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Summer of the Cheap Wieners: What the 1941 Phillies Were Up To While Joe DiMaggio Was Making History
"Hyper-detailed and rollickingly funny, Summer of the Cheap Wieners does well to celebrate the agony and the ecstasy of America’s pastime." – Booklist
Meet the 1941 A sad little ball club with a fading number of disgruntled fans. They aren’t very good now, and they won’t be soon. But the Phillies of 1941 certainly are a team—just like all the others, with a uniform and a roster full of Cheap ones, angry ones, regretful ones, with nicknames like “Boom-Boom” and “Dangerous Dan.” Together, they’ll find a way to win about 40 or so baseball games. Also together, they will lose far more.
Their season starts poorly and by May they’ve traded their last player of any value. Meanwhile, Joe DiMaggio has been drawing boos from bored Yankee fans until he hits a fateful little dribbler that turns into a 56-game hit streak. As the summer goes on, the Phillies try to strangle each other, resent the pity of their opponents, and watch their manager lose his sanity and his job security. For some reason, everyone seems a lot more interested in the DiMaggio thing while meetings are quietly held by league officials to discuss how no one is even buying hot dogs at Phillies games.
The summer of 1941 is the setting of eternal baseball lore including DiMaggio’s streak, Ted Williams winning the All-Star Game, and the Brooklyn Dodgers breaking free of their iconic dreadfulness, all as tanks roll across Europe. There’s a lot going on in the world, but the Phillies are willing to settle for fewer mean columns being written about them. After all, they have a season to play, too; loss by loss, heartbreak by heartbreak, attempted strangling by attempted strangling.
It was a season that deserved to be forgotten and quickly was. But it taught the Phillies, their fans, and the city of Philadelphia that some players make history; a lot more of them are just playing through it.
Meet the 1941 A sad little ball club with a fading number of disgruntled fans. They aren’t very good now, and they won’t be soon. But the Phillies of 1941 certainly are a team—just like all the others, with a uniform and a roster full of Cheap ones, angry ones, regretful ones, with nicknames like “Boom-Boom” and “Dangerous Dan.” Together, they’ll find a way to win about 40 or so baseball games. Also together, they will lose far more.
Their season starts poorly and by May they’ve traded their last player of any value. Meanwhile, Joe DiMaggio has been drawing boos from bored Yankee fans until he hits a fateful little dribbler that turns into a 56-game hit streak. As the summer goes on, the Phillies try to strangle each other, resent the pity of their opponents, and watch their manager lose his sanity and his job security. For some reason, everyone seems a lot more interested in the DiMaggio thing while meetings are quietly held by league officials to discuss how no one is even buying hot dogs at Phillies games.
The summer of 1941 is the setting of eternal baseball lore including DiMaggio’s streak, Ted Williams winning the All-Star Game, and the Brooklyn Dodgers breaking free of their iconic dreadfulness, all as tanks roll across Europe. There’s a lot going on in the world, but the Phillies are willing to settle for fewer mean columns being written about them. After all, they have a season to play, too; loss by loss, heartbreak by heartbreak, attempted strangling by attempted strangling.
It was a season that deserved to be forgotten and quickly was. But it taught the Phillies, their fans, and the city of Philadelphia that some players make history; a lot more of them are just playing through it.
- GenresSportsNonfiction
224 pages, Paperback
Published February 19, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
June 17, 2026
‘Baseball's history isn't full; it has endless space between the moments we know for the moments we don't.
Anywhere, anytime, somebody's stepping up to the plate. Maybe they take a couple pitches; maybe they're up there to hack. Maybe they make some solid contact; maybe they get caught looking. And they'll circle the bases or they'll walk back to the bench and they'll get a few quiet seconds to live in it before they're thinking about what happens next.
And whether they know it or not, they've changed, and how they’ve changed is going to change somebody else. Their next time up, that curve isn't as unhittable or they catch one in the spine. In a sport this old, not everything can matter. But when you step in that box, it's the only thing that does.’
Anywhere, anytime, somebody's stepping up to the plate. Maybe they take a couple pitches; maybe they're up there to hack. Maybe they make some solid contact; maybe they get caught looking. And they'll circle the bases or they'll walk back to the bench and they'll get a few quiet seconds to live in it before they're thinking about what happens next.
And whether they know it or not, they've changed, and how they’ve changed is going to change somebody else. Their next time up, that curve isn't as unhittable or they catch one in the spine. In a sport this old, not everything can matter. But when you step in that box, it's the only thing that does.’
July 5, 2026
Been a fan of Justin’s work for a long time now. I’ve missed the Dirty Inning since it’s been justifiably monetized, so I was happy to get a chance to enjoy this kind of content again from Justin for a onetime price.
I enjoyed the book overall, but I found the prose at times hard to follow especially as Justin flips between time periods in a given paragraph. I don’t dislike long sentences out of hand—I write them myself—but I often found myself rereading run-on sentences that get a little too lost in their own wordplay.
However, I will always enjoy Justin’s ability to find humor and humanity in the unlikeliest of places like the dreadful 1941 Phillies.
I enjoyed the book overall, but I found the prose at times hard to follow especially as Justin flips between time periods in a given paragraph. I don’t dislike long sentences out of hand—I write them myself—but I often found myself rereading run-on sentences that get a little too lost in their own wordplay.
However, I will always enjoy Justin’s ability to find humor and humanity in the unlikeliest of places like the dreadful 1941 Phillies.
April 6, 2026
If by some cruel twist of fate you find yourself a Phillies fan, at least you can treat yourself to laughing at their ineptitude along with Justin Klugh as your guide.
April 20, 2026
Although I am a fan of the Philadelphia Phillies and of baseball history, I found the author's idiosyncratic prose style to be off-putting and prevented me from reading further than 50 pages.
June 9, 2026
Justin Klugh is a great writer. The 1941 Phillies were not a good team.
July 7, 2026
A thoroughly enjoyable read with writing and wit that stayed fresh from start to finish. Kudos to Klugh who is a great satirical storyteller.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews