New York Yankee fans are different from you and me: Like principal owner George Steinbrenner, they expect the team to win the World Series every single year. So it’s no surprise that on October 25 of last year, as my father-in-law and I (White Sox and Red Sox diehards, respectively) watched Florida Marlins pitcher Josh Beckett stymie the Bronx machine 2-0 to win the championship, we whooped it up with the exuberance of two kids on the last day of school.

Hatred for the Yankees, at least as a concept as opposed to individual players, has hardly abated during the storied franchise’s recent “drought” of championships. But Buster Olney’s “The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty” (Ecco, 352 pages, $26.95) is the best contemporary book about baseball in several years. Yankee fans and haters alike will find it riveting.

Mr. Olney, a former baseball reporter for the New YorkTimes who currently works for ESPN, meticulously weaves each inning of the seventh game of 2001’s World Series – in which the Arizona Diamondbacks improbably defeated the Yanks and superstar reliever Mariano Rivera in the bottom of the ninth – into a narrative about the players and management that produced four titles in five years from 1996 to 2000.

Mr. Olney smartly encapsulates his thesis in a single paragraph: “The Yankees’ dynasty of 1996-2001 had been achieved in part because of the players’ shared history; [Tino] Martinez, [Luis] Sojo, [David] Cone, [Scott] Brosius, [Jorge] Posada, and the rest were fully invested in one another, propping up one another along the way.This was not something that could be purchased.”

His implication is that, even though Mr. Steinbrenner and his canny general manager, Brian Cashman, have acquired stars Jason Giambi, Gary Sheffield, Hideki Matsui, Alex Rodriguez, and Mike Mussina since last winning it all – running up what is by far the largest payroll in the sport – these collections of marquee players haven’t had the extraordinary desire to win the previous teams did.

Yankees manager Joe Torre, described as a “social genius” by a former outfielder, would undoubtedly contend that his current roster is every bit the equal of those in championship years. As Mr. Olney reiterates throughout the book, however, Mr. Steinbrenner’s increasing reliance on free agents rather than developing key pitchers and position players through their minor league farm system – now depleted – has hurt the club immeasurably.

Mr. Olney provides vivid portraits of the Yanks who were essential to continuing the “dynasty.” Especially poignant are his descriptions of the soft-spoken and extremely sensitive Bernie Williams; the almost self-destructively intense Paul O’Neill; pitcher David Cone, one of the game’s most intelligent players; Andy Pettitte, a fierce competitor who nonetheless was even more devoted to his family and religion than his job (apparently to Mr. Steinbrenner’s chagrin); and first baseman Tino Martinez.

It’s Mr. Rivera, however, who wears the white hat in comparison to Mr. Steinbrenner’s black. His teammates and, apparently, Mr. Olney, revere the future Hall of Fame pitcher. “Rivera … despised pitchers who were disrespectful to their opponents – glaring insolently at hitters and stomping and swaggering around the mound like angry Neanderthals, pumping a fist to celebrate the smallest successes. … Rivera never looked angry or arrogant or intense. He had the demeanor of a customs agent, serious and polite.”

When Mr. Rivera learned that teammate Enrique Wilson had originally been booked on the doomed American Airlines Flight 587 that crashed in Queens – in anticipation of a Yankees victory parade in Manhattan – the pitcher took him aside and said, “I am glad we lost the World Series, because it means I still have a friend.”

Cliches are second nature to even the best of sportswriters, and Mr. Olney certainly isn’t immune. He quotes former Yankee Jim Bouton describing Mr. Steinbrenner as being “born on third base and thought he’d hit a triple.” (The same insult’s been directed at both President Bush and his father.) He says Tino Martinez “loved playing in New York, too; it was as if Martinez and Yankee Stadium had the same blood type.” I was sure the next sentence would read that the player “bled pinstripe blue.”

Mr. Olney also showers shortstop Derek Jeter with praise, describing how the telegenic Yankee constantly plays while injured and lights up the team’s clubhouse with his desire to win. Mr. Jeter is a gifted ballplayer, but his competitive drive isn’t unique. If he toiled for a middling club like the Milwaukee Brewers or Colorado Rockies, his perceived heroics wouldn’t be noticed.

The Yankees are subject to more media scrutiny than any other team because they play in New York.An army of print and broadcast reporters following every rumor, injury, hitting streak, or slump, not to mention any admonitions uttered by Mr. Steinbrenner. Mr. Olney contributes to this magnification of the team, suggesting, for example, that the 1999 Yankees, who were distracted by the deaths of four fathers and Mr. Torre’s prostate cancer, were “so close” because in the words of pitcher Mike Stanton,”they had needed one another so often.”Never mind that the other 29 Major League teams suffer the same interjections of reality each season.

My only significant reservation about Mr. Olney’s excellent book is that he’s too harsh on Mr. Steinbrenner. It’s true that the septuagenarian is a vain blowhard, often meddling with the roster in an unfortunate manner. But at least he’s willing to spend his own money – unlike far wealthier owners – in an effort to win every year. If Mr.Torre, an automatic Hall of Famer five years after he retires, was shackled, like many managers, with a skinflint payroll, there would have been no “dynasty” for Mr. Olney to write about.