Zim: A Baseball Life » (Unabridged)

Don Zimmer is currently the bench coach for the New York Yankees. He lives in Treasure Island, Florida.

Bill Madden is an award-winning columnist with the New York Daily News who has covered baseball for more than twenty-five years. He is the coauthor of Damned Yankees and has known Zimmer for more than twenty years.

Praise for Zim: A Baseball Life

"Zimmer's baseball life has been a full one, and half a century of his stories makes for a bountiful book."
—Allen St. John, New York Times Book Review

"On every page, he is there to be appreciated for his journey as a player, manager, and coach for more than half a century as well as for his wisdom, his humor, and just being himself."
—Dave Anderson, New York Times

"Zimmer closes his book by saying, 'For a lifetime .235 hitter, I've had a hell of a life,' and on that score he is unassailable. One could add that for a lifetime .235 hitter, he's written a heck of a memoir."
—Michael Prager, Boston Globe

For more than half a century, Don Zimmer has lived "a baseball life," crossing paths with some of the game's most memorable people and events. In Zim, he takes you everywhere he's been over his remarkable baseball journey, from his near-fatal beaning to his adventures with "Dem Bums" in the 1950s to the championship years in the Bronx as Joe Torre's bench coach. Told with refreshing humility and disarming honesty, Zim offers a panoramic history of both the sport and the man, told with a feel for the game that is uniquely Zimmer's.

Publishers Weekly

Zimmer is a "lifer," having been involved with professional baseball for half a century. A native of Cincinnati, he signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1949; a powerful shortstop, he was the logical successor to Pee Wee Reese. Zimmer suffered several beanings that nearly cost him his life and never became the ballplayer he was projected to be. Still, "Popeye" so-called because of his bulging forearms did enjoy a successful major league career. A member of Brooklyn's only World Champion team in 1955, he then played on the Los Angeles Dodgers' first world championship team four years later. He tells riveting stories about the "Boys of Summer," like Billy Loes, Johnny Podres, Clem Labine and Duke Snider. Zimmer became a much-traveled utility infielder and spent his last year playing in Japan, where, he observed, the horses "ran backwards" at the racetrack. He recounts his stints as a manager in San Diego, Boston, Texas and Chicago, and as Joe Torres's bench coach during the 1996, 1998, 1999 and 2000 Yankee World Championships. Zimmer pulls no punches in his evaluations of baseball celebrities like Hall of Fame pitcher Ferguson Jenkins, managers Don Baylor, Billy Martin and Joe Torre, and owners Eddie Chiles and George Steinbrenner. Zimmer's book is bluntly honest and filled with amusing anecdotes, a cut above the average baseball autobiography. (Apr.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.