On the one hand, I’m one of those book nerds who loves seeing how the sausage is made when it comes to writers’ memoirs: when they first became interested in pursuing their career, how they got their start, etc. On the other, I can be a bit leery when it comes to too much name dropping and self-aggrandizement.

Bill Madden, a veteran sportswriter for the New York Daily News, allayed those latter concerns as he reflects on several marvelous and eventful decades reporting on the Yankees, as well as other major occurrences in baseball, such as the steroid era and changes in commissioners.

Following the team under the stewardship of George Steinbrenner could be a book in itself. In fact, it was: Madden wrote STEINBRENNER: The Last Lion of Baseball, among several other entertaining and enlightening volumes about the national pastime, such as TOM SEAVER: A Terrific Life; ZIM: A Baseball Life (with Don Zimmer); and 1954: The Year Willie Mays and the First Generation of Black Superstars Changed Major League Baseball Forever.

"It would have been easy to produce a book full of dishing on players, executives and fellow journalists. Goodness knows there are plenty of those that seek to attract a readership based on shock value. For the most part, Madden opts for the high road."

The Bronx Bombers was a dream and a curse for writers. There was always something going on, whether it be their ups and downs or Steinbrenner’s battles with his managers and players. And what a cast of characters. Alex Rodriguez, Dave Winfield, Billy Martin, Lou Piniella and company all made for intriguing stories and many of the scandals mentioned in the title, which included two sets of drug problems: cocaine usage in the 1980s and steroids in the 1990s.

But there were other issues that might be considered a matter of opinion. As a fellow old-timer, I could relate to Madden’s rant against the obsession with the new statistics, such as “exit velocity” and, especially, WAR (Wins Above Replacement), to determine the value of a player. We have been following the game since we were kids and have become accustomed to certain expectations and traditions. Pitchers like Seaver who routinely tossed more than 250 innings a year have gone the way of the dinosaur, as modern-day hurlers go as hard as they can for as long as they can (even if that means going just five innings), knowing that the relievers who follow will do the same.

“At the same time,” Madden writes, “I understand analytics is now the way of life in baseball, just like artificial intelligence is the way of life in the world, and there’s no turning back from it.” And as someone who has covered baseball for more than 50 years, “I remain confident it will…somehow manage to survive the invasion of statistics.”

I often ponder which generation of writers has witnessed the most changes in the game. For my money, it was the late 1940s to mid-1960s, which included Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier and western expansion. But Madden also lived the curse --- “May you live in interesting times” --- coming along in the early 1970s and witnessing the dawn of the free agency era and the labor strife that new business models entailed.

It would have been easy to produce a book full of dishing on players, executives and fellow journalists. Goodness knows there are plenty of those that seek to attract a readership based on shock value. For the most part, Madden opts for the high road. It is especially pleasing to see someone of his stature take time and space for those who helped him achieve his success. Among them is his mentor, Milt Richman, who guided him through his early years with United Press International, a rival of the Associated Press.

Madden received the Baseball Writers’ Association of America Award for Career Excellence (formerly known as the JG Spink Award) in 2010. But that barely gets a mention here, a further indication of what a mensch he is.