Teams Books

I'll just echo what others have said - Bak's book is wonderful. It combines a narrative history of the Tigers from the late 20s through the early 50s, recounting the glory years of the 1930s in greatest detail. The second part of the book is a series of oral histories with Tiger greats and unknowns during this period. It is very well written and organized, and for anyone interested in baseball during this period is a sure bet.

Mr. Bak outdoes himself on this spellbinding autobiography of 22 "greats" of Baseball Legends. Few writers can make the pictures and words come to life. Bak should be commended, as he does quite well at this. He not only gives the reader a sense of time and place, but prefaces players' interviews with a short history as well, and the paths the city and professional baseball took from the end of WWI through the early 50's. Beautiful and yet haunting pictures of the way baseball was. An extra bonus was the almost-forgotten Black professional teams as well. Good reading, and one you'll go back to read and reference time after time after time.

If Richard Bak was to write 10 books about the Detroit Tigers, I'm sure my top 10 favorite books on the team would be those books (with my appologies to Ernie Harwell). Unlike any other Detroit Tiger author, Bak puts you at the feet of the greats he talks about or interviews and makes you feel like you are at Tiger Stadium during the 1930s. He has just the right blend of personality and historical fact to each book he publishes. In Cobb Would've Caught It, Bak talks to several Tiger greats and not-so Tiger greats and puts you in the seat next to him while he interviews them. I almost catch myself wanting to ask questions to the players as each story continues on. When Bak writes a book about Detroit basball, I immediately buy it - and I am never upset. David Troppens

I love this book for several reasons, but the most important of them is the painstaking, meticulous revelation of a moral core from which sport, media, participation in government and the attention of an entire population have all digressed. It's a remarkably rewarding read that inspires an explosive rebirth of confidence in private conscience, and the power of an individual To Do The Impossible.

When I came upon this book, I nearly was entirely overwhelmed. I have been a Cubs fan for over 40 years and have studied Kabbalah with Zve ben Shimon Halevi for 20 years. I LOVE this book. I once drew the Tree of Life wherein I drew all the sephera as baseballs; calling it the "Cuballa." I am further astonished at the syncronisity of my own life. My father was from Kiev and in the Soviet Army in WW2. Alas he was a White Sox fan. It embodies my entire life in such a bittersweet rememberence of my parents and needless to say my beloved Wrigley 9. I went to every opening day and hung at the "Cubby Bear Lounge." I am really astounded that someone wrote this book ( for me). I would pay to sit in a seat in the friendly confinds, with no game going on; just to absorb the only real ballpark. It is not unlike the Kabbalah. Thank you Mr. Sherwin for such an incrutible treasure.

Rabbi Sherwin's paean to perennial also-ran, the Chicago Cubs baseball team, in his THE CUBS AND THE KABBALIST might best be summed up with the following two word: "very cute."

It's true. It really *was* cute, and I had an exceptionally grand time turning the pages of this entertaining read, adding up to one of the more *fun* fictional pieces in my collection these past couple of weeks.

Admittedly, CUBS is safely nestled in the fictional world, folks. Sherwin blends his rigorously-researched reams of Cubs and other baseball statistics alongside the esoteric practice of Jewish Mysticism, or Kabala ("kabbalah"). I fell in love early and often with the way this story unfurled.

It begins with leading rabbi, Jay Loeb (J-Lo, anyone?), and his concerns over his wife Tamara. The author describes how the shalom bayit/bayis, or "peace of the home," chez Loeb has recently been disturbed by Tamara's frequent tirades railing against the annual stream of Cubs losses. We find ourselves at the point where it's beginning to affect her performance at work -- she's a lawyer, see -- and because of all this, Tamara's been stressing. Loeb's had enough, and he resolves on the spot to do something about it.

Like any loving husband might, the good rabbi seeks to ease his wife's pain, and rustles up a solution. Loeb eventually falls back on the mainstay of his rabbinical training and investigates the possibility of using his expertise in matters concerning the ancient Jewish Kabbalistic practice to provide a cure for what's been ailing Tamara's hapless beloved Cubs.

