like a novel and a history all at the same time. I can’t remember the last time I read a book cover-to-cover without being able to put it down.

Taking the long view, as Seth Mnookin does at the beginning of this piece of reportage, the Boston Red Sox are a failed franchise, a broken watch.

Much like the famous New Yorker cover that maps Manhattan at the center of the universe with other, lesser places marked as specks on the horizon, Mnookin’s story centers on the team that John Henry, Tom Werner and Larry Lucchino assembled to change that legacy. Off in the irrelevant distance are a dueling Babe Ruth and Harry Frazee, an oafish Joe Cronin, a drunken Tom Yawkey, an overrated and ultimately inconsequential Ted Williams, and some guys called Yaz and Pudge and Pesky. From the get-go, this is not a work of Sawks idolatry.

In telling a front-office story, Mnookin sets himself a difficult task. The rise and fall of management teams makes interesting if somewhat limited reading for the type of reader who subscribes to the Wall Street Journal, but it is no simple oversight that publication lacks a sports page to cover the teams that perform on the field. For those who follow the daily exploits of their hometown favorites, owners and managers generally are figures to be reviled. It is necessary, then, for Mnookin as the teller of what is, after all, a heroic sports tale to jump back and forth between the people to whom he has access — the suits — and those to whom he clearly does not — the players. As a result, we get only caricatures of those who are in fact the face of the franchise: a brooding, Hamlet-like Garciaparra; a blowhard Schilling; a proud and fragile-egoed Martinez; a whacked-out Ramirez; a universally beloved Pappi. Is there any magic here? Sadly, no. Like other sports franchises in modern times, baseball teams — Red Sox included — mix and match from year to year with few loyalties and scant long term vision. To hear Mnookin tell it, the club brass might just as well have been trading soybean futures.

Interesting, yes. Compelling, no.

The book is written well and carefully, with some exceptions: were he still alive, no doubt Bobby Bonds would be surprised to learn that Willie Mays is Barry’s grandfather. Its background and context give it far greater depth than a compendium of clips from sports pages covering the same subject matter. As a journalist, one suspects that Mnookin disdains his peers on the Red Sox beat. Peter Gammons is the only writer who gets favorable mention, and one interesting but underdeveloped motif of the book is the love-hate relationship — mostly hate, it seems — between the team and the writers who cover it.

As hot stove reading, this book is good. But it likely will be forgotten as soon as pitchers and catchers report.

I have now read all of Tom Stanton’s books, and I have enjoyed them all. I am one of many that had certain perceptions of Ty Cobb’s character based on stereoptypical opinion of Cobb in recent years. But Stanton sets the record straight in allowing us to get to know a different Ty Cobb; one who is a great competitor, but no where near the “evil” man that he has been portrayed as. The Babe is as fun loving as ever in this book and it is a fun read. I would recommend it to baseball fans, and golf fans too!

The count of books on the Boston Red Sox after their 2004 championship mounted up quickly. There is an empty forest in Oregon because of all of the publications.

“Feeding the Monster” is one of them. It might not be the absolute best of the bunch, but it’s, um, in the ballpark. (Trust you could see that coming.)

Seth Mnookin somehow convinced the Red Sox to let him move in with the team during the 2005 season, and write about the team from a close-up perspective. He even had a desk at Fenway Park, which as could be imagined gave him great access to the people connected with the team. Mnookin played reporter at times during home games, going into the clubhouse and press box for information.

Mnookin comes into this project as something of an outsider to sports writing. He’s a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and wrote the book, “Hard Times,” which looked into the Jayson Blair affair at the New York Times. He obviously follows baseball general and the Red Sox in particular, but he’s far enough outside the culture to give this an interesting viewpoint.

While there is plenty of other information in the book, “Feeding the Monster” essentially boils down to the story of the “new” Red Sox ownership, which took over before the 2002 season. John Henry, Tom Werner and company obviously took advantage of the chance to give their side of the stories of events. Mnookin is a good enough reporter to check out facts and give other sides of the story, but it’s fair to say the new owners come out looking quite good.

Any organization has its soap-opera aspects, and the Red Sox have had quite a story from 2002 to 2005. The biggest one, of course, was the World Series win in 2004 that ended 86 years of frustration. Mnookin doesn’t get too caught up in the day-to-day exploits of the team, which is a good decision — the readers already know that. There is plenty of new information here, what with backgrounds on player transactions, contract negotiations, front office problems (such as the one that led to Theo Epstein’s brief departure), etc.

There are many good details along the way. For example, the work of statistical analyst Bill James is revealed in part for the first time here. James one time did a study of every play in a Red Sox season to determine which players were costing the Red Sox production with a lack of hustle. The winner by a long shot: Manny Ramirez. For example, Kevin Millar is shown to be a good, happy-go-lucky influence in the clubhouse … as long as he is playing, and playing well — which he wasn’t in 2005. For example, I was stunned to discover that Byung-Hyun Kim’s numbers as a reliever in 2003 were about the same as Keith Foulke’s in 2004.

Mnookin does make a couple of curious editorial decisions. The first part of the book is a 54-page review of the franchise’s history; the author notes at the end that he cut it in half. I would guess that most of the readership base is quite familiar with the story, even if Mnookin does make some good points in the story. Speaking of familiar — and this is a little petty — a few of the footnotes cover such ground as how to calculate earned-run average and slugging percentage. Think anyone who picks up a 400+ page book on baseball won’t know those things?

This isn’t a ground-breaking book on baseball, but “Feeding the Monster” has plenty of great material. Proud members of Red Sox Nation will race through this book in no time.

As I was reading T and the Babe, I kept thinking what it must have been to play baseball and live in the early 1900′s. I didn’t know that Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth had such a rivalry to be number one. This book describes that rivalry and at the same time describes how baseball was played and how it evolved into more of a power game. The rivalry between Ty Cob and Babe Ruth is developed throughout the book and the personality of each player is described. As a follower of baseball, I realized that Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth were good but I did not realize how good they were and that such a rivalry existed. This book made me appreciate Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth as two great players who had the drive to be the best. Tom wrote a outstanding book that brought back memories about how baseball was in the early 1900′s.

Mnookin has written an informative look at the Red Sox from 2001-2005, but as a not very fanatical follower of the game, there’s not much new here. The author speaks of spending a great deal of time with the team in the book’s notes, but he chooses to leave himself out of the narrative – this is generally a good idea in non-fiction, but when most of the anecdotes are as well known as these, (Manny wants a trade, Schilling negotiating his own contract, making a move for A-Rod, etc), a fresh perspective is needed..

The author does a great job describing the sale of the team, especially the scenes reminding the reader of the venom spewed by local media against any group who was not hand picked by them. Much of the locker room talk is fun & quite salty. David Ortiz is not written (for once) as a big, happy cartoon-character & all of the Cowboy Up! & Idiots! snoredom is kept to a bare minimum. Thank you for that Mr. Mnookin.

I do have to bring up the footnotes. Any casual fan of the game should have a decent understanding of the myriad of statistics mentioned – but seeing an asterisk attached to common stats like ERA & OBP, followed by David Foster Wallace sized explanations makes me wonder who this book is marketed to. Maybe Mnookin was asked to add them by an editor who doesn’t understand the game. They’re really quite odd.

Overall, this is a good, not great book, and much better then the endless quick cash-ins that arrived shortly after the 2004 World Series win. I think there’s more to be told, but we probably have to wait for a writer to visit the principal’s farms & real estate offices in 20 years to hear the rest.

I share the lukewarm reactions to this book apparent in Amazon customer and press reviews. It adds little new but I am still glad I bought it. It doesn’t live up to its title and is mainly just a straight chronicle of the Red Sox back office, including its squabbles and financial tergiversations. It has the merit of being hype-free and takes its subject seriously. It seems very fair-minded in its judgements about such personalities as Theo, Curt, Petie, and Manny and is very much centered on John Henry and the ownership issues but somehow the character sketches don’t bring them to life.

There’s nothing wrong with the book and overall I like it — and praise it with faint damns — but I’m a Red Sox Nation member of over 40 yrs of neurosis. If you, too, are similarly of semi-sound mind, then it’w worth buying it. My only major criticism is that its comprehensive index does not contain a reference to “Evil Empire.”

What a fun book to read. I love how author, Tom Stanton, ties the history of the period with the baseball history he is highlighting. This truly made the story come alive for me and enhanced Mr. Stanton’s already wonderful ability to tell a story.

And, what a story it is! I am someone who loves the game of baseball, but has a limited historical background. It was certainly interesting to read and learn more about the similarities the two men shared as well as the intensity the two brought to their rivalry.

For people of my generation, the legend of Ty Cobb is more of a myth than reality. Mr. Stanton has certainly helped me to understand this great icon in Detroit sport’s history. It is obvious that Ty Cobb was much more than the standard “picture” that has been painted about him over time. This book brought out the human side of Ty Cobb and certainly brings life to that four-letter, numberless name I see immortalized in center field of Comerica Park. Tom Stanton tells a wonderfully entertaining story of two of my favorite topics, baseball and golf.

I just (last night) got back from Asia and thank God I had this book to read on all my plane rides. It was a GREAT book, and that comes from a Cardinal fan. This was as good if not the best sports book I have ever read. I would say that I am jealous of Seth, but I am not. While I would have loved to follow the team and the inner workings as he did, I could never have retold the story as he did. I could not put the book down.
Throughout junior high school, high school and college I worked at Busch Stadium in St. Louis because I loved baseball and the Cardinals – as I still do. This book made me remember how much I love the game, and people like John Henry. Seth gave an even-handed and very fair picture of the inner workings of buying and building a baseball franchise. You also appreciate how difficult it is to get to the top, but more importantly, how nearly impossible it is to sustain the level it takes to stay there. Players have enormous egos and sport writers often ignore the consequences of their behavior. This all comes to life in this great book.

[...]

First, a confession. Although I was born a third-generation Yankee fan, I switched my allegiance permanently when I moved to Boston in 1975 and have been a diehard member of Red Sox Nation ever since. So of course I loved this book. If you’re a Red Sox fan, you will too. But it’s a must-read for every baseball fan, I think, because it takes readers inside the modern game with all of its complexities — from superstar athletes, arrogant owners, and impossible fans to team-owned TV networks, arcane union rules and the playoffs-or-bust mentality — and offers a case study of how new owners with deep pockets and fresh ideas can make big changes happen fast.

Very informing and well detailed book. The first few chapters mostly deal with the sale of the team but as you go further in you start to get more in depth with player personal. The chapters about Manny were very entertaining

I have now had the pleasure to read three of Tom Stanton’s four great baseball books, and once again, he has written a classic.

Earlier this year, I read Al Stump’s biography of Cobb and was shocked with its accounts of a deeply troubled and often violent man.

Unfortunately, this and many other writings perhaps portrayed Cobb in an unfair manner. Stanton’s account cuts through these myths and provides a seemingly fairer portrayal of his career and life after baseball.

The comparisons and contrasts between Ruth and Cobb, as well as the great stories of their careers and rivalries as players, and then as adversaries on the golf course after baseball make for some great reading.

Thank you Mr. Stanton for bringing justice to the legacy of one of baseball’s greatest.

I love this book. I was 10 in 1967 when I first joined “The Nation,” and your summaries of games of the past is spot on, including things I remember and things I had completely forgotten about. Reading Feeding the Monster was like reading about your immediate family, with parts you want to relive and parts that are painful to think about. I read it through so quickly because I couldn’t wait to find out what happened in every chapter, even though I obviously already knew the final results. Then I went back and read it more slowly and savored every page. I’m glad the book sets the record straight for a lot of us about what happened with the team historically, the sale of the team to John Henry, and what goes on now behind closed doors most of us could have never hoped to open. I’ve never read anything that had such amazing details about a team’s makeup, about player negotiations, and about the pressures of playing (and working) in sports (or in Boston). I’ve also never read such poetic descriptions (and intimate details) about what goes on on the field and how the players do what they do. The chapters on David Ortiz are worth it in and of themselves. I’d recommend it not just to Red Sox fans but to baseball fans, people who want to learn about American business, and people interested in social history. Even Yankees fans will enjoy it.

The highlights of this book that were most interesting to me are the sections on John Henry and Larry Lucchino, Nomar Garciaparra, and the acquisition of Curt Schilling.

