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The Sputnik Season: 1957: The year New York City baseball and America changed forever.
1957 was not just the time of the Brooklyn Dodgers’ last National League pennant race. It was also the year when everything changed in American baseball. The major leagues voted to expand to California. A new generation of Black players rose to stardom - Hank Aaron, Frank Robinson, Roberto Clemente, Ernie Banks, Jim Gilliam, Bill White, Don Newcombe, Minnie Minoso, and Curt Flood. The World Champion NY Yankees of Mickey, Yogi and Whitey still dominated the American League, but after 1957 New York City baseball would never be the same. There would not be another New York – New York World Series for more than forty years.‘The Sputnik Season’ tells the story of an historic pennant race through lively detailed accounts of the final, bitterly contested twenty-two games played between the New York Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers, accounts that will fascinate fans of all eras. 1957 was the final year of the annual intra-city brawl between the two teams. It was one to remember and savor. The clubs played each other eleven times at the grand old Polo Grounds, ten games at iconic Ebbets Field and one mean-spirited event – Marv Grissom pitching against Don Newcombe - at rickety Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City. The season would end with one of the most thrilling World Series ever.Baseball historian Noel Hynd colorfully recreates a unique National League baseball season. He escorts the reader back to mid-century America and invites everyone to be present for one of the greatest seasons ever played. Almost every National League game featured at least one future Hall of Famer. The ’57 World Series featured nine. Venture back in time and enjoy the days of Chevrolets with big fins, do-wop music, Ike, The Honeymooners, air raid drills, Elvis, Willie, Mickey and The Duke. ‘The Sputnik Season’ of 1957 was an extraordinary unforgettable time. *NEW YORK BASEBALL’S GOLDEN ERA - 1903 THROUGH 1957 Praise for Noel Hynd’s books in this THE GIANTS OF THE POLO GROUNDS – “A compelling and comprehensive look at a great ball club…. Editor’s Choice.” - NY Times. “Grandly digressive! The owners, stars like Mathewson and Mays, various eccentric players are all here in this vivid history by ‘Sports Illustrated’ contributor Hynd.” - Publishers’ Weekly“Fans of all ages will treasure the crazy quilt text for its stylish recall of the game’s summer roots.” - Kirkus Library Journal“Just plain enjoyable as baseball is supposed to be.” - The Pennsylvania Gazette> THE FINAL GAME AT EBBETS FIELD - Winner 2020 SABR Award for Best New Work on the Brooklyn Dodgers.> MARQUARD AND SEELEY - “Hynd has captured the spirit of the times in this quaint and entertaining sidelight to sports and show-biz history.” Publishers’ Weekly*“Many children work hard to please their parents, but what I truly longed for was good times that were about us, not about me. That is the real hole the Dodgers filled in my life.” - Gil Hodges*“Everything about the Polo Grounds was special, right down to the looped iron chains that separated each sector of box seats from its neighbor and could burn your bare arm on a summer afternoon if you weren’t careful. Far along each outfield wall, a sloping mini-roof projected outward, imparting a thin wedge of shadow for the bullpen crews sitting they looked like cows sheltering beside a pasture shed in August.” - Roger Angell, ‘Let Me Finish’ (2007)*“Along came Willie Mays… The era of Dark, Lockman, Westrum, Antonelli, Maglie and Wilhelm. Games that wound up 15-11 and 10-8 because of concrete hard diamonds, the wind and small ballparks.” – Al Rosen*“We’d look into the Giants’ dugout and see all that orange and black. It was enough to make you even hate Halloween.” – Duke Snider
361 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 3, 2022
125 people are currently reading
44 people want to read
About the author
Noel Hynd
62 books218 followers I've been a published novelist for longer than I care to admit, since 1976. I'm frequently asked, however, how I first got published. It's an interesting story and involved both Robert Ludlum and James Baldwin, even though neither of them knew it --- or me --- at the time.
My first agent, a wonderful thorughly perofessional gentleman named Robert Lantz was representing Mr. Baldwin at the time. This was around 1975. Balwin, while a brilliant writer, had had some nasty dealings with the head of Dell Publishing. Dell held Jimmy's contract at the time and he could not legally write for anyone else until he gave Dell a book that was due to them. Nonetheless, he refused to deliver a manuscript to Dell and went to Paris to sit things out.
The book was due to The Dial Press, which Dell owned. Baldwin was widely quoted as saying....and I'm cleaning up the quote here, "that he was no longer picking cotton on Dell's planatation."