Soon, the Cubs begin cobbling together a series of seemingly-miraculous wins at home in the "Friendly Confines" of Shy-Town's [Chicago] Wrigley Field, mostly due to some clandestine "soul work" Loeb has been conjuring up in the silence of the night. Cue "The Golem of Prague" story -- for those of you who know it -- to explore the possibilities of what might happen to the rest of this story. (I won't give it away, but do expect a little twist at the end there. One which I think you're going to enjoy.)

This book is a pure pleasure read.

Sherwin doesn't overwhelm you with complex jargon, and while his subject material -- Jewish Mysticism -- is a very serious subject indeed, not to be trifled with lightly by any stretch (a la what Madonna, her husband Guy Ritchie, Bittney and others have been doing in Hollywood) -- he doesn't lord it over you inside the pages of this book. Delivered in a sometimes-humourous, sometimes-tongue-in-cheek style, Freud would be proud of Sherwin's cigar-is-just-a-cigar read -- I mean, c'mon!, it's baseball...our National Pastime (will it always remain so?). Don't expect some heavy non-fiction here, okay?

Byron L. Sherwin's quite obviously got the skills, ladies and gentlemen.

His narrative is tightly woven, and he leaves no stones unturned in CUBS. With a typical moviemaker's flourish, he ends his book with a cute little Epilogue a la what you might see in a happy Disney movie, and that made me smile. You'll learn of what "became" of the various players in this little drama, and I'll admit that it summed things up handily for this here reviewer.

On the beach?

A long flight across the ocean?

Or perhaps you're a baseball lover who's seeking an interesting little spin on the "Field of Dreams" narrative?

Then THE CUBS AND THE KABBALIST is probably for you.

-- ADM in Prague

Such a neat book, with great stories about the Cubs on the island and other interesting tidbits about Catalina Island. I could not put it down.
most probably because my great uncle, Charlie Root ( my dad's uncle) was mentioned in there several times. I wanted to find out more things about
Charlie and even found an awesome pic of him that resembled my dad oh so much!! anyway the whole book was so interesting and great for nostalgic Cubby Fans...so full of history. Makes me want to go back to Catalina and see the old ball field and other points of interest I missed the first time. Kathy Brewer Muenz

Being a baseball enthusiast most of my life I found The Cubs on Catalina to be a wonderful book. It's filled with many pictures and interesting comments by the old players during the time they trained on the island off of California. When purchasing this book for myself I also bought an additional copy for a family member. We both loved the book and would highly recommend it to any devoted Cub fan, but also to anyone who loves the game of baseball. Living in So California for many years and visiting the Old Wrigley Field many times, I was familiar with some of the players mentioned in the book

The Cubs on Catalina is filled with great pictures of the Chicago Cubs, not to mention the treasure trove of stories the old baseball players tell. I can't find any other book, or even a documentary, where there is so much engaging information about these three exciting decades of the Cubs' history. I recommend this book to all Cub fans.

A must for any Red Wing fan, young or old. Great old photos from before they were called the Red Wings, to the present Stanley Cup champions. Find out who's sweater is retired but does not hang from the rafters of "The Joe"

This book is great. I enjoyed it from cover to cover. Many wonderful pictures of present and past Red Wing stars and those associated with the game.

This is the best book I have ever read about the Red Wings, ever. It starts from the beginning when they were the Victoria Cougars to the Stanley Cup win in 1997. The rare photos are outstanding and the text is fun and infomative.

I enjoyed this book immensely! Shari MacDonald is a wonderful author with an equally wonderful sense of humor. Her writing style was NOT stilted or awkward (thank goodness!). Her understanding of human characteristics and everyday occurances made me feel as though I could relate to the people in the book. You can be sure I will be reading more of her books in the near future. Keep up the good work, Shari!

Loved the book. Couldn't put it down. Even a man like me can enjoy a romantic story when it is mixed with sports.

I absolutely loved this book! Not only is it based around baseball (which is my favorite sport), but it included real life situations. Stubborness, pride, and other responses natural for humans. The humor and romance is clean and pure. It was impossible to put down, and once I finished it I sang for the rest of the day! Shari MacDonald has done an excellent job. This is the first book of hers that I've read, and I can't wait to read more!

