The New York Yankees have won 27 world championships and 40 American League pennants, both world records. They have 26 members in the Hall of Fame. Yet some 25 years ago, from 1989 to 1992, the Yankees were a pitiful team at the bottom of the standings, sitting on a 14-year World Series drought and a 35 percent drop in attendance. To make the statistics worse, their mercurial, bombastic owner was banned from baseball. But out of these ashes emerged a modern Yankees dynasty, a juggernaut built on the sly, a brilliant mix of personalities, talent and ambition. In CHUMPS TO CHAMPS, award-winning sportswriter Bill Pennington reveals a grand tale of revival.

Even now, years after his death, Billy Martin remains one of the most intriguing and charismatic figures in baseball history. And the most misunderstood. A manager who is widely considered to have been a baseball genius, Martin is remembered more for his rabble-rousing and public brawls on the field and off. He was combative and intimidating, yet endearing and beloved. Drawing on exhaustive interviews and his own time covering Martin as a young sportswriter, Bill Pennington resolves these contradictions and pens the definitive story of Martin’s life.

From equipment and instruction, to the rules and language of golf, to camaraderie and psychology, to the short game/long game debate, Bill Pennington informs and entertains as he gets to the essence of this mercurial game, including golf’s holy grail: the hole in one.