Pinstripes by the Tale: Half a Century In and Around Yankees Baseball

Baseball fans in the Bronx and beyond will delight in this incomparable, far-reaching collection of insider tales.

When 19-year-old Marty Appel got a job as a mail clerk for the New York Yankees, assigned to spend the summer of '68 answering Mickey Mantle’s fan letters, he couldn't have known it was just the start of over a half-century entwined with the Bronx Bombers.

As a PR director, television producer, writer, and historian, Appel never missed an opportunity to get to know the main characters—and supporting cast—of Yankees lore. The result is an unparalleled trove of colorful stories featuring a seemingly unending parade of characters including Mantle, Joe DiMaggio, Yogi Berra, Thurman Munson, Derek Jeter, George Steinbrenner, and everyone in between.

By turns hilarious and heartrending, Pinstripes by the Tale is an intimate look at an iconic franchise through the lens of its foremost historical authority. Told as a series of captivating vignettes, it invites readers to consider the small moments that quietly shape the contours of baseball history.

Marty Appel is the author of 25 books, including two Casey Award winners for baseball book of the year. His books include Munson, Casey Stengel, and Pinstripe Empire, which is widely considered the definitive history of the New York Yankees. In turn, Appel is generally acknowledged as the team's leading historian, and his professional career includes heading public relations and then television production for the team, dating back to 1968. He was an advisor for Billy Crystal's HBO film, 61*, and a consulting producer for ESPN's The Bronx is Burning.

Brooklyn-born but raised a Yankees fan starting in 1955, he and his wife, Lourdes, reside in New York City. He has two children, Brian and Deb, and three grandsons with familiar baseball names, Casey, Matty, and Ty.