I like reading business books, but some of them are quite dry. That was one of the best aspects of this book. The selling strategies are outstanding. Beyond good. But wow! I don't think I have ever read a business book that was as much fun to read as this one. Each chapter and key point is introduced with a short story from history that is well written and relevant to the point. I felt myself wanting to skip ahead and just read all the history examples. Fantastic Book

With so many sales books out there, it hard to know which ones have anything new. A friend of mine recommended this, and I was instantly captivated by both the writing and the tactics described.

Instantly applicable sales tactics. A must read for everyone that has to sell as a part of their job!

The DNA Selling Method is unquestionably unique. The fact that it is so simple does rather beg the question "why has someone not come up with this before?"
It is designed specifically for the modern high-tech sales environment and I had my entire sales force read the book and go through the training. The difference has been staggering and the training is still fresh in our minds almost 12 months later. It has been just amazing watching my sales team turn into "great listeners" and the imformation they extract from our clients has sent our close ratios through the roof. We are now able to predict our quarterly performance to within 5%, which means we now have one system that enables us to predict where we will finish. This has led to increased credibility for our team and a much more confident management team. If you are a sales professional or manager, this is an excellent methodology to implement (it is also very amusing and a fast and easy read).

This is by far the best book I have read about the Yankee teams of the mid 60's to early 70's.
These were the teams I grew up with. At the age of 54 now and growing up in the Northeast Bronx, and also going to high school two blocks from the stadium, the names and events that were in this book was a mind trip back to the good old days.
The Yankee player names that were written about was a mind trip back to the days of my childhood. Bill Burbach, Hal Reniff, Fred Talbot, Celerino Sanchez, Johnny Ellis, Rich Beck to name a few bought a smile and a knowing nod every time these names were mentioned.
Some of the games that were written about were games I had attended with my neighborhood friends.
So if you are a true Yankee fan over the age of 50 this is a must read. Even if your not this is a glance back at what it really means to be a Yankee fan !

If you were a fan during the Yankee declineasty from 1965-1975 you will love this book. The author did a great job describing the cause and effect of the period. The book features some great interviews from an amazing number of Yankee players from the era. The book really brought the era alive for me!

THE AUTHOR DOES A GREAT JOB OF DETAILING THE CRUMBLE OF THE YANKEE DYNASTY. THE OVER CONFIDENCE, BARREN FARM SYSTEM, BAD TRADES, AND AGE ARE WELL DEFINED BY MR. BASHE. ANOTHER INTERESTING REACTION BY THE YANKEES DURING THE EARLY PART OF THE NOSE DIVE IS BEING IN DENIAL ABOUT THE THING FOR A FEW YEARS. THEY JUST DIDN'T KNOW HOW TO REACT TO BEING AN ALSO RAN. ALSO OF NOTE IS THE COLD HEARTED FRONT OFFICE SELLING THE TEAM TO CBS AND THE BUMBLING YEARS OF OWNERSHIP DURING THE CBS OWNERSHIP. THEN THE RESURGENCE DURING THE STEINBRENNER YEARS AND THE DOWN YEARS DURING HIS DICTATORSHIP. ALL THIS MAKES FOR A VERY INTERESTING AND WELL DONE NOVEL. A MUST FOR ALL YANKEE FANS AND ALL FANS WHO TOTALLY ENJOYED (ME) THE PIN STRIPES BEING JUST ANOTHER TEAM.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

This is a book you will probably want to buy in quantity. It's an affordable little 96-page compendium of the most relevant "Do's and Don'ts" of leading a group of people. What I like about this book is its simplicity. Each "Do" and each "Don't" is accompanied by a short story from real-life situations to help clarify the significant points. These are the issues that tend to get leaders in a lot of trouble, and Steve Herbelin has captured them nicely in this book.

The dos and don'ts are direct, to the point and extremely practical for just about any kind of working environment. I especially like the abundance of true anecdotes that clarify and reinforce the points being made. I strongly recommend this book for team leaders as well as coaches!

