“You don’t have to be a Yankees fan to love Yankee Miracles.”—Yogi BerraIf it was not all so true, you’d think it was a fairy tale. A seventeen-year-old from Queens spray paints graffiti on Yankee Stadium and gets nabbed by George Steinbrenner himself. Contrary to his gruff public image, the Boss—driven by a compassionate inner voice—reclaims the teen at a time when the Bronx is literally burning. Thus begins the unlikeliest of baseball stories, one in which Ray Negron is transformed from street kid to batboy and beyond. Befriending many of major league baseball’s greatest stars—Billy Martin, Reggie Jackson, Munson, Mantle, Catfish, A-Rod, Jeter, even Mrs. Lou Gehrig—Negron ultimately emerges as a dynamic community leader, dedicating his own life to helping the sick and rescuing generations of city kids from unfulfilled lives. Yankee Miracles is a book about the power of baseball to transform lives, about all those miracles on 161st Street we never knew were there. 8 photographs