The Year I Owned the Yankees; A Baseball Fantasy

New York: Bantam Books, 1990. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Fair. Michael Witte (Jacket illustrations). [6], 313, [1] pages. DJ worn, torn, soiled and chipped. Albert Walter "Sparky" Lyle (born July 22, 1944) is an American former left-handed relief pitcher who spent sixteen seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) from 1967 through 1982. He was a relief pitcher for the Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees, Texas Rangers, Philadelphia Phillies, and Chicago White Sox. A three-time All-Star, he won the American League (AL) Cy Young Award in 1977. He led the American League (AL) in saves in 1972 and 1976. With the Yankees, Lyle was a member of the World Series champions in 1977 and 1978, both over the Los Angeles Dodgers. Lyle co-authored, with Peter Golenbock, The Bronx Zoo, a 1979 tell-all book which chronicled the dissension within the Yankees in its World Series Championship seasons of 1977 and 1978. From 1998-2012, Lyle served as manager of the Somerset Patriots, a minor league baseball team of the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball. One of baseball's most irreverent former stars--and the bestselling author of The Bronx Zoo--gets to run the Yankees his way in this hilarious fantasy novel. Yankee superstar Sparky Lyle gets an opportunity to own the 1990 Yankees, finally ousting George Steinbrenner and turning the Bronx Bombers into the team to beat once again. With side-splitting humor, and eerie prescience, Sparky predicts the coming of baseball's "Sabermetric Era" some 15 years before it actually happened.