The book was due to The Dial Press. The editor in chief of The Dial Press was a stellar editor who was making a name for himself and a fair bit of money for the company publishing thriller-author Robert Ludlum. A best seller every year will do that for an editor. Anyway, Baldwin fled New York for Paris. The editor followed, the asignment being to get him to come happily back to Dial. As soon as the editor arrived, Baldwin fled to Algeria. Or maybe Tunisia. It hardly mattered because Baldwin was furious and simply wouldn 't do a book for Dell/Dial. The editor returned to NY without his quarry. Things were at a standstill.
That's where I entered the story, unpublished at age 27 and knowing enough to keep my mouth shut while these things went down. I had given 124 pages of a first novel to Mr. Lantz ten days eariler. Miraculously, his reader liked it and then HE liked it. It was in the same genre that Ludlum wrote in and which the editor at Dial excelled at editing and marketing.
My agent and the editor ran into each other one afternoon in July of 1974 in one of those swank Manhattan places where people used to have three martinis for lunch. The agent asked how things had gone in Europe. The editor told him, knowing full well that the agent already knew. The next steps would be lawyers, Baldwin dragged into US Courts, major authors boycotting Doubleday/Dell, Dial, maybe some civil rights demonstrations and.......but no so fast.
Mr. Lantz offered Dial the first look at a new adventure/espionage novelist (me). IF Dial wanted me after reading my 124 pages, he could sign me, but only IF Baldwin was released from his obligations at Doubleday. I was the literary bribe, so to speak, that would get Jimmy free from Dial. It seemed like a great idea to everyone. It seemed that way because it was. Paperwork was prepapred and paperwork was signed. Voila!...To make a much longer story short, Dial accepted my novel. The editor instructed me on how to raise it to a professional level as I finished writing it over the next ten months. I followed orders perfectly. I even felt prosperous on my $7500 advance. He then had Dial release Mr. Balwin from his obligation. Not surpringly, he went on to create fine books for other publishers. Ludlum did even batter. Of the three, I'm the pauper but I've gotten my fair share and I'm alive with books coming out again now in the very near future, no small accmplishment. So no complaints from me.
That''s how I got published. I met Ludlum many times later on and Baldwin once. Ludlum liked my name "Noel" and used it for an then-upcoming charcter named Noel Holcroft. That amused me. I don't know if either of them even knew that my career had been in their orbits for a month 1975. They would have been amused. They were both smart gifted men and fine writers in dfferent ways. This story was told to me by one of the principals two years later and another one confirmed it.
Me, I came out of it with my first publishing contract, for a book titled 'Reve
My first agent, a wonderful thorughly perofessional gentleman named Robert Lantz was representing Mr. Baldwin at the time. This was around 1975. Balwin, while a brilliant writer, had had some nasty dealings with the head of Dell Publishing. Dell held Jimmy's contract at the time and he could not legally write for anyone else until he gave Dell a book that was due to them. Nonetheless, he refused to deliver a manuscript to Dell and went to Paris to sit things out.
The book was due to The Dial Press, which Dell owned. Baldwin was widely quoted as saying....and I'm cleaning up the quote here, "that he was no longer picking cotton on Dell's planatation."
The book was due to The Dial Press. The editor in chief of The Dial Press was a stellar editor who was making a name for himself and a fair bit of money for the company publishing thriller-author Robert Ludlum. A best seller every year will do that for an editor. Anyway, Baldwin fled New York for Paris. The editor followed, the asignment being to get him to come happily back to Dial. As soon as the editor arrived, Baldwin fled to Algeria. Or maybe Tunisia. It hardly mattered because Baldwin was furious and simply wouldn 't do a book for Dell/Dial. The editor returned to NY without his quarry. Things were at a standstill.
That's where I entered the story, unpublished at age 27 and knowing enough to keep my mouth shut while these things went down. I had given 124 pages of a first novel to Mr. Lantz ten days eariler. Miraculously, his reader liked it and then HE liked it. It was in the same genre that Ludlum wrote in and which the editor at Dial excelled at editing and marketing.
My agent and the editor ran into each other one afternoon in July of 1974 in one of those swank Manhattan places where people used to have three martinis for lunch. The agent asked how things had gone in Europe. The editor told him, knowing full well that the agent already knew. The next steps would be lawyers, Baldwin dragged into US Courts, major authors boycotting Doubleday/Dell, Dial, maybe some civil rights demonstrations and.......but no so fast.
Mr. Lantz offered Dial the first look at a new adventure/espionage novelist (me). IF Dial wanted me after reading my 124 pages, he could sign me, but only IF Baldwin was released from his obligations at Doubleday. I was the literary bribe, so to speak, that would get Jimmy free from Dial. It seemed like a great idea to everyone. It seemed that way because it was. Paperwork was prepapred and paperwork was signed. Voila!...To make a much longer story short, Dial accepted my novel. The editor instructed me on how to raise it to a professional level as I finished writing it over the next ten months. I followed orders perfectly. I even felt prosperous on my $7500 advance. He then had Dial release Mr. Balwin from his obligation. Not surpringly, he went on to create fine books for other publishers. Ludlum did even batter. Of the three, I'm the pauper but I've gotten my fair share and I'm alive with books coming out again now in the very near future, no small accmplishment. So no complaints from me.