The details present in this book by Mnookin’s unprecedented access to the team and management pretty much makes this a must read for Boston fans — however, for an author who grew up a diehard Red Sox fan and is already intimately familiar with baseball and the history of the team, the book feels like the editors or publisher perhaps pushed the author into a lot of background info on the team and explanatory details on the game itself, which were unnecessary.

Still, it was a good read.

I also just read Ian Browne’s Dice-K: The First Season of the Red Sox $100 Million Man and highly recommend it, and having read the Yankees title that corresponds with it, I’m looking forward to this new release on the Boston Red Sox as well: Boston Red Sox: An Interactive Guide to the World of Sports (Sports by the Numbers)

This could very well be the best baseball book to come out this year. Tom Stanton does a great job of shedding light on a rivalry between two of baseball’s bests and in the process, he dispels some of the mistruths out there about Ty Cobb and how horrible of a person he was. When you finish this book, you’ll have a newfound appreciation for both Cobb and Babe Ruth.

The first part of the book goes through many of the times Ruth and Cobb faced each other on the field and it shows the transitiion from a bitter rivalry into a almost friendly one. The second half of the book then deals with a three match golf tournament between Ty and the Babe in what is a fun twist to a great story. All of Tom Stanton’s books are great, but in this one, he shows what a meticulous researcher he can be by dealing with a period of time that’s almost lost to us all.

Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb. Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth.

Two of the greatest names ever to play Major League Baseball and a pair of the most fiercest rivals on the diamond. Ruth was the new-school slugger whose gargantuan homers matched his pursuits off the field. Cobb was the oldest of old-school, a master of “small-ball,” who saw the game of titan shots with “juiced” baseballs as an utter abomination.

“Cobb disliked much about Ruth. But one of the things that pricked him most was Ruth’s lifestyle. The Babe lived with wild abandon, ignoring curfews, staying out all hours, drinking, partying, overeating, and snaking through towns in search of sex,” writes Stanton. “Cobb was nearly fanatical about taking care of himself, about being prepared for games, and about the need to sacrifice for the long term. He felt confident that Ruth’s nocturnal adventures would eventually undermine him.”

But in retirement, the pair were kept at arm’s length by the top executives in the game – Ruth never got a shot at managing a club and Cobb was tarnished by a 1926 gambling scandal “cover-up” – though each eventually found the time to frequently chase a golf ball around 18 holes. Ruth was a five handicap and Cobb a nine.

Author Tom Stanton tees up an interesting dual biography of the legends that is built around a 1941 charity golf match which pitted Ruth against Cobb. Along with coverage of every baseball game the paired played against each other, Stanton drives into the professional hatred which erupted into near brawls and vicious taunts, but eventually evolved into a cordial friendship.

Even the biggest fan of baseball history will find some new gems, especially about Cobb, which is a salute to the solid short game of Stanton; meticulously lofting up to the green buried facts from the sand traps of historical fiction.

It’s not a bad book, but it doesn’t really cover much new ground, despite the extensive access Seth Mnookin supposedly had. If you’re already pretty familiar with the past five years of Red Sox history, especially the 2003 and 2004 seasons, you’re going to get a little bored. If you’re picking the book up for the “juicy” behind the scenes tidbits, don’t bother, they’ve all already been reported in the papers.

One thing I found particularly odd, Mnookin has no problem highlighting some of the embarrassing flaws and foibles of almost everybody on the team and in the front office, and yet he doesn’t name “a certain married player” who had pictures of himself with a girl on his lap in a Northeastern dorm posted on the Internet. Is there a single person reading that book who doesn’t know he’s talking about Bronson Arroyo? It wasn’t exactly a well kept secret. He won’t name names there, but he’s fine writing that Nomar Garciaparra told his friends he thought the Red Sox were bugging his phone. Weird.

I enjoyed reading “Feeding the Monster” by Seth Mnookin because it was better prepared then some of those Red Sox publications that were slapped together after 2004. The book is better organized and obviously the research is better. Largely the book is about the transition of the team under John Henry’s ownership and their rise to a world series championship.

I am a unique Red Sox fan because being twenty seven, the first game I ever remember was game 6 in 86. I have suffered through many of the emotional lows and the sheer numbness of 03. I really like how Mnookin is able to portray the intensity and history so well.

