You Have To Watch – ESPN’s Mini Series ” The Bronx is Burning.” Five stars

 The eight-episode drama is adapted from Jonathan Mahler’s non-fiction bestseller about the tumultuous summer of 1977 and the New York Yankees, and will mark the 30th anniversary of the Yankees’ first World Series championship under George Steinbrenner’s ownership.

The Bronx is Burning will make its debut on ESPN Monday July 9^th at 10pm.

The series has significance to me because in 1977 while still in college I was a sports producer/reporter at WTOG-TV in Tampa and my boss was Jim Dowdle the station’s General Manager. It was Dowdle and his friend St. Petersburg Times editor Jack Lake, both long time friends of Steinbrenner who introduced me to him at a golf outing. It was that Tampa connection that gave me the entrée Yankees and to Steinbrenner that still exists today.

At WTOG-TV I was the feature reporter on “Baseball Fever,” a weekly show that covered baseball and since the 1977 Yankees and Steinbrenner were the biggest story of that year I spent most of my time in New York . That is where I had a first hand view of one of the most dysfunctional teams I have ever seen win a World Series.

The Bronx is Burning truly captures every bit of the drama that made the 1977 Yankees one of the most interesting stories not just in baseball lore but all sports history.

For those who may not remember 1977 in New York was the summer “Son of Sam Killer and a city that was far more crime ridden than it is today. There were cab drivers that would not even take you to Yankee Stadium in the Bronx for fear of being beaten and robbed. All of that is captured in the mini – series.

That off season the Yankees signed Reggie Jackson much to the objections of Billy Martin and to the joy of Steinbrenner. (They were doing spring training in Ft. Lauderdale at the same park the Orioles now use. But Steinbrenner’s shipping business offices and his home was located in Tampa .)

John Turturro is brilliant as Billy Martin, he looks like him sounds like him and plays the role showing the audience every one of the many demons that faced the Yankee Manager.

The most surprising performance to me was that of Oliver Platt as George Steinbrenner. There is a tendency to over play the “Boss.” Platt however gave a perfect performance capturing every nuance of the complex man that was the “young, “Steinbrenner.”

The series captures the strange love hate relationship between Martin and “The Boss,” as well as the Reggie Jackson circus.  

This is the perfect mini series not only for Yankees fans but for all baseball fans there really is something for everyone.