The Devil Wears Pinstripes

Book #23 of 2005 was The Devil Wears Pinstripes: George Steinbrenner, the Satans of Swat , and the Curse of A-Rod by ESPN.com senior writer and UW alum Jim Caple. This is Caple's first book, though it basically reads like compilation of short satirical articles similar to the work he does for ESPN Page 2. To give you an idea of the flavor of the book, examples of chapter names include "The Ten Yankees Who Drive Us Nuts", "Darth Steinbrenner", and "The Dump That Ruth Built". In other words if you hate the Yankees you'll gonna like this book, but if you're a Yankee fan you might want to steer clear.

I think Caple's writing style is hilarious. He has a special flare for irony and clever similes (my favorite is his comparison between A-Rod and Leave It To Beaver's Eddie Haskell). There's lots of laugh out loud worthy moments, but on the down side the book gets a bit repetitive and beyond poking fun at the Yankees it doesn't provide a whole lot of fodder for hating them more than anyone reading the book probably did before they picked it up. Then again, I did learn that in 1974 Steinbrenner was convicted for illegal campaign contributions to Richard Nixon's campaign resulting in a two year suspension from baseball and that in 1990 Steinbrenner was temporarily banned from MLB for paying gambler Howard Spira $40,000 to try dig up dirt on outfielder Dave Winfield to aid the club in contract negotiations.

If you're unfamiliar with Caple's work and would like to check it out, you can find an archive of his ESPN Page 2 work here. You can also read an excerpt from his book here.