This Side of Cooperstown: An Oral History of Major League Baseball in the 1950s

by Larry Moffi

Lesser-known ball players of the 1950s describe their experiences with the sport, traveling to competitions, problems with segregation, and holding other jobs off-season

Genres: Baseball

288 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1996

Reviews

[Jim Townsend · Rating 5 out of 5]

The title of this book exactly explains its contents: author Larry Moffi interviewed seventeen former baseball players in 1993 and 1994, and in their own words they tell us what it was like to play major league baseball in the 1950s, which is considered by many to be baseball's golden era. These were good, but not great, ballplayers, never considered for the Hall of Fame. It was fascinating to read the baseball history of an era where each league had eight teams playing 154 games (77 home and 77 away, 11 home and 11 away against each team in its league) in a season; where doubleheaders were actually two-games-for-one-price and the norm, not the result of postponements; where pitchers were expected to finish games that they started; and where New York's three teams (until 1958) were all good at the same time (a New York team won every World Series that decade except in 1957 and 1959). Well done!

[Cal · Rating 4 out of 5]

There’s some interesting and funny nuggets throughout different chapters

[Jt Hewitt · Rating 3 out of 5]

i thought it was a cool book and it had a lot of info and stuff ive never heard about.