Taking on the Yankees: Winning and Losing in the Business of Baseball, 1903 to 2003
By Henry D. Fetter

A fascinating history of baseball's most successful franchise, on and off the field.

From Publishers Weekly The success of the Yankees has been built on management techniques that include innovation, strong leadership and the ability to spend money wisely, argues Fetter in his absorbing account of the relationship between good business practices and winning baseball. Although they are now regarded as the most successful franchise in sports, that distinction was far from certain when the Yankees began life as the Highlanders in 1903. It was not until Col. Jacob Ruppert acquired the team in 1914 that the organization was put in place that would produce perennial winners rather than constant losers. Ruppert's business acumen prompted him to purchase Babe Ruth in 1919, and his organizational structure allowed him to separate himself from the day-to-day operations of the Yankees in favor of Miller Huggins and Ed Barrow, manager and general manager, respectively, of Ruppert's teams. The Yankees' rise in the 1920s was at the expense of the New York Giants, which had ruled the National League and New York baseball in part by acquiring players from money-losing teams. Managerial squabbling led to the Giants' demise, and weak leadership later resulted in the resurrected Giants' move to San Francisco. As the Giants sank, the St. Louis Cardinals, led by Branch Rickey, became the Yankees' National League challenger. But a fallout between Rickey and Cardinal ownership resulted in Rickey's move to Brooklyn, where he, along with Walter O'Malley, would provide another foil for the Yankees. Fetter's telling of the rivalry with the Dodgers in the 1950s, along with the machinations that forced the Dodgers to move West, are particularly riveting. With the departure of the Dodgers and Giants in 1958, the Yankees stood alone as New York's baseball team, and despite the creation of the Mets in 1962, the Yankees continue to rule the baseball world. With its historical sweep, Fetter's work stands as a solid companion to Michael Lewis's Moneyball on how to build a winning baseball organization. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. Review As he meticulously recounts the rise of the Yankees, Fetter corrects many myths that have become accepted as fact. -- Wall Street Journal, Chaz Repak, 2 October 2003Should become the primary work on the subject....excellent. -- New York Sun, Tim Marchman, 22 September 2003 About the Author Henry D. Fetter is a lawyer and writer whose work has appeared in the Journal of Sport History, The Public Interest, and the Times Literary Supplement. A native New Yorker, he lives in Los Angeles.
A great read for baseball fans I really enjoyed this book. I head about it reading a review in the Wall Street Journal. When I first saw the phrase "the business of baseball" in the title I was fearful. But this was no review of accounting ledgers. It was instead a lively tour though the history of baseball with a focus on its most successful, and colorful team. It debunked many myths that I always carried around in my head (e.g. that my beloved Red Sox sold the Bambino to finance a play), and constantly got me thinking about the role of baseball in society and society in baseball. I thought it just as good in discussing free agency and the labor agreements of the last few years as it was covering the early history of the game. The author had a point of view, but it didn't get in the way of a clear and objective telling of the story. Best of all, it was just fun to read. What are the Pathways to Success in Major League Baseball? There are many paths to success in major league baseball, or so it seems; but all of them force teams at some point to take on the New York Yankees, by far the dominant team in the sport. At least that is what Henry D. Fetter argues in "Taking on the Yankees: Winning and Losing in the Business of Baseball, 1903-2003." While this book is really about how various franchises have built dominant teams over the twentieth century, they always seem to have played off of the persistent excellence on the field of the Yankees, whose 39 American League pennants and 26 World Series victories far outstrip any other team. Fetter creates the somewhat artificial dichotomy of National League teams going up against the Yankees over the course of the century. He singles out the St. Louis Cardinals (17 National League pennants and 10 World Series victories), the New York Giants (14 National League pennants and 5 World Series victories), and the Brooklyn Dodgers (9 National League pennants and 1 World Series victory) as representative of this rivalry. For Fetter, the National League rivals were dominated by the Branch Rickey innovations of the farm system and desegregation to enable them to acquire and keep economically priced talent who could challenge the Yankees. The Yankees, of course, had the advantage of enormous wealth to buy any talent that they needed to reign supreme in the American League. They did so with Babe Ruth in 1920 and they have spent liberally since that time to ensure success on the field, with only two major dry spells in their history--1965-1975 and 1982-1995. Without the financial resources of the Yankees, the New York incarnation of the Giants followed by the Cardinals and finally by the Dodgers of Brooklyn challenged them virtually every year. The Giants did it with deep pockets and the managerial genius of John McGraw. The Cards did so with the farm system of Branch Rickey that developed a continuing parade of quality players such as Rogers Hornsby supplemented by savvy trades for such players as Grover Cleveland Alexander. The Dodgers challenged the Yankees with an infusion of superb African American talent that started with Jackie Robinson in 1947. This is an excellent history of how these teams have approached building dominant teams. It is somewhat narrow in that it focuses its historical discussion on these four teams to the exclusion of other questions that deserve consideration. For example, how did other American League teams seek to build their teams? The A's in Philadelphia and later in Oakland were dominant at various points in the century, so too were the Cleveland Indians, the Boston Red Sox, the Baltimore Orioles, and the Detroit Tigers. How did they do it? Did the Yankees just outspend everyone else? What about those teams with essentially the same access to money as the Yankees but were never able to put together the dominance that the Bronx Bombers maintained? The Giants between 1937 and 1951never finished higher than third, but why not? Money alone is not the answer to ensuring success. These are questions worthy of consideration. Henry Fetter offers a reasoned and useful discussion of some of these questions; perhaps someone else will follow with an engaging analysis of additional themes and questions. "Taking on the Yankees" is fully worth the effort and I recommend it as both an enjoyable reading experience and one that helps cast into stark relief the manner in which Major League Baseball franchises have historically pursued excellence on the field. Informative and lively This book offers a lively and original take on baseball history--the mighty Yankees from the viewpoint of their three great historical rivals, the Giants, the Cards and the Dodgers. Easy to read, full of interesting anecdotes, yet offering real insight into the development of baseball as a business.