Praying for Gil Hodges: A Memoir of the 1955 World Series and One Family's Love of the Brooklyn Dodgers

by Thomas Oliphant

"Tom Oliphant has created a small masterpiece."
--Doris Kearns Goodwin, author of the bestselling Wait Till Next Year
 
Praying for Gil Hodges is built around a detailed reconstruction of the seventh game of the 1955 World Series, when the Brooklyn Dodgers won the world championship of baseball. 
            Thomas Oliphant creates a relentless melodrama that shows this final game in its true glory.  As we move through the game, he builds a remarkable history of the Dodgers' status as a national team, based on their fabled history of near-triumphs and disasters that made them classic underdogs.
            He weaves into this brilliant recounting a winning memoir of his own family's story and their time together on that fateful Game Seven day, thrilling a nine-year-old boy in a loving, struggling family for whom the Dodgers were a rare source of the joys and symbols that bring families together through tough times.
            Written with power and clarity, this is a brilliant work that captures the majesty of baseball, the issue of race in America, and the love that one young boy, his parents, and the borough of Brooklyn had for their team. 

 

"In Praying for Gil Hodges, Tom Oliphant has created a small masterpiece---a splendid recreation of life in the 1950s, a poignant tribute to his parents, and a fabulous story about the central role the Brooklyn Dodgers played in the lives of his and countless other families. Moving effortlessly from an adult's perspective to a child's recollection, shifting seamlessly between the present and the past, he captures the reader's interest at every step along the way. I found myself happily transported back in time, following a warm-hearted young boy as he comes of age in a memorable era."
---Doris Kearns Goodwin, author of the bestselling Wait Till Next Year
 
"Tom Oliphant is one of our most lyrical writers and he has written a love story---about his parents, about baseball, and most of all about the American values that shaped their lives."
---Bob Schieffer, Face the Nation
 
"The story builds to a beautiful and moving resolution, proving that the true center of this book is not the seventh game of the World Series. The heart of the story is the love of a family for a place, a baseball team, but mostly for each other."
---The Boston Globe

Genres: Baseball, Sports, Nonfiction, Biography, History, Memoir, Book Club

304 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[Brina · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my all time favorite books is Doris Kearns Godwin’s Wait Til Next Year, which details her life growing up a Brooklyn Dodgers fan. I am convinced that Goodwin is a long lost relative of mine, a mystery of life that I will never find out. While on vacation and in need of an extra book to fill in the time, I discovered this gem on the $.25 rack at my parents’ library. Thomas Oliphant has been a political and sports writer for his entire adult life, and yet I had never heard of him. What I could not neglect is that this is memoir about the 1950s Brooklyn Dodgers, a book about nostalgia for a lost era where times were simpler, an era that I am convinced I belonged in and can never get enough of.

Thomas Oliphant grew up as the only child of Homer and Anna Oliphant in an apartment off of Tudor Place in Manhattan. His baby boom family was unconventional in that he was an only child and that his mother was the primary breadwinner in their family. Oliphant’s parents came from small, midwestern towns and made their way out east in the late 1930s. Both were literary minded and voracious readers, traits they later instilled in their son. Yet, both also exhibited a midwestern work ethic, which kept them afloat during the depression. It also made them gravitate to the Dodgers across the bridge in Brooklyn during an era when most of their acquaintances went for the Yankees or Giants. It was the hardscrabble workmanship of a team in a working class neighborhood that made the Dodgers synonymous with their city, more so than any other in professional sports. After the war, it was only natural that Homer and Anna got their kid to be a Dodgers fan and pass their love of a team on to him. Although not a native Brooklyner, Oliphant’s love for the Dodgers became the marker of all the memorable events of his childhood.

