The Team That Forever Changed Baseball and America

The Team That Forever Changed Baseball and America
Author: Society for American Baseball Research (SABR)
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Total Pages: 396
Release: 2012-04-01
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 0803240252

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Of all the teams in the annals of baseball, only a select few can lay claim to historic significance. One of those teams is the 1947 Brooklyn Dodgers, the first racially integrated Major League team of the twentieth century. The addition of Jackie Robinson to its roster changed not only baseball but also the nation. Yet Robinson was just one member of that memorable club, which included Carl Furillo, Gil Hodges, Pee Wee Reese, Pete Reiser, Duke Snider, Eddie Stanky, Arky Vaughan, and Dixie Walker. Also present was a quartet of baseball’s most unforgettable characters: co-owners Branch Rickey and Walter O’Malley, suspended manager Leo Durocher, and radio announcer Red Barber. This book is the first to offer biographies of everyone on that incomparable team as well as accounts of the moments and events that marked the Dodgers’ 1947 season: Commissioner Happy Chandler suspending Durocher, Rickey luring his old friend Burt Shotton out of retirement to replace Durocher, and brilliant outfielder Reiser being sidelined after running into a fence. In spite of all this, the Dodgers went on to win the National League pennant over the heavily favored St. Louis Cardinals. And of course, there is the biggest story of the season, where history and biography coalesce: Jackie Robinson, who overcame widespread hostility to become Rookie of the Year—and to help the Dodgers set single-game attendance records in cities around the National League.

Summer of '68

Summer of '68
Author: Tim Wendel
Publisher: Da Capo Press, Incorporated
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2012-03-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 0306820188

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In a year shaped by national tragedy, baseball was shaped by amazing pitching--culminating in a victory by a Detroit Tigers team that faced off against Bob Gibson's St. Louis Cardinals, the 1967 World Series defending champions.

Bridging Two Dynasties

Bridging Two Dynasties
Author: Society for American Baseball Research (SABR)
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Total Pages: 361
Release: 2013-04-01
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 0803240945

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Tells the story of how the 1947 New York Yankees won the pennant that year, set a record with a nineteen-game winning streak, and won the first televised World Series.

Branch Rickey

Branch Rickey
Author: Lee Lowenfish
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Total Pages: 605
Release: 2022-08-15
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1496213459

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He was not much of a player and not much more of a manager, but by the time Branch Rickey (1881-1965) finished with baseball, he had revolutionized the sport--not just once but three times. In this definitive biography of Rickey--the man sportswriters dubbed "The Brain," "The Mahatma," and, on occasion, "El Cheapo"--Lee Lowenfish tells the full and colorful story of a life that forever changed the face of America's game. As the mastermind behind the Saint Louis Cardinals from 1917 to 1942, Rickey created the farm system, which allowed small-market clubs to compete with the rich and powerful. Under his direction in the 1940s, the Brooklyn Dodgers became truly the first "America's team." By signing Jackie Robinson and other black players, he single-handedly thrust baseball into the forefront of the civil rights movement. Lowenfish evokes the peculiarly American complex of God, family, and baseball that informed Rickey's actions and his accomplishments. His book offers an intriguing, richly detailed portrait of a man whose life is itself a crucial chapter in the history of American business, sport, and society.

Baseball's Great Experiment

Baseball's Great Experiment
Author: Jules Tygiel
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 452
Release: 1997
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780195106206

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Offers a history of African American exclusion from baseball, and assesses the changing racial attitudes that led up to Jackie Robinson's acceptance by the Brooklyn Dodgers.

A Fine Team Man

A Fine Team Man
Author: Joe Cox
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2019-02-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1493039059

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Jackie Robinson famously said that a life is not important except for the impact it has on other lives. As we celebrate Robinson’s 100th birthday in January 2019, Stealing Home profiles nine figures whose lives were altered by the “great experiment,” as the integration of baseball was called then. Profiled here are Rachel Robinson, the stoic but thoughtful wife; Branch Rickey, the mercurial but far-sighted manager/owner of the Dodgers; Baseball Commissioner ”Happy” Chandler, who quietly paved the way for integration; Clyde Sukeforth, the scout whose assessment of Robinson was crucial to the player’s success; Red Barber, whose own views on integration were altered by Robinson’s example of grace under pressure; Wendell Smith, the prominent black journalist who helped Robinson navigate through the trappings of a racist society; Burt Shotton, who managed Robinson during Robinson’s majestic MVP season in 1949; Pee Wee Reese, the Dodgers captain who united the team behind Robinson; and finally, Dixie Walker, the veteran Dodgers star who vowed never to play alongside Robinson, but who was eventually so moved by Robinson’s courage that he spent his last years working to improve the skills of such African-American players as Maury Wills, Jim Wynn, and Dusty Baker. As Joe Cox concludes, “Perhaps the ultimate measure of the glory of Robinson’s quest is that it converted those inclined against it to see all men as equal, at least on the great field of baseball.”

