Bottom of the Ninth: Branch Rickey, Casey Stengel, and the Daring Scheme to Save Baseball from Itself

by Michael Shapiro

In Bottom of the Ninth, Michael Shapiro brings to life a watershed moment in baseball history, when the sport was under siege in the late 1950s "A fascinating look at an almost forgotten era . . . One of the best baseball books of recent seasons." -Cleveland Plain DealerShapiro reveals how the legendary executive Branch Rickey saw the game's salvation in two radical the creation of a third major league—the Continental League—and the pooling of television revenues for the benefit of all. And Shapiro captures the audacity of Casey Stengel, the manager of the Yankees, who believed that he could remake how baseball was played.The story of their ingenious schemes—and of the powerful men who tried to thwart them—is interwoven with the on-field drama of pennant races and clutch performances, culminating in the stunning climax of the seventh game of the 1960 World Series, when one swing of the bat heralds baseball's eclipse as America's number-one sport.

Genres: Baseball, Sports

313 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 21, 2010

About the author

Michael Shapiro writes about travel, the performing arts, and environmental issues for magazines and newspapers. A former staff reporter and editor at newspapers in the San Francisco Bay Area, he’s the author of The Creative Spark, a collection of interviews with many of the world’s most creative people, and A Sense of Place, featuring conversations with leading travel writers. His stories appear in National Geographic, AFAR, The Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle and many other publications.

Reviews

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic look at Branch Rickey's attempt to start a new baseball league in the late 1950s. Shapiro does a wonderful job capturing the flavor of the era, when television, teams moving to new cities, and growing competition from other sports (particularly football) gave brief hope the new Continental League would offer a solid alternative to the established circuits. This book is a must-read for any fan of baseball lore.