Chumps To Champs

“A richly detailed narrative of the fall and rise of the Yankees” from the New York Times–bestselling author of Billy Martin (Tom Verducci).

The New York Yankees have won twenty-seven world championships and forty American League pennants, both world records. They have twenty-six members in the Hall of Fame. Their pinstripe swag is a symbol of “making it” worn across the globe. Yet some twenty-five years ago, from 1989 to 1992, the Yankees were a pitiful team at the bottom of the standings, sitting on a fourteen-year World Series drought and a thirty-five percent drop in attendance. To make the statistics worse, their mercurial, bombastic owner was banned from baseball.

But out of these ashes emerged a modern Yankees dynasty, a juggernaut built on the sly, a brilliant mix of personalities, talent, and ambition. In Chumps to Champs, Bill Pennington reveals a grand tale of revival. Readers encounter larger-than-life characters like George Steinbrenner and unexplored figures like Buck Showalter (three-time manager of the year), Don Mattingly, and the crafty architect of it all, general manager Gene Michael, who assembled the team’s future stars—Rivera, Jeter, Williams, O’Neill, and Pettitte.

Drawing on unique access, Pennington tells a wild and raucous tale.

“A superb book.” —Michael Kay, YES Network

“A book that—much like those Yankees—will be talked about for decades.” —Ian O'Connor, New York Times–bestselling author

“[Pennington’s] attention to the critical details of the lives of both the players and the front-office personnel is unusually penetrating . . . The book is intelligent and memorable.” —Booklist (starred review)