New York City Baseball: The Last Golden Age, 1947-1957

by Harvey Frommer, Monte Irvin (Foreword)

What a time! In the heady days after World War II, a nation was ready for heroes and a great city was eager for entertainment. Baseball provided the heroes, and the Yankees, the Giants, and the Dodgers—with their rivalries, their successes, their stars—provided the show. In those ten years, Casey Stengel and his Bronx Bombers went to the World Series seven times; Joltin' Joe DiMaggio stepped gracefully aside to make room for a young slugger named Mickey Mantle; and the Brooklyn (but not for much longer) Dodgers achieved the impossible by beating the Yankees in the1955 World Series. Includes rare interviews with Monte Irvin, Rachel Robinson (Jackie's widow), Mel Allen, Duke Snider, Eddie Lopat, Phil Rizzuto, Jerry Coleman, and New York media figures.

Genres: Baseball, Sports

230 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1980

Reviews

[Marshall Merims · Rating 4 out of 5]

What an enjoyable book about the joyous and tumultuous baseball times in the New York City area during the decade following the end of World War II. The annual success of the Yankees, the National League dominance of the Dodgers, and the lesser relevance of the Giants. Three amazing center fielders named Mantle, Mays, and Snider dominated the sports pages (right after the retirement of DiMaggio). The challenges faced by Jackie Robinson and the immediate evolution of baseball through integration. The book details the events leading to the Dodgers and Giants exodus from NY and their migration west to California leaving a NL vacuum.

Here are some gems from the book. 1) Dodgers owner O'Malley allegedly bought the PCL team and LA stadium (securing a place for his team to play in 1958) by passing a note to that owner at a June 1957 meeting. 2) Baseball game broadcasts spurred early TV sales. There were about 325,000 sets across the USA in 1948 with nearly half of them in the metropolitan NYC area. 3) The racist and narrow-minded Yankees GM George Weiss kept black players from reaching the Yankees until Elston Howard in 1954. 4) Annual attendance dropped by 800,000 or more for each of the three teams during this 11 year period.

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit disorganized. Loved the chapter on the relocation of the Dodgers and Giants but found other chapters lacking in substance.

[Lisa Kilbride · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really liked this book a lot.

[Karl H · Rating 5 out of 5]

A last golden area of NewYork baseball..