Whereas Godwin’s memoir moves in chronological order, Oliphant’s is centered on the seminal moment October 4, 1955. His father let him stay home from school to watch the game with him on their new tv, named Scarlet. This is not much different from my dad’s memory of being allowed to stay home from school on the same day, as well as that of countless children who were raised as Dodger fans or Yankee haters. Oliphant rehashes the game itself more intricately than Goodwin does but he also flashes back to important moments of his childhood and how he got to that point in his fandom. He was nine in 1955, an age when kids are most impressionable when it comes to identifying with a team or place. My son was a similar age when the Cubs finally won and the memories have made him a fan for life. Oliphant, like myself, holds by many sports superstitions. As he watched the game with his father, neither uttered a word. He crossed and uncrossed his feet depending on who was batting, and hoped that his karma would will the Dodgers to victory.

The 1955 Dodgers were an aging team. They had been together as a group for a good part of eight to ten years, their captain Pee Wee Reese since 1941. They might have sensed as they aged that this would be the last chance that their core group had to win it all. Had luck been on their side, they might have beaten the Yankees in 1949, 1952, and 1953, and it would have been the Dodgers not the Yankees who historians look back on as being the best of the era. Somehow, the Yankees had always come out on top, until 1955. By that point, mainstays had moved on, and Jackie Robinson, the defining player of the team and era, did not even play in game seven. Instead he was like a player coach who willed his team to victory from the dugout. The fact that the same players had been through so much for years made the moment that much sweeter. All of Brooklyn partied with the Dodgers, the Kearns and Oliphant families included. It was to be an end of an era for the team and sadly for both families.

After 1957 the Dodgers and Giants moved cross country to California, signifying the end of a more wholesome era of sports and society in general. Oliphant’s father was sickly and after he finished grammar school, the family soon followed suit to the balmy seaside climate of Southern California. Although on the other side of the country and his idols Gil Hodges and Jackie Robinson no longer playing, the move to benefit his father’s health allowed Thomas Oliphant to be a Dodger fan for life and not latch on to the Mets like so many New Yorkers did. Writing his account fifty years after the events and having witnessed more Dodgers championships, Oliphant still places the one won in Brooklyn as the best, a team that embodied his childhood, a city, and was emblematic of America during a more simplistic era of history.

⚾️ 4 stars ⚾️

[Cort · Rating 1 out of 5]

The Brooklyn Dodgers are the great romantic sports story of the mid-20th century. Operating in the shadow of its richer and more successful rivals at Yankee Stadium and the Polo Grounds, the Dodgers enjoyed a reputation as a collection of scrappy, lovable underdogs, a team that was perfectly fitted to its hometown. The team's move to Los Angeles has deepened the myth: the farther we get from the 1955 World Series, the more Ebbets Field becomes a sort of Camelot, and Pee Wee, Jackie, and the Duke are less ballplayers than Arthurian knights in flannels and stirrups.

Everybody wants in on this romance. There have been dozens of books, and plays, and movie references, all remembering and reverencing the Lords of Flatbush, and the days when athletes were good and pure and noble, and worthy of our adulation. Some of these, like Carl Prince's "Brooklyn's Dodgers", are scholarly and well-written. Others, like Peter Golenbeck's "Bums" are engaging and well-written. Still others are cloying, and unconvincing, and altogether dreary. Oliphant's little book may be the most cloying, unconvincing, and dreary of all.

The author isn't even a Brooklynite: he was raised in Giants country, across the bridge in Manhattan. His parents, while Poor, were Noble and Enlightened, so he couldn't help but grow up a supporter of the Team That Broke the Color Line. They are classic Northeast Liberals, insisting that the black cobbler one the corner be addressed as "Mister," but sending their son to an elite, all-white prep school. It's easy to be open-minded when you're going to The Browning School and singing in the Met's youth choir.

Little Tommy comes across as a sort of prepubescent Zelig, singing a duet with Billie Holliday, magically securing a ticket to the opening game of the '55 Series, onstage when Marian Anderson makes her historic debut at the Met, jamming with jazz legends and sharing a classroom with the progeny of New York's most powerful family. It's all a bit much. And the one really endearing Dodgers story recounted, the story that inspires the title, has nothing to do with Oliphant or his family: it's somebody else's memory, recounted second-hand.

