A Lifetime of Yankee Octobers

This book is a Yankee fans dream because it chronicles the historic success of the greatest franchise in sports history. But what makes this book special is that it is unlike most Yankee books, of which there are literally hundreds. The story of the Yankees is told by a fictional character created by the author, a man who has personally witnessed all 26 of the Yankees' World Series championships. The character, named Joseph Kimmerle, was born and raised in the Bronx and lived across the street from where Yankee Stadium was built in the early 1920s. His father becomes friends with Babe Ruth, and through that connection, young Joseph Kimmerle gets a job with the Yankees as a bat boy and later as a clubhouse assistant. He ultimately covers the team as a sports writer for 45 years, and late in life he serves as a personal confidant to Yankee manager Joe Torre, whom he has known since Torre was a teenager growing up in Brooklyn. All of the facts and game accounts in the book are real, and Kimmerle is fictionally and ingeniously woven into the story. If you weren't warned on the title page that Kimmerle was a fictional character, you would certainly believe he was a real person, so artfully crafted is his character. This was one of the most enjoyable baseball reads I have encountered, and I highly recommend it, especially for Yankee fans looking for an interesting twist on their team's history.