I started reading this book with a bit of skepticism. After all, it's written by the workers. Right from the start, though, this book makes sense. Lots of sense. It presents a philosophical outlook on team leadership that gets to the core --- interpersonal relationships --- without using superficial analogies or inventing contrived structures. Just common sense about how to deal with people and situations in a real, straightforward manner. Over and over again I found myself thinking things like, "Yes, I know that. That's true. Right on!" It's mostly things that we already know, but maybe need a little book like this to give us the confidence to more often do the right thing and act the right way. If everyone applied the principles outlined in "The Dos and Don'ts of Work Team Coaching," the world would certainly be a better place in which to work. I'm going to keep it handy and read it again someday, and again.

A great baseball book. Very well written. This is a must for baseball fans who enjoy the history of the game.

Many people think that by just purchasing Babe Ruth from the Red Sox that created the Yankee Dynasty. This book is a great history of the man who really created the Yankee Dynasty. The first 50 years of his life he was not involved with the Yankees but was involved with other teams as a manager and also served as the President of a minor league struggling against the odds of survival. Until Terry Francona, Ed Barrow was the last manager of the Red Sox who won a World Series with Babe Ruth as one of its stars. This is a must read of a tough man who built the first of many Yankees dynasties. The Red Sox fans curse the day the Red Sox owner sold the Babe to the Yankees, but they should be aware the most damaging blow was losing their manager, Ed Barrow to the Yankees. For the students of the game, this is a must read. Even the Red Sox Nation should read this book to understand more of their history.

I remember reading Ed Barrow's autobiography entitled "My Fifty Years in Baseball" when I was in high school in the late 1950s, and have wondered why a follow up has never been written. Finally we have Daniel Levitt's first rate offering of the architect of the Yankees' first dynasty. The text of the book is nearly 400 pages long, and I found the book to get considerably more interesting around page 130 when Barrow joined the Red Sox as manager. This was when The Babe was primarily a pitcher, but with the prodding of outfielder Harry Hooper manager Barrow decided to shift Ruth to the outfield full time. Author Levitt states Barrow deserves most of the credit since it was he who made the final determination. Red Sox owner Harry Frazee sold several of his players to finance his theatrical productions, including Ruth to the Yankees. Author Levitt goes into detail regarding the Yankees' ownership of Ruppert and Huston along with the controversial hiring of Miller Huggins as manager over Huston's objections. Barrow and Ruppert enjoyed a comfortable relationship along with Huggins. Controversies regarding the struggles between Ruth and Huggins, the later ownership between Larry McPhail, Del Webb, and Dan Topping, and Barrow's role along with general manager George Weiss are dealt with. An arch conservative, Barrow was adamantly against night baseball and broadcasting Yankees' games on radio. The book includes a lot of detail on the administrative end of baseball with a year by year recording of player trades with Barrow relishing his job with the Yankees. Since Barrow's only hobbies were hunting and fishing baseball occupied the majority of his time. Forests have been felled to write books about the New York Yankees, but a book about Ed Barrow, whose plaque occupied one next to Jacob Ruppert behind the monuments in center field and now in Monument Park in Yankee Stadium, has been long overdue.

This review is a shorter one I wrote for the journal Personnel Psychology.
I couldn't resist reviewing this book. Its title is beguilingly ambiguous. I had to see what it really meant. Are the authors describing a reality I have yet to discover? Or are they prophesying? Or writing a manifesto? Or wishfully thinking? The authors, both organizational consultants who "have drawn on over thirty years experience with hundreds of organizations," raise and dismiss in the same sentence the fourth interpretation. But can it be so confidently dismissed?

The book was written "as a tool to help build more collaborative, democratic, self-managing organizations." Note the use of multiple qualifiers. Done occasionally would be tolerable, but the authors' habit of frequently tacking three and four onto nouns and of also running trains of verbs and nouns in a single sentence annoyed me a bit (e.g., "---we have separated, disengaged, detached, distinguished, and divided---in order to clarify, categorize, and recommend---.").