I guess one thing I may have done differant is really elaborated more on some of the bad trades Theo Epstein has made. I really disliked the Shea Hillenbrand deal and the signing of Matt Clement as well as Willy Mo for Arroyo. I think he is a little soft on Epstein. Obviously Esptein is a great GM for bringing a world series to Boston, but I think he does make some big mistakes from time to time. The Clement deal has been a total disaster. I was against it big time when he made the move. I totally support Epstein though in the way he wants to rebuild and harvest the farm system, lots of credit there. I believe that is the only long term strategy for competing with the skankees. He is however an excellent GM who help deliver what so many failed to do.

Mnookin’s book is definitely well written and interesting. The one somewhat minor complaint is for somebody who has had complete access to the team for so long, he provides very little new information. I’m not sure if all the footnotes for “ERA” and “OBP” were neccessary. I think folks reading this book probably have a pretty decent idea what that is all about. I would just conclude by saying this book is definitely a lot better than some of those quick cash ins that came out soon after the World Series.

After reading all of the hype about this book, I was prepared to be disappointed. Between all the reviews and articles, I thought I had read all of the revelations. I was totally wrong and I’ve never had a perspective like this one. I’ve read many, many books about the sport and have never read anything that combined management and ownership and players and the on-field aspect like this one. I think it’s probably something I’ll go back and read repeatedly as time goes on, like “9 Innings” and “Moneyball” and “Ball Four” combined into one.

Because people are so passionate about the Red Sox and about baseball I suspect there will be lots of different reactions to the book. Already it seems to have angered those who think they’re the only “true” fans. Take the review in the Globe, where the writer (a host of a sports show) said he would prefer to remain ignorant (his words, not mine) about what actually happens in the game, or one of the reviews here written by Bill Nowlin, who has written many, many books of his own about the Red Sox (eight since 2004 alone). He makes fun of the title but doesn’t say he’s good friends with Rob Neyer and took part in research for Neyer’s book. He also says this book made a mistake by saying Kevin Youkilis was on the World Series roster, but Youkilis was indeed on the roster, replacing Ramiro Mendoza, who’d proven himself utterly worthless in the ALCS.

I think that’s to be expected when writing about baseball and the Red Sox. People feel very strongly about both, regardless of what else is going on in the world. I wasted many hours of my life reading all of the books that came out after the 2004 World Series, and this is one that finally looks at the whole history of the last six years while giving you the behind-the-scenes access and the beauty of the game. If you want to know anything about either baseball or the Red Sox this may be the best book produced in the past ten years, and may be one of the best baseball books ever.

I enjoyed the book and I’ve been a diehard Sox fan since Bucky Dent broke my heart in 1978 when I was 7-years old. I agree that it came across a little biased in parts and could’ve done without a lot of the retread information. Another thing, while we’ve already proven that Kevin Youkilis was on the 2004 WS roster, but I would ask Mr. Nowlin to check his baseball facts: the winner of the 1903 World Series was in fact the Boston Pilgrims.

In general, I enjoyed this book; Seth Mnookin is a good writer, if a little bland, and the book flowed nicely. But it had plenty of problems. Let’s make a list:

The Good

1)It’s easy to understand, even if you don’t know too much about baseball. I consider myself an avid Red Sox fan and a baseball connoisseur, so explanations of ERA and batting average bored me, but it does make the book more inclusive to a wider audience. It also includes a brief history of the team for those that are less familiar with it.

2)There are plenty of entertaining anecdotes and side stories in here. The sections on Nomar are particularly well-done. I now have more background information on the Red Sox ownership troika than I would have ever thought possible. What an interesting group of people.

3)The section on the sale of the team would make a new book in and of itself, and is very well-done and interesting, providing you have a rudimentary understanding of economics and finance. If you don’t, or hate numbers, prepare to be bored silly and skip about 75 pages.

4)There is a lot of new information on the process that brought about the Schilling trade. I found the tale of Jed Hoyer’s ugly Thanksgiving stomach virus to be two of the funniest paragraphs in the whole book, though I’m sure Jed would disagree.