That''s how I got published. I met Ludlum many times later on and Baldwin once. Ludlum liked my name "Noel" and used it for an then-upcoming charcter named Noel Holcroft. That amused me. I don't know if either of them even knew that my career had been in their orbits for a month 1975. They would have been amused. They were both smart gifted men and fine writers in dfferent ways. This story was told to me by one of the principals two years later and another one confirmed it.
Me, I came out of it with my first publishing contract, for a book titled 'Reve
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
February 27, 2023
I read this book for 2 reasons. 1. 1957 was the last season the Giants and Dodgers called New York home.
2. I love the design of the Topps 1957 baseball card set.
Come on Noel, you could have googled Bill Veeck to know he did not buy the Chicago White Sox until 1959.
This is a great book for baseball junkie boomers. It was a time when baseball was IMPORTANT in everyday lives.
The book is a trip down memory lane. Mantle, Aaron, Musial, Mathews....Baseball cards come to life.
I loved the constant references to UFO'S.
Seems the entire Nation was concerned with an invasion of Earth from space!
2. I love the design of the Topps 1957 baseball card set.
Come on Noel, you could have googled Bill Veeck to know he did not buy the Chicago White Sox until 1959.
This is a great book for baseball junkie boomers. It was a time when baseball was IMPORTANT in everyday lives.
The book is a trip down memory lane. Mantle, Aaron, Musial, Mathews....Baseball cards come to life.
I loved the constant references to UFO'S.
Seems the entire Nation was concerned with an invasion of Earth from space!
June 7, 2022
I really enjoyed this account of the 1957 baseball season. 1957 was a transitional year in baseball. The Boston Braves moved to Milwaukee and two New York clubs planned their move to the West Coast. Noel Hynd provides a detailed, though never dull, narrative.
September 10, 2023
Absolutely Fabulous
I was 12 years old in 1957 and a baseball fanatic. I was lucky enough to live in Hunters on County N.J. and get both Channel 9 and Channel 11 so I had the Dodgers, Giants and Yankees on TV most every night. My father was from Brooklyn and the Dodgers were my life. My devotion and soul were ripped apart when they left for LA. I lost my heart to pursue my baseball dreams then. Plus no National League games to watch, only the respected, but hated Yankees. I have never forgotten the 57 season and my broken dreams. Even as a 12 year old I remember the panic when Sputnik was launched and the bitter hate I saw in Little Rock on TV.
This book was a wonderful and also sad trip back to 1957. A fantastic read for this old, then stary-eyed kid. I highly recommend this book.
I was 12 years old in 1957 and a baseball fanatic. I was lucky enough to live in Hunters on County N.J. and get both Channel 9 and Channel 11 so I had the Dodgers, Giants and Yankees on TV most every night. My father was from Brooklyn and the Dodgers were my life. My devotion and soul were ripped apart when they left for LA. I lost my heart to pursue my baseball dreams then. Plus no National League games to watch, only the respected, but hated Yankees. I have never forgotten the 57 season and my broken dreams. Even as a 12 year old I remember the panic when Sputnik was launched and the bitter hate I saw in Little Rock on TV.
This book was a wonderful and also sad trip back to 1957. A fantastic read for this old, then stary-eyed kid. I highly recommend this book.
October 6, 2022
The Golden Age of New York Baseball!!
What a GREAT read!!! No doubt the 40,s 50,s, and 60s, had to be the golden age of baseball. Just think of all the H.O.F. players out of this era. Even the ones who are not in the hall played some roll in the success of their respected teams. The names and players brought back many memories of there baseball cards back then as well. I can still see and smell the bubble gum. Great research by Noel, and his team to tell this story of 1957 baseball. If you are a fan of the game, and long for a book about when the game was played as a game and not about the money this is a great book. You will wish baseball could go back to this simpler time..
What a GREAT read!!! No doubt the 40,s 50,s, and 60s, had to be the golden age of baseball. Just think of all the H.O.F. players out of this era. Even the ones who are not in the hall played some roll in the success of their respected teams. The names and players brought back many memories of there baseball cards back then as well. I can still see and smell the bubble gum. Great research by Noel, and his team to tell this story of 1957 baseball. If you are a fan of the game, and long for a book about when the game was played as a game and not about the money this is a great book. You will wish baseball could go back to this simpler time..
