The Zen of Zim: Baseball, Beanballs and Bosses - Hardcover

Zimmer, Don; Madden, Bill

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312334303 ISBN 13: 9780312334307

Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books, 2004

Synopsis

Don Zimmer is baseball. His first book, Zim-A Baseball Life, was a New York Times bestseller and one of the best baseball memoirs ever published. Now, in The Zen of Zim, one of baseball's most beloved figures offers readers an insightful look into the baseball of yesterday and today. Baseball fans will love hearing Zim's positions on such things as pitching inside, managing, bosses, and more.

With more than fifty-six years in baseball, Don Zimmer had seen it all, or so he thought before he ran into George Steinbrenner. Here Zimmer provides a revealing account of his eight years as Joe Torre's right-hand man-and the jealousy, vindictiveness, and pettiness that ultimately destroyed a twenty-five-year friendship with Steinbrenner.

Zim will also discuss the circumstances that led to his charging onto the field at Fenway Park and throwing a haymaker at Boston Red Sox pitcher Pedro Martinez. He'll share with readers what it was like to work for other baseball owners; shed new light on general managers like Branch Rickey and Dan Duquette; and critique the managing styles of some of the most famous and notorious skippers of the twentieth century, from Casey Stengel and Earl Weaver to Gene Mauch and Billy Martin.

In a chapter called "What Have They Done to My Game?," Zim will offer a crash course in baseball anthropology, describing how the game and its players have changed over the past fifty years and showing how big money and free agency have destroyed clubhouse camaraderie and turned a team sport into a transient game. In contrast, he celebrates his close-knit teammates on the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers team and the lifelong friendships that were made.

Zim has seen it all, and here readers learn even more of his life and dreams and of baseball through a half century of experience. It is a story jam-packed with laughs and anecdotes, with excitement and comedy. And it is superbly told.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

A LIFETIME IN THE GAME

For more than a half-century-from rookie to honored baseball legend-Don Zimmer has lived his dream. He's played for the best managers the game has ever known. He's toured every major city in America. And he's shared the field with such greats as Jackie Robinson, Pee Wee Reese, Don Drysdale, and Sandy Koufax. Scoring six World Championship rings, Zimmer has overcome more than his share of obstacles to remain loyal to himself, the game, his fans, and to fifty-years of fellow teammates, managers, and coaches by way of old-school smarts, versatility, resilience, and a true love of the sport. Now, with scrappy humor, keen insight, and an opinionated bull's-rush honesty, Zimmer delivers a grand-slam memoir of the challenges, regrets, glories, and triumphs that only a world-class act who's been-there-done-that, could tell.

THIS IS ZIM ON:
* The fallout with George Steinbrenner that ended a twenty-five-year personal and
professional relationship
* His Fenway Park throw-down with Pedro Martinez that made national headlines
* His successful eight-year run as Joe Torre's right-hand man
* His lifelong friendships with his 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers team
* The effect of big-money on team solidarity
* His frank opinions of ballplayers-and the game-past and present

WITH 16 PAGES OF PHOTOGRAPHS

"Zim's a guy who's been around baseball for a hundred years and he just makes it fun. I look at him as a wise old Buddha."-Derek Jeter

"It's a sentimental memoir in the best old-fashioned American sense."
-The Chicago Sun Times

About the Author:

Don Zimmer's baseball career has spanned fifty-six years and seven decades. Zimmer went from top prospect to near tragedy after a beaning in the minor leagues, but he fought back to put together a prolific baseball career. He is the author of Zim-A Baseball Life, and he lives in Treasure Island, Florida.

Bill Madden is an award-winning columnist with the New York Daily News who has covered baseball for thirty-five years and has been a national baseball columnist since 1988. He is the author of Pride of October and coauthor of Damned Yankees and, with Don Zimmer, Zim-A Baseball Life. He has known Zimmer for more than twenty years.

About this edition

• Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0312334303
• ISBN 13: 9780312334307
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256