Part One is devoted to "making a case for the end of management" through a review and a critique of hierarchies and their management. In tracing the evolution of management, three of the influences posited by the authors had never occurred to me before yet seem quite plausible. They are slavery, then serfdom, and much later on, increasing governmental regulations that the regulated have to increasingly manage. Nor was I aware that the French novelist, Honore de Balzac, and I share the same sentiment, namely, that bureaucracy is "a gigantic power set in motion by dwarfs." I also learned that "hierarchy" stems from the Greek word hieros, which means holy, implying sacred power at the top, and that a contrasting word, "heterarchy," stems from heteros, meaning neighbors.
The authors dust off and briefly examine Taylorism, scientific management, and Theory X rationales. I wish they had gone further in their review to present and debate more recent and starkly opposite arguments, including those that are unabashed paeans to hierarchies and bureaucracies (e.g., du Gay, 2000; Jaques, 1990).

Making their case includes presenting, each in a separate chapter, the familiar arguments that management "reduces communication, morale, and motivation," "constricts quality," and is intransigent, resisting change and innovation. While I think a separate chapter should also have been given to the moral inferiority of hierarchies, it's very clear throughout the book that the authors recognize such organizations foster unethical conduct by their members, and a separate chapter in Part Two is devoted to suggestions on how to "shape a context of values, ethics, and integrity."

The authors argue that hierarchies are the source of bureaucracy, the formal mechanisms that support the organizational structure and provide a "safe haven" where managers can escape accountability and exercise autocratic power. Each of these elements reinforces the other. They also violate, the authors contend, four "value-based propositions" about all people in organizations. One, everyone is a human being, not merely an employee or a human resource. Two, everyone is fully capable of acting responsibly and thriving on challenges. Three, the only natural relationships of any worth aren't hierarchical. And fourth, human beings deserve all of the different dimensions of freedom that should be available to them in an organization, such as the horizontal dimension of cross-functional teams and the "hyperdimension" of community. Regarding this latter observation, the authors' argument most appealing to me affectively is that it's incongruous for people to live in a democracy where they can vote for their country's leaders, yet work in hierarchies where they aren't free to select their organizations' leaders.

Time and again the authors remind us that their case is being made against management as a system rather than against management as a class of people. But the authors often contradict themselves (e.g., "Managers who hold these assumptions---micromanage---restrict----and institute---."), and I wonder if they aren't being a bit disingenuous, for as consultants they do feed off the hands of that class of people. Furthermore, not all management processes or systems are dysfunctional. Performance management, for one, is both inevitable and essential as a process. It couldn't end if you tried, and you wouldn't want to try. It can be done well or poorly, but it will be done. I think all species instinctively manage their own performance.

My assessment of Part One is that the authors make a better case against management on rational than on empirical grounds. What supporting evidence is offered is mostly piecemeal and largely anecdotal. Further, no footnote citations are provided for the few surveys and research studies briefly mentioned, and numerous assertions are made (e.g., "many managers report," "many organizations seek," etc.) with no corroborating evidence given. Even so, the evidence that is provided and all of assertions made do seem relevant and plausible, and I have no reason to doubt the authors "who have been inside enough organizations to know how dysfunctional most of them are."

In Part Two, the authors explain how to use their book as "a practical guide to organizational democracy." It does indeed seem practical, but a caveat is necessary. Almost all of their consulting experiences appear to be with limited interventions in hierarchies, not heterarchies. I found only one instance where the authors' intervention, in this particular case the design of a conflict resolution system, was for a large corporation they say had already been reorganized into self-managing teams. Their guide would thus appear to be untested for making the wholesale, even revolutionary changes they believe are required but apparently have not fully tried anywhere.

I don't mean to be dismissive of the second part, however. To the contrary, I would guess that any business organization that followed the "seven key strategies" the authors describe, each in a separate chapter, would "shift from management to self-management," "hierarchy to heterarchy," and "autocracy to democracy." The authors begin, logically and necessarily I believe, with a strategy for transforming the values of the organization's culture. Then there's a strategy for forming "evolving webs of association" (in contrast, say, to rigid functional departments in a hierarchy), for developing leadership skills throughout the organization, for building self-managing teams, for implementing "streamlined, open, collaborative processes" (e.g., teamwork as opposed to the adversarial processes common to hierarchies), and for creating "complex, self-correcting systems" (i.e. the kind of feedback you won't find in hierarchies). The seventh is having an overall strategy to ensure that all changes are integrated together.

