Study The Year The Yankees Lost The Pennant Showcased By Douglass Wallop Accessible As EPub

deal with the Devil updated for the modern era! Or at least, the modern era as defined by as sports fan, I have long been a fan of "Damn Yankees" and wanted to finally read the source material, The novel is much darker in tone, telling the story of a conflicted man in the face of eternal damnation, While I did enjoy the liberties the musical took with the story's plot and characters, I thought the original work was well written and very enjoyable, It deserves its place in classic sports literature, I read it to get more insight into one of my favorite musicals, Damn Yankees, However, I found that the plot of Damn Yankees is a lot more enjoyable and a lot funnier, I recommend that fans of this book check out the musical version, The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant is a fun audiobook, It was the basis of the musical Damn Yankees, I saw the money the first time as a young child, I found a copy of the book The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant when I was an adult, I enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed the musical, Recently I found the audiobook version on Audible narrated by Steve Hendrickson, The narration is superb. Hendrickson captures that most difficult of accents, Baltimore, extremely well, The production values are excellent, The story is enjoyable, especially if you are not a Yankees fan, It may not have won any of the big book prizes but it won my heart, I read this book while I was summoned to jury duty, Luckily, I didn't get assigned to a case, but I had to stay there all day, I found this book at my library's used book sale forcents, Disclaimer: I have not seen the movie or watched the musical, I saw other reviews stating the book wasn't as good as either, but I wouldn't know anything about that, I do want to see the musical, or at least the movie after this, I am also a baseball fan, though not a crazy one, like the main character of this book,

But I came to this book with zero background information and I absolutely enjoyed it, Joe Boyd is a baseball fanatic, Even though the Washington Senators are doing terribly, he is still a loyal fan, One night, a strange man named Applegate the devil offers him the chance to become young, the best baseball player alive, and to lead the Senators to win the pennant in exchange for his soul.
Due to a possible midlife crisis and an obsession with the sport, he agrees,

The writing was clever and even though this book was written a while ago in, it still felt modern, I loved some of the passages, especially anything Applegate said and the canoe scene with Lola and Joe, It was also cute how Joe remained faithful to his wife, This book was clever, endearing and definitely worth my while, The musical Damn Yankees was based on this book, I read it in high school and remember loving it, It held up well, I now want to watch the movie, which Ive never seen, You probably know the story, a frustrated, diehard, middleaged, beer bellied Washington Senators fan, his team being perennial cellar dwellers, is offered the chance by a mysterious stranger to be transformed into the worlds greatest baseball player to save his team and beat the hated Yankees for the American League.
Well, you can guess who the mysterious stranger is, and a deal with the devil is always risky business, Fun book! The story is a modern retelling of the Faust legend set during thes in Washington, D, C. , during a time when the New York Yankees dominated Major League Baseball, The book inspired the Broadway play, Damn Yankees,

Middleaged baseball fanatic Joe Boyd, trades his soul to the Devil, known here as Mr, Applegate, for a chance to lead his favorite team to victory in the pennant race against the New York Yankees, As young baseball sensation, Joe Hardy, he transforms the unlucky Washington Senators into a winning team, As time goes on, he begins to question the true worth of the life that he's left behind, Applegate knows he's in trouble so he sends in that temptress, Lola,

I have always loved this musical, but I fell in love with the movie, It was fun to read the book that inspired them, I did enjoy reading the lyrics here, I'm still humming Shoeless Joe from Hannibal, MO, I wish I had been able to see it on stage, Source material for the musical "Damn Yankees" in, and the film adaption, starring tab Hunter and Ray Walston, in,

Although not a sports fan, I came to this book by way of the musical/film adaption "Damn Yankees" one of my favorite musicals,

The plot is much the same, although instead of appearing to Joe Boyd, Applegate climbs out of the sewer, Lola, unlike her film appearance, is barely a supporting character who had "Joe Hardy" given to her by Applegate, . . once the escape clause is his contract is gone,

Probably not for everyone given the original publication date, . but for fans of the original musical, . or the Yankees a pleasant way to spend an afternoon or two, A Faust tale with the devil offering a poor middle ages schlub the ultimate sports fantasy: to take his team to the pennant, The book was the basis for the ubiquitous musical "Damn Yankees", There is a dark sad undercurrent to the book however, as Joe Harder, the protagonist, is drawn to his previous life, unable to fully devote himself to the devil's bargain.
I reread this book ever couple of years, ./stars
I adore the musical Damn Yankees, I love it so much that it's hilariously surprising that I had no idea it was based on a novel,  The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant, written by Douglass Wallop who'd go onto cowrite the musical's script, is the novel Damn Yankees is based on.
And it's a novel that nobody seems to know much about these days, There's no ebook of it available, so I had to actually obtain a hard copy of it to read, Why go to all of this trouble Well, I really wanted to see how similar to the musical this novel was, And so, I gave it a read, And it's definitely the same story as Damn Yankees, But how does it hold up against its more famous stage adaptation Well, both versions of the story have their pros and their cons it ultimately depends on what you're looking for from the story.
If you want to really explore Joe's mindset during all of this, then The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant is the book for you, It's wellwritten, engaging, and a quick read,

