The Golden Era Of Major League Baseball

In The Golden Era of Major League Baseball: A Time of Transition and Integration, Bryan Soderholm-Difatte explores the noteworthy and significant changes taking place in baseball in and around the 1950s. Beginning with Jackie Robinson’s rookie season in 1947, Soderholm-Difatte provides a careful and thorough examination of baseball’s integration, including the state of blacks in the majors ten years into the Jackie Robinson era, when elite players were accepted but few blacks with “average” major league ability were regulars in the starting lineup. The author also looks at the dying practice of player-managers, the increasing use of relief pitchers and platooning, and the continued dominance of the New York Yankees. The Golden Era included three central characters whose innovations, strategies, and vision changed the game, and each of their stories is told in this book: Branch Rickey, who challenged the baseball establishment by integrating the Dodgers; Casey Stengel, whose 1949-1953 Yankees won five straight championships; and Leo Durocher, whose spy operations was a major factor in the Giants’ 1951 pennant surge, but who was also a leading innovator in managing his pitching staff. Concluding with an overview of how baseball’s race and diversity issues have evolved since the Golden Era, this book will be of interest to baseball fans and historians as well as scholars examining the history of integration in sports.

Between 1920 and 1964, the Bronx Bombers dominated the game of baseball. It was a time when baseball players enjoyed an elevated status as national icons, a time when men wearing baggy, flannel uniforms and sporting pancake gloves played for little more than "the love of the game." In this striking and nostalgic volume featuring many rarely seen photographs, we meet the heroes that were the New York Yankees. The Yankees won 29 American League pennants and 20 World Series during this golden era, their diamond exploits thrilling generations of fans and their statistical achievements becoming familiar numbers in the lore of the game: Babe Ruth's 714 home runs; Lou Gehrig's 2,130 consecutive games played; Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak; Casey Stengel's 5 straight world championships; Mickey Mantle's 565-foot home run; and Roger Maris's 61 round-trippers. The tradition of excellence began in the 1920s with the Murderers' Row teams, named for their "killer" batting lineups, and continued through the early 1960s, by which time the Bronx Bombers had established themselves as the most successful franchise in sports history.

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.

In Baseball: The Golden Age, Harold Seymour and Dorothy Seymour Mills explore the glorious era when the game truly captured the American imagination, with such legendary figures as Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb in the spotlight. Beginning with the formation of the two major leagues in 1903, when baseball officially entered its "golden age" of popularity, the authors examine the changes in the organization of professional baseball--from an unwieldy three-man commission to the strong one-man rule of Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis. They depicts how the play on the field shifted from the low-scoring, pitcher-dominated game of the "dead ball" era before World War I to the higher scoring of the 1920's "lively ball" era, with emphasis on home runs, best exemplified by the exploits of Babe Ruth. Note: On August 2, 2010, Oxford University Press made public that it would credit Dorothy Seymour Mills as co-author of the three baseball histories previously "authored" solely by her late husband, Harold Seymour. The Seymours collaborated on Baseball: The Early Years (1960), Baseball: The Golden Age (1971) and Baseball: The People's Game (1991).

This comprehensive survey of major league baseball looks at the national pastime’s legendary figures, major innovations, and pivotal moments, from the beginning of the twentieth century through World War II. In America's Game: A History of Major League Baseball through World War II, Bryan Soderholm-Difatte provides a comprehensive narrative of the major developments and key figures in Major League Baseball, during a time when the sport was still truly the national pastime. Soderholm-Difatte details pivotal moments—including the founding of the American League, the 1919 Black Sox scandal, and navigating the Great Depression and two World Wars—and concludes with a chapter examining the exclusion of black ballplayers from the major leagues. Central personalities covered in this book include baseball executives Judge Landis and Branch Rickey, managers John McGraw and Joe McCarthy, and iconic players such as Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb. America’s Game isn’t simply about celebrating the exploits of great players and teams; it is just as much about the history of Major League Baseball as an institution and the evolution of the game itself. With significant changes taking place in baseball in recent times, this book will remind baseball fans young and old of the rich history of the game.

Between 1920 and 1964, the Bronx Bombers dominated the game of baseball. It was a time when baseball players enjoyed an elevated status as national icons, a time when men wearing baggy, flannel uniforms and sporting pancake gloves played for little more than "the love of the game." In this striking and nostalgic volume featuring many rarely seen photographs, we meet the heroes that were the New York Yankees. The Yankees won 29 American League pennants and 20 World Series during this golden era, their diamond exploits thrilling generations of fans and their statistical achievements becoming familiar numbers in the lore of the game: Babe Ruth's 714 home runs; Lou Gehrig's 2,130 consecutive games played; Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak; Casey Stengel's 5 straight world championships; Mickey Mantle's 565-foot home run; and Roger Maris's 61 round-trippers. The tradition of excellence began in the 1920s with the Murderers' Row teams, named for their "killer" batting lineups, and continued through the early 1960s, by which time the Bronx Bombers had established themselves as the most successful franchise in sports history.

The author visits briefly with around 75 former professional baseball players from the '40s and '50s.

REEL BASEBALL is an enchanting look back at baseball from 1932 to 1965, a time when major league teams were franchised only in America’s biggest cities in the East. Back then, most Americans who witnessed baseball did so in local theaters where game highlights were shown in the newsreels before the feature film.This handsomely illustrated, two-color volume traces the seminal role of newsreels in making baseball the national pastime, before major league teams expanded to the South and West and television brought the game into homes across America. A one-hour DVD accompanies the book and presents the most thrilling moments from these original newsreels A grand compilation of baseball at its best, REEL BASEBALL invites fans to both read about and watch, on the accompanying DVD, Babe Ruth as he smashed a home run in the very first All-Star Game in 1933; Bobby Thomson of the New York Giants as his bat cracked the “shot heard round the world,” winning the pennant with a home run against the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1951; and Pete Gray, the “one-armed wonder” who amazed St. Louis Browns fans in 1944. The book and DVD brilliantly capture the magic of “Joltin’ Joe” DiMaggio, the “Say Hey Kid” (Willie Mays), “Stan the Man” Musial,and other legendary players who elevated the boys of summer to the pinnacle of American popular culture.