The book ends with a final chapter on "the consequences of organizational democracy." The authors argue that greater organizational democracy is bound to have positive effects not only on members of the organization but also on society and politics.

While I basically agree with the distinguished business professor, Ian I. Mitroff, who endorses the book very favorably as "bristling with wisdom and practical advice," I don't want to conclude without mentioning two more significant faults I find with the book.

Nowhere in the book do I get a sense of whether heterarchies are gaining in number over hierarchies. I don't think the authors know or even tried to know, yet I would have expected them to know or try to know given the book's title and their treatment of the subject. They waffle on the matter, too. They say, for instance, that "---management continues, with few exceptions, to manage autocratically---." Then they turn around and say, "We have reached---the end of management---." Perhaps their waffling simply reflects what may be an accurate observation during a transitional period, for when I read the research literature on organizations, some findings suggest a shift towards heterarchies, (e.g., Purser & Cabana, 1998), some don't (e.g., Koch & Godden, 1996), and some are totally silent on the matter (e.g., Collins, 2001; Collins & Porras, 1994).

Secondly, the authors fail to differentiate sufficiently between business and government organizations. The latter have an endless lifeline to taxpayer pockets and no market incentive whatsoever to undertake the seven strategies toward heterarchies, no matter how strong of a case is made for making the shift. It will be the 12th of Never, I say, when heterarchies prevail in government.

In closing, if you are simply interested in the subject of if you do consulting in the subject area and regardless of whether you already appreciate arguments for heterarchies, I would recommend you read this book. If you are also empirically bent, then this book alone won't totally satisfy you unless you already know what's happening out there.

References

Collins, JC. (2001). Good to great. NY, NY: Harper Business.

Collins, JC. & Porras, JF. (1994). Built to last. NY, NY: Harper Business.


du Gay, P. (2000). In praise of bureaucracy: Weber, Organization, Ethics. London: Sage Publications.

Jaques, E. (1990). In praise of hierarchy. Harvard Business Review, 68, 127-133.

Koch, R. & Godden, I. (1996). Managing without management: A manifesto. London: Nicholas Brealey.

Purser, RE. & Cabana, S. (1998). The self-managing organization: How leading companies are transforming the work of teams for real impact. NY, NY: The Free Press.

Newscasts are filled with reports of democracy's relentless spread across the planet, but less is heard of its expansion through the corporate world. Just as dictators and oligarchs everywhere are being toppled from power, the hierarchical management structures that have governed organizations since before the industrial revolution are falling. Their usurper is self-management - the concept that motivated employees empowered to make their own decisions will work harder, faster and smarter than their rigidly controlled counterparts. Kenneth Cloke and Joan Goldsmith document this organizational coup and instruct executives on how to incite the revolution in their own companies. While acknowledging the scarcity of hard data to prove some of the book's assertions, we from getAbstract highly recommend The End of Management to all executives for its innovative take on modern organizational theory.

This is the best book on the changing face of management that I've read in 10 years. As part of the new Warren Bennis Management series, it provides the framework for the new Organizational Democracy and how it can (and should!) replace the outdated, ineffective heirarchical forms of management most common today. If you manage or lead a team, department or organization and desire to manage less and produce more, this is the book for you. I felt the same excitement in reading this book as I did when I read Drucker's classic many years ago.

The chapter entitled "A Brief History of Management" is worth the price of the book -- and its just 10 pages. In the rest of the book you will be given step-by-step guidance for implementing a new way of managing. Among the many practical applications of this book, you will learn:

How to shape Values
How to create Webs of Association
How to develop Self-managing Teams
How to implement Effective Process
and How to produce Self-correcting Systems.

Management (Drucker) is dead, long live management (Cloke).

Nelson Searcy, Chief Innovation Officer, Smartleadership.com