My sister knows me. She bought me this book for my birthday and it was a great read.

The author, Craig Robinson, is an Englishman that fell in love with baseball 5-10 years ago. He loved the "order" of everything, from three strikes to four bases to nine innings, how an individual matchup helped the overall team, the non-uniformity of ballparks, and more specifically, the New York Yankees.

One of his first thoughts - that he shares with many non-Americans - is why it's called the "World" Series when 97% of the teams play in the U.S. Regardless, his passion for the game is evident from the first sentence. Although the book is full of "charts, drawings [and] photos," I stayed with it for the stories Robinson told, of which there were three. The first was during a trip to New York in 2005 when he attended his first game (Yankees vs. Twins), another when he took the quintessential American road trip, traveling around the country to see various ballparks, and another when - denied a visa to the U.S. - he lived in Toronto for a summer and bought season tickets to the Blue Jays.

Even though the book is primarily graphs, I skimmed over them to get to the next essay I liked the story so much. Here's a snippet from when Robinson attended a Mariners-Red Sox game in Seattle -

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On a day when the Yankees will honor Roger Maris' feat of breaking the single-season home run record, it seemed fitting to review the book about that magical season.

50 years ago, Maris and Mickey Mantle battled each other in a race to break Babe Ruth's sacred record of 60 homers in a season. Phil Pepe's book, 1961*, tells the behind-the-scenes story of that year.

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This book is truly for those who love Don Mattingly. He was an integral part of being a Yankee fan in the 1980's and early 90's. Even though the team struggled, we always enjoyed watching Donnie. He's one of only 14 men in baseball history to be called Captain of the Yankees. He epitomized hard work and class in just the same way as most of the others before him did. 

If you're an undying fan of Donnie Baseball, then this book will be up your alley. There is nary a bad word said about him in all 199 pages. 

I wish the "definitive biography" of Mattingly was more biographical though. Much of his childhood and adolescent years, as well as his private life, are skimmed over in favor of talking about his life as a professional ballplayer. Don't most readers already know much of that? I went in hoping to learn more about Donnie the person, but was disappointed. The vast majority of sources, quotes, and the like, come from other baseball people: players, managers, executives, and such.

There's also too many of said quotes - it felt like nearly half the content - when it would've behooved the book to have more... substance. I found myself skimming over many of the quotes, thinking "Yeah, yeah. Another, 'Mattingly is a nice, quiet, professional player and even better person'. How many ways can you say that?"

The story concludes with an optimistic view that he would take the Dodgers to success as their new manager. While that hasn't happened yet (largely due to problems outside of his control), author Mike Shalin is very confident that Mattingly's managerial style will lead to future success in Los Angeles, despite never having been a manager at any pro level. As to that prediction, I honestly can't say, because I think it has a lot more to do with the roster than the manager.

Anyway, I'll leave you with this.

Here are your finalists for PA's May Photo Caption Contest:

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Kevin Long recently released a new book on hitting/ biography, Cage Rat.

I've started reading it, and I'll have a full review soon, but for now I can say it's engaging, and it breaks down Long's work with the Yankee hitters in much greater detail than I had dared hope for. It is (so far) for hitting, what Living On the Black and Bullpen Gospels failed to be for pitching.

I have a copy to give away, so this weekend we're going to run a little caption content. Here's your third and final picture.

Rec the best, and finalists will go up for a vote.

Kevin Long recently released a new book on hitting/ biography, Cage Rat.

I've started reading it, and I'll have a full review soon, but for now I can say it's engaging, and it breaks down Long's work with the Yankee hitters in much greater detail than I had dared hope for. It is (so far) for hitting, what Living On the Black and Bullpen Gospels failed to be for pitching.

I have a copy to give away, so this weekend we're going to run a little caption content. Here's your second picture.

Rec the best, and finalists will go up for a vote.

Kevin Long recently released a new book on hitting/ biography, Cage Rat.

I've started reading it, and I'll have a full review soon, but for now I can say it's engaging, and it breaks down Long's work with the Yankee hitters in much greater detail than I had dared hope for. It is (so far) for hitting, what Living On the Black and Bullpen Gospels failed to be for pitching.

I have a copy to give away, so this weekend we're going to run a little caption content. Here's your first picture.

Rec the best, and finalists will go up for a vote.

I've got a copy of The Yankee Reader for the most rec'd weekend preview.

Be creative! Write a story or a poem, photoshop a picture or design a comic strip. Just make your preview of the weekend series against the Blue Jays the best!