Note: Thank you to NetGalley, University of Nebraska Press, and author Chris Donnelly for the advanced reader copy of this book. This review will also be posted on NetGalley. What follows is my unbiased review of the book.

I’ve been a Mets fan since the 1970s. One of the greatest moments of my life was the 1986 World Series. I can distinctly remember the 2000 World Series since I had so much hope after so many years of disappointments. Get Your Tokens Ready seemed to be right up my alley.

Donnelly goes back and forth between the New York Mets and New York Yankees, tracking their progress from the mid-1990s until they met in the 2000 World Series. The resulting narrative is interesting to baseball fans, especially if you call yourself a fan of either team. There are highs and lows over many of the seasons leading up to 2000. Well, the Yankees had more highs as they won a couple of Championships. The Mets were, well, the Mets. They collapsed a couple of times in ways that reminded me of the 2025 season.

Chris Donnelly has done some amazing research to show how both the New York Mets and New York Yankees teams that met in the 2000 World Series were developed. He goes through the late 1990s and shows how the players came to be a part of each team. Some were home-grown talent, developed through the teams’ farm systems. Most, however, seem to have come from elsewhere. Donnelly covers the numerous trades and free-agency signings that built each team, and what the motivation was behind each of them. This was a time when George Steinbrenner was still leading the Yankees and seemed to just grab players because he didn’t want anyone else to get them (in the case of Jose Canseco). That it worked out for the Yankees in the end wasn’t the point. Reading Steinbrenner’s approach to teambuilding would have given Jason Kelce fits.

Of course, I appreciated the details about the Mets much more. I followed the team then and remembered many of the things he brings up in the course of the book. There were some deals that I never knew the team was close to making, while others I was glad didn’t happen. There were some things I’d forgotten about over the years, and I was reminded of them thanks to this book. I liked being reminded of how Bobby Valentine tried to disguise himself and return to the dugout when he was thrown out of a game. While I remembered that, I didn’t remember that he was fined for this comic antic and suspended for a couple of games. It was still pretty funny.

The pacing of the book is well done, creating a narrative that was enjoyable to read. I liked how he delved deep into the incident the 2000 World Series was most famous for – Roger Clemens tossing a broken bat at Mike Piazza. Donnelly also doesn’t shy away from talking about the PED scandal that took Major League Baseball by storm during this era. My one takeaway, knowing now how many Yankee players were using steroids versus only two Mets players, is that the Yankees’ win in 2000 is tainted because of that. Let’s face it, there was little doubt in most people’s minds that Clemens was using, even back then. You simply don’t pitch better in your 40s than you did in your 20s.

Yes, I’m biased in this regard, and I can’t help it. Still, I think fans of either team will appreciate Get Your Tokens Ready. Donnelly has written a great book showing how the first Subway Series since 1956 came to be.