The Zen of Zim
Baseball, Beanballs and Bosses
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Don Zimmer is baseball. His first book, Zim-A Baseball Life, was a New York Times bestseller and one of the best baseball memoirs ever published. Now, in The Zen of Zim, one of baseball's most beloved figures offers readers an insightful look into the baseball of yesterday and today.
Baseball fans will love hearing Zim's positions on such things as pitching inside, managing, bosses, and more.
With more than fifty-six years in baseball, Don Zimmer had seen it all, or so he thought before he ran into George Steinbrenner. Here Zimmer provides a revealing account of his eight years as Joe Torre's right-hand man-and the jealousy, vindictiveness, and pettiness that ultimately destroyed a twenty-five-year friendship with Steinbrenner.
Zim will also discuss the circumstances that led to his charging onto the field at Fenway Park and throwing a haymaker at Boston Red Sox pitcher Pedro Martinez. He'll share with readers what it was like to work for other baseball owners; shed new light on general managers like Branch Rickey and Dan Duquette; and critique the managing styles of some of the most famous and notorious skippers of the twentieth century, from Casey Stengel and Earl Weaver to Gene Mauch and Billy Martin.
In a chapter called "What Have They Done to My Game?," Zim will offer a crash course in baseball anthropology, describing how the game and its players have changed over the past fifty years and showing how big money and free agency have destroyed clubhouse camaraderie and turned a team sport into a transient game. In contrast, he celebrates his close-knit teammates on the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers team and the lifelong friendships that were made.
Zim has seen it all, and here readers learn even more of his life and dreams and of baseball through a half century of experience. It is a story jam-packed with laughs and anecdotes, with excitement and comedy. And it is superbly told.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Teaming up again with Madden, Zimmer (Zim: A Life in Baseball), formerly of the Yankees, now with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, recalls more than half a century of glories and challenges and gives his spin on the changes in baseball-good and bad-observed over a lifetime in the game. Ironically, one of his biggest complaints is batters displaying their indignation over close pitches. Zimmer condones the inside pitch as a strategic necessity, which might seem inconsistent for someone who almost died on two occasions from being hit in the head, or "beaned." In an unusual move for a sports memoir, he devotes a chapter to his wife, Soot, and turns the narrative over to her to speak about the difficulties and rewards of being an athlete's spouse. One of his charms is the ability to poke fun at himself. "What's a .235 hitter like me doing on the Letterman show," he asks, amazed and amused by the attention he has received over the years. Zimmer is refreshingly honest, whether expressing his gratitude for the friendships cultivated in and out of sports or criticizing players and bosses. Given the dirt as he could dish, he is restrained and considerate, which makes for a nicely balanced memoir.