Road to Nowhere: The Early 1990s Collapse and Rebuild of New York City Baseball by Chris Donnelly (review)

Reviewed by: Road to Nowhere: The Early 1990s Collapse and Rebuild of New York City Baseball by Chris Donnelly Andy McCue Chris Donnelly. Road to Nowhere: The Early 1990s Collapse and Rebuild of New York City Baseball. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2023. 356 pp. Cloth. $34.95. This is a very New York book. It resumes a story Chris Connelly began with his previous work Doc, Donnie, the Kid, and Billy Brawl: How the 1985 Mets and Yankees Fought for New York's Baseball Soul (2019). And with this new book, he's still focused on who's on top of the Big Apple baseball world. Connelly starts with Yankees owner George Steinbrenner's suspension for his harassment of Dave Winfield, a ban that went into effect in July 1990. The Yankees were a dozen years from their last World Series victory and nine seasons from even a sniff at the postseason. It had been a decade of fired managers, poor trades, unsuccessful free agents and mediocre attendance, all orchestrated at a manic level by Steinbrenner. The New York team of the 1980s had been the Mets—the team of Dwight Gooden, Darryl Strawberry, Keith Hernandez, and Gary Carter. In 1986 they had looked like a dynasty in the making. Four years later they were disinte-grating in a stew of drugs, egos, and erratic judgment in the front office. Year by year through the early 1990s, and alternating between the two teams, Donnelly takes readers through the offseason thinking—the free agents signed, the free agents banished, the trades, and the often short-term philosophies behind those decisions. He then follows both teams through the seasons, analyzing the results and following the developments in both clubhouses. There are quick, often revealing profiles of the characters—whether in baseball uniforms or business suits. Gene Michael comes off as an effective executive, rebuilding the Yankees while Steinbrenner is in exile, and Buck Showalter as the man who builds on Michael's foundation. Frank Cashen, Al Harazin, and Joe McIlvaine are portrayed as less effective leaders, especially in their tacking between soft (Bud Harrelson and Jeff Torborg) and tough (Dallas Green) managers. Don Mattingly remains the saintly professional while Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry are cautionary tales. Since we know the Yankees of Joe Torre, Derek Jeter, and the rest of the Core Four are on the horizon, there is more focus on the Bronx team. Michael takes advantage of Steinbrenner's forced distance to build up the farm system and protect prospects such as Jeter. Donnelly doesn't really explore the issue of how much The Boss could still affect major financial decisions, including free agent signings, but it's clear the suspension works well for the team in other areas—the lack of hysterical outbursts, the second guessing of managers and executives, the constant desire for attention. The clubhouse is less nervous. [End Page 131] The arrival of Bobby Valentine is the Mets' coda in the book, but it's not emphasized as much as Torre's. Perhaps because, while successful compared to the early 1990s, the Valentine years were not as overwhelming as Torre's regime. Central to Donnelly's story is the New York media. They are a constant presence, both reporting what the teams and players are doing and analyzing the events. This is great for keeping fan interest high but often seems to spark problems between players, managers, and executives. The reporters in the clubhouse are a constant presence in the book, amplifying the trivial as well as the important. In the later chapters as Steinbrenner returns from St. Helena, his often successful attempts to manipulate reporters become a feature of the story. It would have been useful if Donnelly had compared the New York media situation with that of Boston or other major league cities, but this is a very New York book. There is a great deal of detail in these chapters. Road trips are given series by series coverage, often with game summaries. Almost all of this detail concerns the Yankees and the Mets. The other teams exist only as foils, which allows Donnelly to concentrate on what interests him most—the...

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