On the surface, there's not a huge amount that's different between The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant and Damn Yankees, It's identifiably the same plot, just with some changes here in there in the journey from AtoB, If you've seen the musical, you absolutely know what happens in the novel, Joe Boyd makes a deal with the devil, Mr, Applegate Applegate will turn Joe into a young, successful baseball player for his favorite team in exchange for Joe's soul, Joe insists on an escape clause being crafted into the deal, and the rest is history, Joe leads the Washington Senators to victory after victory, gets tempted by Lola, and goes toetotoe against Mr, Applegate in the fight for his soul, It's definitely the same story, And, to be fair, it's a great story, It's a riff on the Faust story, probably best known from Marlowe's telling of the tale, But there's a reason certain stories are considered classic stories, Mr. Applegate is every bit as interesting in the novel as he is on stage and the book is filled with a lot of really fun ideas and some really solid prose from Wallop nowhere near as obtuse as you might think the prose in as novel might be.
It's a pretty quick, very enjoyable read,

However, there are a lot of differences some of which I found more surprising than others, One of the biggest problems with Damn Yankees is the way it underutilizes and underdevelops its female characters, Lola is probably the most iconic character from the stage show, but she's pretty underdeveloped there, She has a lot of scenes, but we don't really get to know much about her, So, going into The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant, I hoped that we might get to learn more about her from the novel, since the novel had more space with which to develop her.
Surprisingly, though, she's developed even less in the novel than she is onstage, Her plot arc is basically the same Applegate brings her in to tempt Joe but she ends up falling in love with Joe but the novel doesn't develop that at all.
Joe's pretty awful to her in the book, yet she's still in love with him, The novel doesn't show us what she sees in him or why, nor does it spend any time with her to really make us care about her at all, and so it's difficult to track why she

does the things she does in the novel's climax.
The novel certainly wouldn't make anyone a fan of Lola, and that's a real big shame, Sure, we get to learn a bit about her past, but that doesn't make up for dropping the ball in every other regard,

The same is true for Joe's wife, Meg in the show, Bess in the novel, She appears in about as many scenes as Lola does in the novel and is given even less development, She's just the stereotypical housewife, I suppose that's understandable, given the novel was written in thes and is told primarily from Joe's point of view, But it's definitely a negative aspect of the book, Basically, if you're going into this novel hoping for more information about some of the other not Joe characters, you'll be disappointed,

But the differences aren't all bad, though, As I mentioned, the novel is written from Joe's point of view, so he gets a lot more development than he did in the stage version.
Wallop really takes us into Joe's head and lets us see his thought process, We get to see him struggle with Applegate's machinations, If you're gonna underdevelop everyone else, it's probably a really good idea to make sure your main character is developed which, thankfully, is exactly what Wallop does, Also better developed is the story's major source of climactic conflict the hearing to decide whether or not Joe will be allowed to play in the final game of the pennant.
The musical definitely glosses over the details of the accusations thrown against Joe, basically handwaving in a general "he's not who he says he is" direction, while the novel goes into a lot of detail about it.
And it's devilishly fascinating. I don't want to give too much of it away here, but it's a change I definitely liked, If you're going into The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant hoping for more information and development for Joe, you'll be extremely happy,

All in all, The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant is pretty much what I expected it to be, It's the same basic story as the stage version, just expanded in certain ways, Wallop's prose is easy to read and immediately engaging, something that I wasn't quite expecting given I often find books written in the first half of thes to have prose that's needlessly obtuse.
The best aspect of the novel is the way it greatly explores Joe's character his struggle with the deal he's made and his thought process as he tries to get out of it.
It's clearly his story and Wallop does a superb job tracking it, On the flip side, the novel suffers a lot from its underutilization of Lola and Bess, Too much of the plot hinges on things they do, but their reasons for doing it don't really make sense/are implausible given what the novel has established.
But still, The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant is an interesting read for anyone who's a fan of the musical, It's cool to see where the story began and compare it to where it ultimately ended up, How much you'll enjoy it will probably depend on what you're looking for, If you're looking for more on Joe, you'll be very happy, Otherwise, well, it's still a solid read, if somewhat unmemorable read, Either way, it's an easy one and it's not a bad way to spend a few afternons, .