May 6, 2024
If you are looking for a book that is a good collection of anecdotes of what happened in the 1957 season in baseball and what it meant for the future of the game, this is a good read. If you are thinking of something that relates baseball to the pulse of America in the same year (as the reference to Sputnik in the title suggests) you might be disappointed. The space race is only mentioned briefly at the end. The most compelling part of the work is the significance of two New York teams leaving the city at the end of the season and how that changed the landscape of baseball. Still, a good book and some interesting insights in the the game.
December 26, 2023
I absolutely loved this book! I could not put it down for a while. I was born December 1956 and grew up a Yankee fan. It was nicely intertwined with the current events of the time. Noel Hynd did a great job with that without overdoing it. I first started following baseball in 1964. I was riveted to the Yankees/Cardinals World Series. Similarly I was riveted to this book describing baseball prior to my coming of age as a baseball fan.
I now look forward to reading other books by Noel Hynd.
I now look forward to reading other books by Noel Hynd.
July 27, 2022
worth waiting for !
I am a Noel Hynd fan ! I have devoured everything he has written .
When it was announced that “ The Sputnik Season “ was going to be published this year I could hardly wait .
I just finished the book and the wait was worth it! Loved the splendid history of the 1957 season . The detail was exceptional and Noel’s weaving of the themes of the season together was extraordinary!
Worth waiting for and definitely worth the read!
I am a Noel Hynd fan ! I have devoured everything he has written .
When it was announced that “ The Sputnik Season “ was going to be published this year I could hardly wait .
I just finished the book and the wait was worth it! Loved the splendid history of the 1957 season . The detail was exceptional and Noel’s weaving of the themes of the season together was extraordinary!
Worth waiting for and definitely worth the read!
November 8, 2023
This book is full of good stories about the 1957 baseball season. A year full of superstar players, charterers, and the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants playing their final games in Ebbetts Field and the Polo Grounds. A fun read for any baseball fan
January 26, 2024
I was born in 1957, there were some great players and great baseball stories during this era. I felt the sadness of the fans as their teams moved to Milwaukie and the West Coast. Did I say I love BASEBALL.
July 10, 2022
We Will Always Have Baseball
A Great Read about Mid -20th Century Baseball and on American Life and growing up in a simpler world enviroment.
A Great Read about Mid -20th Century Baseball and on American Life and growing up in a simpler world enviroment.
July 30, 2022
Great Book
Loved every minute of them. I’m 58 a little younger then the author but I share his feeling of the connection to baseball always
Loved every minute of them. I’m 58 a little younger then the author but I share his feeling of the connection to baseball always
December 6, 2022
It was an okay book that used up my time. I enjoyed parts of it, but wouldn't recommend it to anyone.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 2, 2025
Excellent
Truly made 1957 baseball come alive for me; not to mention Ebbets Field and the Polo Grounds. I was only one year old at the time.
Truly made 1957 baseball come alive for me; not to mention Ebbets Field and the Polo Grounds. I was only one year old at the time.
November 26, 2022
I enjoyed this book on the 1957 season. The title is a little misleading as Sputnik is not discussed at all until the very last two pages of 340. Instead the 1957 season of baseball is well researched and written about. Every team is discussed at least a little bit, but the big stories are about the New York Yankees trying to repeat as champs and inner turmoil off the field at the Copa Copana, the Milwaukee Braves and Eddie Mathews and Henry Aaron becoming stars, a big trade made between the Braves and Giants, and more than anything -- the last year of the Dodgers and Giants in New York. Noel Hynd does a great job of putting the reader back in 1957. I felt I was there even though I wouldn't be born for another 20 years. Good stuff, glad I read.
May 29, 2022
Remembering a Great Era
Growing up in New York City leaves a great deal of memories , the least of which is the great rivalries of its three great baseball franchises. Noel Hynd’s “The Sputnik Season:1957” is great recounting of the final season in New York for the New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers. Mr. Hynd provides a spirited account of that great season and highlights its most exciting events that any baseball aficionado will enjoy. This is the third book that I have read by Mr. Hynd about that wonderful era in New York and I highly recommend them all.
Growing up in New York City leaves a great deal of memories , the least of which is the great rivalries of its three great baseball franchises. Noel Hynd’s “The Sputnik Season:1957” is great recounting of the final season in New York for the New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers. Mr. Hynd provides a spirited account of that great season and highlights its most exciting events that any baseball aficionado will enjoy. This is the third book that I have read by Mr. Hynd about that wonderful era in New York and I highly recommend them all.
November 24, 2022
Noel hynd gives a wonderful and interesting look at the 1957 season and ties the science fiction craze that started that year.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews