cover image TEN RINGS: My Championship Seasons

TEN RINGS: My Championship Seasons

Yogi Berra, Dave Kaplan, with Dave Kaplan. . Morrow, $24.95 (240pp) ISBN 978-0-06-051381-8

In this breezy effort, New York Yankees legend Berra shares stories behind his 10 World Series championships. On the field, Berra's résumé is impeccable—15 all-star appearances, 10 world championships and a couple of league MVP awards. Off the field, Berra is even more famous for the homespun malapropisms that have endeared him to generations of fans. In this effort, billed as Berra's only "memoir," the Yankee legend strikes a balance between both claims to fame. In charming, if occasionally mangled prose, Berra details a career that brought him from a poor St. Louis neighborhood to Cooperstown. He recounts signing with the Yankees for $500 and playing alongside the richest array of heroes in Yankees history, including Joe DiMaggio and famed manager Casey Stengel. Unfortunately, the book is so brief that readers will be left begging for more. The World Series recaps, while scant, are entertaining, and the details are at times fascinating: for example, after traveling to Milwaukee by plane for the first time in the 1958 series, no hotel would take the team, forcing them to lodge 35 miles away at a lakeside retreat. Berra's personal and family stories are also touching. In addition to being a baseball hero, Berra is a war hero who survived D-Day. Fans will be especially taken with how much baseball has changed since the dawn of free agency. Berra had to claw to get a modest raise after consecutive MVP awards in 1954 and 1955. For diehard fans, there really isn't much in this book they won't already know, but they'll find it impossible to put down. (Sept.)