5)And, of course, the famous Epstein/Lucchino rift is very well-documented and traced, to the point that I found myself getting frustrated with the characters for not noticing that Theo was acting increasingly bizarre and doing something about it months earlier. If Mnookin noticed, somebody else should have. A very nice job leading into the final explosion.

The bad:

1)I said there is a lot of background information that makes it more inclusive for casual fans. This is true, but the corollary is that if you are a true Red Sox fan, many parts of this book will drive you batty. The entire history of the team section at the beginning is largely irrelevant to the rest of the book, and Mnookin spends way too much time rehashing information that most respectable Sox fans already know, like descriptions of games and whatnot. It really slogs at times.

2)For a guy who spent all this time with the Red Sox front office, he sure didn’t include as much revelatory material as I thought he would. It was a disappointment. Casual fans may be impressed, but hard-core Red Sox fans will recognize many of his insights as already being common knowledge from Boston Globe or even AP stories.

3)The style is easy to follow but also fairly pedantic and dry.

4)Mnookin does a good job with the Epstein/Lucchino fiasco right up until Theo quits, and then after that his analysis is severely lacking. I realize that he was not with the team much after this point, but given that this was one of the most momentous things to occur in the history of the ownership group, which was exactly what he was writing about, you’d think he might put things off a little bit to try to gain more insight into what was going on.

5)The book gives a very sympathetic portrayal of pretty much every character except Dan Shaughnessy. Not that there is a problem with portraying Shaughnessy as a jerk, because he is. But John Henry is not a saint. Tom Werner is not a saint. Larry Lucchino sure isn’t a saint (to be fair, his portrayal was more negative). And I got the distinct impression that Mnookin didn’t have nearly as much insight into Epstein as he did into the ownership troika. That’s not to say there wasn’t any, because there was, and I understand that Epstein is not, by nature, eager to open up to someone like Mnookin, but it was noticeable.

5)The pictures. Funny thing to get upset about, I know. But he spent a year there. Did he bring a camera? There isn’t one single picture of the Fenway offices or any of the characters at work or with Mnookin or any such thing. No pictures of Joe O’Donnell or any lesser characters. I recognized every single photo from the Globe or AP except the one of Theo against some graffiti-covered wall. Visuals would be nice, thanks.

I’d recommend the book, but be prepared for it not to be quite what you thought it was going to be.

I have to say that I found this book interesting as written from a point of adulation, but as a history of baseball, it really did not serve much of a purpose. I found that it was weak and more focused on how the torch ended up being passed from Ty Cobb to Babe Ruth and used this forgotten golf grudge match as an excuse to write a book.

I think the book could have been much more interesting had it focused on baseball from the mid teen’s when Babe Ruth premiered to the late 1920′s when Ty Cobb passed from the scene. Great ball players like Tris Speaker, Smokey Joe Wood, Lou Gehrig and Joe Dugan barely merit a mention. The better angel to play up would have been to focus on that era of baseball especially the Black Sox. Sadly, that didn’t happen.

All in all not a bad book but there are better ones!

Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth are names that resonate at the summit of baseball history in much the same way that Washington and Lincoln look out from Mount Rushmore. Like much of history, my previous encounters with the legends of Ty and the Babe were from dry, dusty tomes. People who were excited about them when they played preserved their names, but it’s not hard to see why people today aren’t as excited about Babe Ruth as our grandpa was.

Tom Stanton has done a service to baseball fans everywhere in “Ty and the Babe.” He has preserved the legends of these two great ballplayers in a time capsule of words that brings the era of Tyrus and George to living, breathing, rip-snorting life. We can almost see the green outfields at Navin Field and Yankee stadium. We can almost smell the onions on the hot dogs. We can hear the crack of horsehide against Ruth’s Louisville slugger and we can feel the gasp of surprise from thousands of fans when they realize that Cobb has dashed from third base – HE’S TRYING TO STEAL HOME!

They were remarkably different:
Cobb – the son of a Georgia State Senator, baseball scientist, expert of the bunt, the sacrifice, the well-placed base hit and the stolen base. He was a master of baseball psychological warfare and believed that everyone in a baseball park who wasn’t actively trying to help his team was a mortal enemy.

