Phil Pepe spent years as the New York Daily News Yankee beat reporter, rubbing shoulders with countless Yankee greats, from Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra to Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera. While he was there to report on the action that occurred on the field, as well as the many disruptions occurring in the locker room—especially during the tumultuous seventies when Billy Martin and the “Boss” were constantly at one another’s throats—that directly affected the team’s performance on the field, Pepe also saw a world that never made the papers.Yankee Doodles humanizes the legends we have come to love and worship. We get to know the players as Pepe did, once the lights and cameras were turned off. For instance, Pepe recounts the story of Jackson’s miraculous three homerun World Series game when, in his exhilaration, Jackson literally gave Pepe the pants off his butt! This simple story shows a side of Reggie Jackson—a Yankees superstar—that reminds us that these men are often nothing more than boys playing a game they love.
