New Book Chronicles New York Yankees’ Dominance During Early 1960s

The story of the rise and fall of the New York Yankees in the 1960s is chronicled in a new book entitled Yankee Pride: The Story of the New York Yankees in the 1960s … Baseball’s Real Golden Age.
 
June 22, 2012 - PRLog -- Published by Bright Stone Press, Yankee Pride is available at 1960sBaseball.com and through Amazon.com and other retail outlets in softcover, Kindle and e-Book (pdf) editions.

Yankee Pride follows the story of the New York Yankees during the 1960s, season-by-season and month-by-month. Each month includes game-by-game summaries, highlighting performances by Yankee players and the American League stars they faced. It also profiles individual Yankees players from the 1960s, including Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Whitey Ford, Elston Howard, Mel Stottlemyre, Roy White and others.

During the first five years of the 1960s, the New York Yankees were the dominant team in Major League Baseball’s American League, winning five consecutive pennants and two World Series championships (while losing two heart-breaking seven-game World Series during that period). Then, incredibly, in only two seasons, the Yankees went from league best to league worst.

According to the author, Carroll Conklin, the dominant Yankee teams of the early 1960s were exceptionally balanced in their hitting, pitching and defense. “Those Yankee teams had it all,” Conklin explains. “Day in and day out, American League pitchers had to face a lineup that included Mantle, Maris, Skowron, Berra, a lineup that was dangerous from top to bottom and produced many late-game, come-from-behind victories (which is why Luis Arroyo won 15 games in relief in 1961).

“The Yankees from 1960-1964 also had great deep pitching, both in the starting rotation and in the bullpen. And their offense was so consistently good that often their defense – led by players like Bobby Richardson, Tony Kubek, Clete Boyer and Elston Howard – was under-rated.

“Baseball has had many great, balanced teams on a one- or two-season basis,” Conklin adds. “But to play so well, so consistently over a five-year span? That remains unique, especially when you factor in the level of competition those Yankee teams had to face.”
The author contends that the 1960s produced the best overall play of any decade in baseball history.

Conklin has been advancing the idea of the 1960s as baseball’s “real golden age” for more than three years through his 1960s Baseball web site (www.1960sbaseball.com) and affiliated blogs (1960sBaseball Blog and Squidoo/1960sBaseball). On a daily basis, he tweets facts about 1960s baseball (“Today in 1960s Baseball …”) to followers of twitter.com/Baseball1960s.

Conklin explains, “I think the evidence is overwhelming that the 1960s produced the best major league baseball of any decade. Statistically great pitchers and hitters, more than fifty of them now in the Hall of Fame. It was the first full decade to benefit from the breaking of the color barrier, and the resulting influx of outstanding athletic and baseball talent raised the game dramatically over the level of play in the 1950s and earlier.”

Conklin adds, “What also made 1960s baseball great can be found in some of the things it didn’t have. Baseball in the 1960s was played without labor disputes, free agents, designated hitters, face hair, or performance-enhancing drugs … unless you insist on including chewing tobacco.”

Yankee Pride focuses on the Yankee teams of the 1960s. According to Conklin, the book is written in a style that allows both casual and die-hard baseball fans to relive the drama of each season and “virtually watch each season progress at lightning speed.”

“The book is written for baseball and Yankee fans who are accustomed to enjoying their sports reporting in a series of rapid-fire micro bites,” Conklin explains. “In its style, Yankee Pride is a combination of ESPN Sports Center and Twitter applied to New York Yankees history.

“It’s what you would read and hear about the 1960s Yankee teams and players if there had been an ESPN and a Twitter during the 1960s,” Conklin adds.

Conklin explains, “The New York Yankees were baseball’s great Greek tragedy of the 1960s. They were the American League champions for the first half of the decade, and became the league’s worst team only two years later. Then they clawed their way back to respectability by the end of the decade. The drama is already built into their story. Yankee Pride just wants to make to make that story fan friendly.”
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