Ruth – the son of a Baltimore saloon-keeper who was in a Catholic School for delinquents when he was drafted to pitch for the Boston Red Sox. Some forget that Babe Ruth was one of the best pitchers in the American League before the exploding popularity of his titanic home runs pressured Babe into becoming an every day player.

Cobb resented the fact that Home Runs were becoming the rage in the roaring twenties. He always thought that the smart combination of timely, controlled hitting and aggressive baserunning was the way to score. Home Runs seemed barbaric in contrast, and Ruth was the engine driving the train of popularity of the long ball.

Ruth hated the fact that Cobb publicly portrayed Babe as a crude bumpkin while Cobb was the intelligent master.

Over the years they developed a gradual respect for one another – as men and as baseball players. We get a sense not only of the icons as real people, but also of how they changed over time, including the ways that they changed each other.

Stanton’s work here is meticulously researched – an addendum gives details of every single game Ruth and Cobb played together. But he gives elegant life to pale statistics reminiscent of the way that Joseph Ellis brings the Founding Fathers to life in his award-winning books.

This is a must-have for baseball fans.

It was October 6, 2000, and for the first time in a generation the Red Sox were up for sale. Bought by Tom Yawkey in 1933, ownership had passed to his wife’s trust in ’94 after her death. Some wondered why it was now for sale – the team had just won a legislative battle for funding the construction of a new ballpark, and its value was at an all-time high. Fourteen months later it sold – to Boston outsiders, and the rumors of a “fix” (courtesy of Commissioner Bud Selig) were rampant.

The new owners proved themselves willing to work with the Boston fans, players, and writers, and at first it looked like smooth sailing. However, it seems like there were never-ending feuds – between owners, players and coach, etc. The “good news” is that things coalesced, new stars (David Ortiz and Curt Schilling) were acquired, and the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004 (and are leading their division again in 2006).

Professional baseball in Boston goes back to 1871. The Boston team won 8 pennants over the next 25 years, including three straight. Another high point was acquiring Babe Ruth (age 19) from Baltimore in 1914, and his evolution into an outfielder as part of filling out the roster during WWI. The “bad news,” was his being traded to the Yankees in 1919 for $100,00 – largely as a result of his becoming a difficult personality (wanted his salary doubled to $20,000), though unfounded rumors swirled about that the real reason was that the Sox’ owner needed the money to finance his Broadway show “No, No, Nanette.

Then, after winning more World Series in its first two decades than any other team, the Red Sox went on to suffer a drought for the next 80+ years – despite Ted Williams (joined in 1939, and hit a home run his last at bat), though probably at least partly because the owners passed on Jackie Robinson and Willie Mays, partly when combined with lots of poor managing.

This is a great book. Easy to read. All the principals involved in building the team of “idiots” who humiliated Yankee nation in 2004 are here. I loved the inside details of the soap opera front office maneuvers, including the long and drawn out sale to John Henry, Theo Epstein’s ascent and fights with Larry Luccino, the signing of Curt Shilling and the hiring of Terry Francona. This book is a must for every member of Red Sox nation!!

Seth Mnookin has a tremendous range of skills as a writer…he is a talented historian, journalist, and sportswriter…a rare blend of skills that all shine in this phenomenal work! The last 5 years of Red Sox history are thoroughly detailed..from the sale of the team by the Yawkey Trust right through the early parts of the 2006 season.

Somehow Mnookin blends objective reporting with tremendous passion for his subject…the complexities of the sale of the team are clearly explained…who all the competing parties were…how alliances formed and shifted…how Massachusetts politics dominated so many conversations…how close the Henry group was to not getting the deal!!!

The Lucchino-Epstein relationship is explored with great care and thoughtfulness…we see them as each geniuses in their own way…with the love and tension of a father-son relationship…the feelings of betrayal on both sides…the reconciliation carefully led by godfather John Henry…

Mnookin is careful to avoid assigning credit or blame…instead, he prevents a balanced perspective, leaving the reader to ponder the subtleties and moral ambiguities…

And there are some wild suprises…

Which member of the Red Sox almost boarded one of the ill-fated airplanes on September 11? Why did his plans change at the last minute?

Who was afraid for his life when taken to the Boston waterfront for a “chat”?

Carefully documented, masterfully written…this is a MUST READ!!!