The Best Team Money Can Buy: The Los Angeles Dodgers' Wild Struggle To Build A Baseball Powerhouse Download Free (EPUB, PDF)
“From the outside looking in, the Dodgers have been a bubbling cauldron of personality, talent and moods, with the occasional dollop of jealousy. In The Best Team Money Can Buy, it's as if Molly Knight ushers you behind the closed clubhouse doors to see it for yourself.” —Buster Olney, ESPN News-making, inside revelations about the tumultuous years when the Los Angeles Dodgers were remade from top to bottom—from the ownership of the team to management to the players on the field—becoming the most talked-about and most colorful team in baseball.In 2012 the Los Angeles Dodgers were bought out of bankruptcy in the most expensive sale in sports history. Los Angeles icon Magic Johnson and his partners hoped to put together a team worthy of Hollywood: consistently entertaining. By most accounts they have succeeded, if not always in the way they might have imagined. Now Molly Knight tells the story of the Dodgers’ 2013 and 2014 seasons with detailed, previously unreported revelations. She shares a behind-the-scenes account of the astonishing sale of the Dodgers, and why the team was not overpriced, as well as what the Dodgers actually knew in advance about rookie phenom and Cuban defector Yasiel Puig and how they and teammates handled him during his first two roller-coaster seasons. We learn how close manager Don Mattingly was to losing his job during the 2013 season—and how the team turned around the season in the most remarkable fifty-game stretch (42-8) of any team since World War II, before losing in the NLCS. Knight also provides a rare glimpse into the infighting and mistrust that derailed the team in 2014, and resulted in ridding the roster of difficult personalities and the hiring of a new front office. Knight also reveals new facts behind the blockbuster trade with the Red Sox. She paints an intimate portrait of star pitcher Clayton Kershaw, probably the best pitcher in the game today, including details about the record contract offer he turned down before accepting the richest contract any pitcher ever signed. Exciting, surprising, and filled with juicy details, Molly Knight’s account is a must-read for baseball fans and anyone who wants the inside story of today’s Los Angeles Dodgers.
Hardcover: 336 pages
Publisher: Simon & Schuster; First Edition edition (July 14, 2015)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1476776296
ISBN-13: 978-1476776293
Product Dimensions: 6 x 1.1 x 9 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (215 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #164,394 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #48 in Books > Business & Money > Industries > Sports & Entertainment > Sports #95 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Sports & Outdoors > Baseball #263 in Books > Sports & Outdoors > Baseball
As a born and raised from Brooklyn… Dodger fan… I read anything and everything about my beloved “Bums”. Most books are pure historical… but this one… the history (excuse my definition)… is so recent it’s current. To know how the Dodgers got to the position they’re in right now… the fact that they have done so much to reshape the entire franchise… from top (owners)… to bottom… players… managers… coaches… in such an explosively short period of time… is both mind blowing and exciting.The author fills in all the missing pieces… and behind the scenes drama… that doesn’t appear in the papers or TV. Or at the very least… she puts it all in one tantalizing place. She combines not only the “soap opera” goings on… between mega-millionaire ballplayers with egos mostly large… intellects… high… and low… along with mini-biographies… that are extremely concise and interesting. The portions dedicated to the best one-two pitching combo in baseball… of Kershaw and Greinke… are particularly illuminating. It’s comforting knowing what a good person Kershaw is off the field… and reassuring knowing what an ultra-competitive guy he is on the field. He is certainly one ballplayer whose drive will not be diminished due to a large contract.As far as Greinke… I knew he had some “issues” with depression type problems earlier in his career… but the background information provided puts it all into a new more crystallized light. It makes me want to root even harder (if possible) for Greinke. I was happily amazed at just how much Zack loves baseball… and all its intricacies’… and his dedication.
Over the past 5-6 years, the Los Angeles Dodgers have had quite the rollercoaster existence, from essentially bankruptcy to the highest payroll in all of major league baseball. In "The Best Team Money Can Buy", Molly Knight chronicles this crazy period with some of the best, most insightful sportswriting one will ever read.The books starts off by examining the fiasco of the McCourt pair, whose marital split put the Dodgers in limbo during the early part of the 2010s. Once that mess is sorted out, it mainly focuses on the 2013 season, where the Dodgers went on an incredible run to make the playoffs. The 2014 season is covered as well, albeit in a bit less detail. Of the players/figures discussed within the book, these Dodgers get the most "runtime": Mattingly, Kershaw, Puig, H. Ramirez, and Kemp.I picked this book up because my brother has recently moved to Los Angeles and I will be visiting him (and thus Dodgers Stadium!) in a very short time. Not being a huge Dodgers fan (but a huge baseball fan in general), I didn't quite know what to expect. Let me put to rest right now, however, any notion that this book is "only for Dodgers fans"...it just isn't so! From the opening pages, I could tell that this was going to be a compelling and interesting read due to Knight's engaging writing style. One could almost consider this a work of narrative non-fiction, as Knight seamlessly weaves the story of the 2012-2014 Dodgers in and out through the owners, managers/coaches, and players who made it all happen. It has been quite some time since I've read a baseball history book that has so sucked me in to its events.By no means is this just a glossy "opinion piece", either.
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