Macho Row

If you enjoy books about baseball and have fond memories of the 1980s-90s, you'll enjoy this well-written book.

During the 1993 baseball season, the Philadelphia Phillies were considered the surprise team. Not only because they unexpectedly won the National League pennant and took the defending champion Toronto Blue Jays to six games in the World Series, but also because of their image of being a rag-tag collection of misfits and outlaws. This book by William C. Kashatus shows that this image was well-deserved as he examines that season and the six men who played the biggest roles in projecting that image and also for playing good baseball.

The six players on which book focuses are Lenny Dykstra, Mitch Williams, John Kruk, Pete Icavigulia, Dave Hollins and Darren Daulton. To understand the team, one must understand these six players, their personalities and what “the Code” (the unwritten rules of baseball) mean to them. That is the strength of this book as the reader will learn a lot about these six men. Kashatus writes about each one’s personality, what drove them on the field and how they loved being part of a team of misfits that was beloved by a city known to be hard on its sports teams.

There is plenty of writing about the baseball played on the field as well as the reader relieves many of the key moments of the season, including all of the games of the National League Championship Series and the World Series. The former was the biggest surprise of that season as the Phillies defeated the heavily favored Atlanta Braves and it was in this section where I felt the best baseball writing was done in the book as it felt like I was at old Veterans Stadium celebrating along with the six members of “Macho Row.”

While the attention to detail is very good, at times that made the book a bit difficult to follow as the reader may have to refer back to understand a point made. Also, at times I felt there were contradictions in the opinions made by the author, such as how he felt about one of the players, Lenny Dykstra. On one hand, I thought he really liked Dykstra because of his hard-nosed play and the joy the author felt when he and his teammates later became winners. On the other hand, when the subject of performance enhancing drugs is discussed, the author makes his feelings clear that those who used them were cheaters. Because Dykstra’s use of PED’s is documented throughout the book, I wasn’t sure how the author truly felt about this key member of the team.

Nonetheless, this is a book that was as fun to read as was the lifestyle after games that “Macho Row” lived. Phillies fans will especially enjoy this book as it is one that should certainly be added to their bookcase.

I wish to thank University of Nebraska Press for providing a copy of the book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Awesome story of the fighting phils! Really great insight and is great for any philly fan

First time reading this author and enjoyed this book. Recommend it.

Macho Row is about the 1993 Phillies and their Cinderella season. It focuses on former Met - Dykstra as well as Daulton, Kruk, Williams, Hollins and Incaviglia. Each of the six members has a bit of a bio and it talks about their seasons previously and then how they became a key piece of the 1993 Phillies puzzle. They played by "The Code" which is the unwritten rules of the game. They also made rookies life miserable, but they came out on top in the National League, winning the division and making it to the World Series where they lost to the Toronto Blue Jays who were too much even after the Phils caught lightning in a bottle. Although 1993 was a bit before my baseball time, it was a lot of fun to read about this team and how they made their way to the top!
I received a free e-copy of this book in order to write this review, I was not otherwise compensated.

MACHO ROW by William C Kashatus follows the 1993 Philadelphia Phillies, particularly six men on the team called Macho Row. Those men set the tone and effort of the team, deemed "The Code", a specific pathos of loyalty, togetherness, and encouragement that the team embodied and it took the team as far as the 1993 World Series.
The six players (Darren Daulton, Lenny Dykstra, John Kruk, Mitch Williams, Dave Hollins, and Pete Incaviglia) are the centerpiece of the book and Kashatus provides a short history of each of them. He also reviews how the 1993 team was put together from farm system, trades, free agent signings, etc. The bulk of the book, though, is a detailed reliving of the Phillies 1993 season highlighting Macho Row and the employment of "The Code". Kashatus is careful to point out faults and problems (steroids, drugs, gambling, etc) as they happened with the team, not sugarcoating events or glossing over details. As much as possible, too, he has taken the words of the players, rather than his paraphrasing, to paint the picture of the wild and wonderful 1993 team. There are a few instances where Kashatus reiterates a story and/or detail unnecessarily, which slowed the book down a little, but for the most part his thoroughness and easy to digest style of writing was good. At the end of the book Kashatus provided a post 1993 update on a few players and how the result of the 1993 World Series was so emotional that for many years after, it still affects some of the player's relationships with each other.
For Phillies fans and really any baseball fan, MACHO ROW is a book to check out. The motley crew of the 1993 Phillies were one of a kind and played all out in a way few, if any, teams before or after ever did or ever will.

A good read for fans of the '93 Phillies and people who want to understate baseball's silly unwritten code.

A fun read about a rowdy bunch of ball players. Gets a little bogged down in the minutiae of game recaps, but excels in player bios.