Farewell to the Last Golden Era

Farewell to the Last Golden Era
Author: Bill Morales
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 234
Release: 2011-08-10
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 078648568X

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In 1960, Major League Baseball reached a crossroads in its history. Facing a challenge from the Continental Baseball League, the owners of the original 16 major league teams elected to admit new clubs. This in-depth look at that pivotal season--the last played with only the original 16 teams--follows the New York Yankees and the Pittsburgh Pirates on their march to the 1960 World Series. The trials and triumphs of these two teams reflect the changes, large and small, that came to define the sport in the following decades--surnames on the backs of the uniforms, exploding scoreboards, the increasing impact of international players, and foremost of all, expansion. Marking the end of the "Golden Age" of baseball and the beginning of the ascendancy of professional football as the national pastime, this historic season witnessed the intersection of the past and future of American professional sports.

Baseball Meets the Law

Baseball Meets the Law
Author: Ed Edmonds
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2017-02-28
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 1476664382

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Baseball and law have intersected since the primordial days. In 1791, a Pittsfield, Massachusetts, ordinance prohibited ball playing near the town's meeting house. Ball games on Sundays were barred by a Pennsylvania statute in 1794. In 2015, a federal court held that baseball's exemption from antitrust laws applied to franchise relocations. Another court overturned the conviction of Barry Bonds for obstruction of justice. A third denied a request by rooftop entrepreneurs to enjoin the construction of a massive video screen at Wrigley Field. This exhaustive chronology traces the effects the law has had on the national pastime, both pro and con, on and off the field, from the use of copyright to protect not only equipment but also "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" to frequent litigation between players and owners over contracts and the reserve clause. The stories of lawyers like Kenesaw Mountain Landis and Branch Rickey are entertainingly instructive.

The Era, 1947–1957

The Era, 1947–1957
Author: Roger Kahn
Publisher: Diversion Books
Total Pages: 370
Release: 2014-01-15
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 1938120485

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The author of The Boys of Summer explores the golden age of baseball, an unforgettable time when the game thrived as America’s unrivaled national sport. The Era begins in 1947, with Jackie Robinson changing major league baseball forever by taking the field for the Dodgers. Dazzling, momentous events characterize the decade that followed—Robinson’s amazing accomplishments; the explosion on the national scene of such soon-to-be legends as Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Bobby Thomson, Duke Snider, and Yogi Berra; Casey Stengel’s crafty managing; the emergence of televised games; and the stunning success of the Yankees as they play in nine out of eleven World Series. The Era concludes with the relocation of the Dodgers from Brooklyn to Los Angeles, a move that shook the sport to its very roots. “Kahn knows where the bodies are buried and allows his audience a joyous read as he digs them up.”—Publishers Weekly “[Kahn] engagingly captures the flavor of the times by bringing to the fore the defining traits and relationships that added human dimension to the sport.”—Library Journal “Kahn weaves such personal information into his rich descriptions of thrilling regular-season, playoff and World Series games. And in doing so he endows the players, managers and owners with more dynamic dimensions than any baseball writer of his generation. The men in The Era are ballplayers, not deities; and it takes the unerring strength of a straight shooter like Kahn to remind nostalgic baseball fans of that simple fact.”—Chicago Tribune

Much More Than a Game

Much More Than a Game
Author: Robert F. Burk
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2003-01-14
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 0807875376

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To most Americans, baseball is just a sport; but to those who own baseball teams--and those who play on them--our national pastime is much more than a game. In this book, Robert Burk traces the turbulent labor history of American baseball since 1921. His comprehensive, readable account details the many battles between owners and players that irrevocably altered the business of baseball. During what Burk calls baseball's "paternalistic era," from 1921 to the early 1960s, the sport's management rigidly maintained a system of racial segregation, established a network of southern-based farm teams that served as a captive source of cheap replacement labor, and crushed any attempts by players to create collective bargaining institutions. In the 1960s, however, the paternal order crumbled, eroded in part by the civil rights movement and the competition of television. As a consequence, in the "inflationary era" that followed, both players and umpires established effective unions that successfully pressed for higher pay, pensions, and greater occupational mobility--and then fought increasingly bitter struggles to hold on to these hard-won gains.