Black Yankees

In The Postwar Yankees: Baseball's Golden Age Revisited, David G. Surdam deconstructs this idyllic period to show that while the Yankees piled on pennants and World Series titles through the 1950s, Major League Baseball attendance consistently declined and gate-revenue disparity widened through the mid-1950s. Contrary to popular belief, the era was already experiencing many problems that fans of today's game bemoan, including a competitive imbalance and callous owners who ran the league like a cartel. Fans also found aging, decrepit stadiums ill-equipped for the burgeoning automobile culture.

"This book ... is not so much a history of slavery in the Northeast as it is a historical study of the building of American culture ... "The geographical scope of this study is nominally 'New England, ' but areas encompassing the present states of Vermont, Maine, and New Hampshire (excluding Rockingham County) receive scant attention because in the 1700s these areas lacked significant black populations. ... the areas of greatest attention--Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts ... "Introd., p. [ix], xi.

"Called upon for the first time to render military service outside the States, Negro soldiers (called Smoked Yankees by the Spaniards) were eager to improve their status at home by fighting for the white man in the Spanish-American War. Their story is told through countless letters sent to black U.S. newspapers that lacked resources to field their own reporters. The collection constitutes a remarkably complete and otherwise undisclosed account of the black man's role in -- and attitude toward -- America's struggle for empire."--

The Yankees and New York baseball entered a golden age between 1949 and 1964, a period during which the city was represented in all but one World Series. While the Yankees dominated, however, the years were not so golden for the rest of baseball. In The Postwar Yankees: Baseball's Golden Age Revisited, David G. Surdam deconstructs this idyllic period to show that while the Yankees piled on pennants and World Series titles through the 1950s, Major League Baseball attendance consistently declined and gate-revenue disparity widened through the mid-1950s. Contrary to popular belief, the era was already experiencing many problems that fans of today's game bemoan, including a competitive imbalance and callous owners who ran the league like a cartel. Fans also found aging, decrepit stadiums ill-equipped for the burgeoning automobile culture, while television and new forms of leisure competed for their attention. Through an economist's lens, Surdam brings together historical documents and off-the-field numbers to reconstruct the period and analyze the roots of the age's enduring mythology, examining why the Yankees and other New York teams were consistently among baseball's elite and how economic and social forces set in motion during this golden age shaped the sport into its modern incarnation.

How did Reggie Jackson go from superstar to icon? Why did Joe DiMaggio's nickname change from "Deadpan Joe" to "Joltin' Joe"? How did Seinfeld affect public perception of George Steinbrenner? The New York Yankees' dominance on the baseball diamond has been lauded, analyzed and chronicled. Yet the team's broader impact on popular culture has been largely overlooked--until now. From Ruth's called shot to the Reggie! candy bar, this collection of new essays offers untold histories, new interpretations and fresh analyses of baseball's most successful franchise. Contributors explore the Yankee mystique in film, television, theater, music and advertising.

"This book ... is not so much a history of slavery in the Northeast as it is a historical study of the building of American culture ... "The geographical scope of this study is nominally 'New England, ' but areas encompassing the present states of Vermont, Maine, and New Hampshire (excluding Rockingham County) receive scant attention because in the 1700s these areas lacked significant black populations. ... the areas of greatest attention--Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts ... "Introd., p. [ix], xi.

In 1947, Jackie Robinson changed the game of baseball by becoming the first black player on a modern day major league team. Jackie made history with the Brooklyn Dodgers and this story is about Jackie and the seventeen players who followed him. These Black Heroes challenged the status quo and policies of team owners and were part of the first wave of black players who played on the sixteen major league teams that existed in 1947. It was not until 1959 (three years after Jackie retired) that the last of the sixteen teams added a black player to their roster.

Roberta J. Newman and Joel Nathan Rosen have written an authoritative social history of the Negro Leagues. This book examines how the relationship between black baseball and black businesses functioned, particularly in urban areas with significant African American populations—Chicago, Detroit, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Newark, New York, Philadelphia, and more. Inextricably bound together by circumstance, these sports and business alliances faced destruction and upheaval. Once Jackie Robinson and a select handful of black baseball’s elite gained acceptance in Major League Baseball and financial stability in the mainstream economy, shock waves traveled throughout the black business world. Though the economic impact on Negro League baseball is perhaps obvious due to its demise, the impact on other black-owned businesses and on segregated neighborhoods is often undervalued if not outright ignored in current accounts. There have been many books written on great individual players who played in the Negro Leagues and/or integrated the Major Leagues. But Newman and Rosen move beyond hagiography to analyze what happens when a community has its economic footing undermined while simultaneously being called upon to celebrate a larger social progress. In this regard, Black Baseball, Black Business moves beyond the diamond to explore baseball’s desegregation narrative in a critical and wide ranging fashion.