Game Day: My Life on and off the Field

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Photos
Review: This book has excellent large photos (the ones from Sports Illustrated are spectacular). It is a little thin on details, but it is catering as a photo book, so no disappointments there. Even the text that is provided is unique, educational and entertaining. Great as a gift for Jeter or Yankees fans and something to leave laying around for guests to read.

Rating:
Summary: Great Derek Jeter Book!
Review: This book was excellent! It gives you a great inside look on Derek Jeter's gameday preperation. The quality of the pictures were excellent. He is a great role model. I hope he writes many more!

Rating:
Summary: Derek Jeter on how to play the game (and lots of photos)
Review: Yes, "Game Day: My Life on and off the Field" is rather expensive, especially when you discover all those nice color photographs of Derek Jeter getting his hair cut and ironing his own pants (although you had to admit the latter is rather admirable). However, to be fair, the book does want to cover all aspects of the daily life of the New York Yankee's star shortstop. This volume is divided into three main sections: "Spring Fever" looks at how Jeter prepares for the season each year down in Tampa during Spring Training; "Field of Dreams" covers the regular season in Yankee Stadium and is the best section, both in terms of the photographs and Jeter's insights into how he plays the game; "Glory Days" relates Jeter's experiences in the 2000 playoffs and the Subway Series against the Mets. In case you missed any of the 105 photographs in this book every single one of them is reproduced in miniature at the end with the photo credits.

I bet I would have liked this book more if it lost half the pictures so they did not overwhelm Jeter's thoughts about baseball. Jeter's emphasis on having a routine that works gets lost a bit with all those glossy color photos. What does come through is Jeter's humility (if he used a ghost writer on this volume I would be surprised), despite the fact he had won four World Series rings during his first five seasons with the Yankees. After all, as Jeter points out, Yogi Berra has ten of those rings, so there is always room for improvement. Given that A Rod is making all the money, Derek Jeter's success on the field offers proof to the next generation of kids playing baseball that winning is more important than statistics.