Jorge Posada's New Children's Book A Thinly Veiled Attack On Yankee Management

NEW YORK—Members of the New York Yankee organization’s literary-review board are calling Play Ball!, the newly released semi-autobiographical children’s book authored by catcher Jorge Posada, a “heartwarming tale about learning the game and making new friends” and “a means used by the writer in a blatant attempt to further his anti-Yankee-management agenda.” “Passages like the one on page six, in which young Jorge’s Little League coach ’Mr. Joe’ starts batting Jorge lower and lower in the lineup just because his knees have been bothering him, and the character’s accusations on page eight that ’Mr. Joe is just playing favorites with his son D.J. and the new kid from Arizona who doesn’t like playing catch with me’ seem to reveal a feeling of discontent that would probably be better dealt with by speaking to Yankee staff and personnel in person,” said board director Lee Mazzilli. “Particularly troubling and transparent is page 12, where the team’s sponsor, a shipbuilding-company owner referred to only as ’The Big Boss,’ refuses to pay Jorge millions of dollars to stay on the team ’when it comes time for him to leave.’” Posada would not comment on the implications of the story’s conclusion, in which young Jorge asks his parents to move “so [he] can play baseball with the kids across town.”