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Lunch » Tags » Baseball Players » Reviews » Munson: The Life and Death of Yankee Captain

Munson: The Life and Death of Yankee Captain

1 rating: 3.0

Biography of the tragic Yankee catcher by Marty Appel

For Yankee fans, catcher Thurman Munson remains a sentimental standout among the storied lineup of George Steinbrenner’s late '70s Bronx Zoo dynasty of Yankee baseball, when the team made it to three consecutive World Series, winning in '77 … see full wiki

Tags: Baseball Players, Baseball, Biographies, New York Yankees

1 review about Munson: The Life and Death of Yankee Captain

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Interesting Insights To a Yankee Captain

Jan 11, 2011

by MichaelN
posted in Just Baseball

Exclusive to the Lunch Network

Rating:

This book presents a lot of interesting information on the personality of one of the most quirky Yankees of all time. Most Yankee fans remember the outspoken Reggie as well as Goose, and Martin of the Yankee teams of the 70's but can barely remember any interviews with Munson and until his tragic plane crash, knew very little about his personal life.

Munson had a very rough childhood with a physically abusive and usually absent father. He was expected to finish school and go into a blue collar trade but he excelled at several sports. He used baseball as a way to have a few hours each day to forget about his troubles and problems at home.

Munson actually had excellent speed for his size and did not really play catcher until late in his teens. He was lucky enough to not have to go into the military because of a deformity he was unaware of.

The book seems to have a lot a interesting side stories about Thurman during his early Yankee years but several of those seasons are only presented in a page or two. Even the pennent years of 76-78 seem to be told in very terse pages so that the reader gets to the halfway of the book at the end of the 78 World Series.

The rest of the book focuses on 1979, specifically the days leading up to Munson's plane crash. Most of this is forgotten by fans with the exception of the Monday game that was played right after his death in which Bobby Murcer helped lead a Yankee comeback against the Orioles.

This book, while having some good insights and good Yankee memories of some of the more obsure players they had during the early 70's, pales in comparison to other baseball biographies (Steinbrenner, The Last Lion and Willie Mays, The Life, The Legend) that I recently read.

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