Dimensions
152 x 229 x 25mm
Willie Randolph has a story to tell, and it's far more than just a baseball story, far more than the story of his years with the championship Yankees, far more than leading the Mets to their first division title in 18 years, and far more than overseeing perhaps the greatest collapse in Major League Baseball history as the Mets blew a 7 game lead with 17 games left in the season. It's a story of a personal journey from birth in a sharecropper's shack to the pinnacle of success in the world of sports.
Randolph, 53, the oldest of five siblings, was born in the front room of a wooden roadside shack in Holly Hill, South Carolina, delivered by a midwife in a building with no plumbing, no running water and a single bare light bulb. The outhouse was far enough back that the stench didn't foul the house. Randolph is the centerpiece of a remarkable American passage, one that has taken a family from slavery to freedom, poverty to prosperity, illiteracy to the Ivy League, all in the span of a few generations.
Randolph's parents moved the family to Brooklyn when he was a child, and he grew up in the Tilden housing projects in Brownsville, Brooklyn. In a neighborhood infested with drugs and riddled with crime and violence, Randolph walked a very straight and narrow path -- out of the projects and onto the grassless ballfields of New York City. Escaping the mean streets of New York in the 1970s, Randolph was drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1972, and made his mark as the 2nd baseman for the New York Yankees from 1976-1988, a 6-time All-Star, and a World Series champion with the "Bronx Zoo" teams of 1977 and '78. He had mentors along the way-his parents, his high school coach, and Yankees manager Billy Martin. While some may find it hard to believe that the cool, unflappable Randolph could possibly be a disciple of the fiery, explosive Martin, it's true.
Randolph coached for the New York Yankees for 11 seasons, interviewing for and not getting managing jobs with other teams. Despite the numerous rejections, Randolph kept on going. He learned from his mistakes, he sharpened his interview skills. And his hard look at himself paid off when he was named the Mets manager beginning with the 2005 season. In RISING SON, Randolph lays bare his soul, letting his guard down and allowing fans and readers beyond his highly guarded privacy. It promises to be a revelatory read, and one that no sports fan will soon forget.
