I know we all bleed Orange and Blue around here and you’re probably saying to yourself “why should I read “The Yankee Years” (Doubleday) by Joe Torre and TomVerduuci? Well if you’re a baseball fan and if you really want to feel better about being a Mets fan you’ll read this book.

Verducci does the writing here and that’s what makes this a first rate book. St Joseph of Torre adds in lots of inside the Highlander clubhouse stuff and the book does come off a bit like a tell all jilted lover story but the real big contributors to this book are bullpen catcher Mike Borzello, who is not afraid to let his feelings known like when he tells how the Derek Jeter-Alex Rodriguez War of the Roses spilt the team, David Cone and Mike Mussina who come off as straight shooters.

The book reveals how the Steinbren-ian way of just buying talent bothered Brian Cashman as the more he dealt with Billy Beane, Theo Epstein and Mark Shapiro, he wanted to run the Highlanders in the same new school manor.

Verducci also delves in the PED Revolution with Rick Helling comeing off as the voice in the forest pertaining to steroids and how they were rampant through baseball and needed to be controlled and both ownership and the MLBPA told him to “Sit down and shut up”

The book is a great read and just shows that The Yankee Way is really a myth as Verducci and Torre let us know that once his core guys (Bernie Williams, Chuck Knoblauch, Tino Martinez, Paul O’Neil and David Cone) left the team, they were replaced by guys who had no idea what it took to win and it’s a problem that the Highlanders still have today.

After reading this book I realized the New York Highlanders are not as regal or as highfalutin as my Highlander fan relatives, co-worker or next door neighbor will lead me to believe.

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