Baseball is a game of speed and sweat and strength and cunning. Like soccer, it's a city game, a workingman's game. Folks like Oliphant, with their raised pinky aesthetic, try to fashion it into something as precious and ritualized as one of those English country dances in "Pride and Prejudice". It's boring and bloodless and even with the obligatory genuflections before the Holy Trinity of Robinson, Reese, and Hodges, there seems little real connection to the Dodgers players.

You want Brooklyn memories? Read "The Boys of Summer", or Arnold Rampersand's outstanding biography of Jackie Robinson. Skip this one.

[Red Heaven · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book because it's about one of my favorite baseball teams and one of the best games in their history before they moved to Los Angeles. The author witnessed the game and has obviously done his research, including interviews with some of the players.

Unfortunately there were two big turn-offs for me. The author appears to come from a well-connected family, because he namedrops an almost endless list of famous people his parents knew or who stopped by the apartment for a drink. Often this has no bearing on the Dodgers game, so it comes off as bragging.

Secondly, the author is a professional writer, yet his syntax is sometimes tortured and I had to read several sentences multiple times to understand what he was talking about. Often this is because there are too many clauses to the sentence, too much information being imparted, and some of it not necessary or should be broken into multiple simpler sentences.

Disheartened by this, I gave up reading the book round about the second inning. I'd recommend Wait Til Next Year by Doris Kearns Goodwin as a better, if less detailed, account of the Dodgers in this time period.

[Tom Gase · Rating 4 out of 5]

Re-read this one after about 10 years while the Dodgers were in the World Series against the Rays. The last chapter of this book, where the author describes watching the last few innings, is absolutely beautiful writing. This book is about the author watching the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers in the World Series, especially the 7th game, which he watches with his father as his mom listens on at work. They later meet together in Brooklyn after the game, but I won't tell you what happens in case you don't know. Good stuff and the right book at the right time for myself.

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author says it best about the victorious World Series team in '55: ". . . these Brooklyn Dodgers had many years together. They were all children of the depression and of world war, astonished to be paid for playing a game (although their paychecks are meager by today's standards) . . . they were imbued with blue-collar, hardworking values. These Dodgers would car-pool to Ebbett's Field."

[Kristen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book, but I couldn't get past the author's tortured prose. I'm not a fan of the long twisting sentence that makes up an entire paragraph. I also didn't care about the memoir aspect of the book. There was too much stuff about author's family and friends.

[SKBrody · Rating 2 out of 5]

What a disappointment. Growing up in Brooklyn and having my father being a huge Brooklyn Dodger fan I was eager to read the book. But it fell so flat for a number of reasons. First off the title is misleading. There is hardly any mention of Gil Hodges. Dodger players of that era such as Carl Furillo, Roy Campanella, Jackie Robinson, Johnny Podres, and others are mentioned much more often than Hodges. A better title would have been "Praying for the Brooklyn Dodgers". Another annoyance is the name dropping the author referenced became quite tiresome. Just how many famous people from the 1940's and 1950's could a child encounter? The flow of the book was disjointed. I had a difficult time in keeping tabs of the timeframes as the author continuously bounced around Brooklyn Dodger teams from the '40's & '50's that I became confused about what year and what World Series he was referencing. This could have been a much better story.

[Arnold Baruch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gil Hodges was my childhood hero, so when I found this....'nuff said. Oliphant (a name that must forever be written twice online since modern algorithms transform him into Elephant) grew up where I should have. My family left Brooklyn in 1946, so I had to root for the Boys of Summer from L.A., whereas Oliphant, my near-exact contemporary, hung out at Ebbets Field, even saw one of the games of the timeless 1955 World Series victory. But this book is much more than a sports account (although his account of the team's legendary travails is exhaustive). The author's family was afflicted with the disabilities of his writer-father, who took years to recover from the consequences of diseases he contracted in the Pacific in WWII. So Oliphant's account of his relationship with his dad is one tender key to the book. Another is the incredible richness of life in Brooklyn, its multi-ethnic ambience and the talented people living in, apparently, every apartment house. This was Brooklyn in the days when the Dodgers lived locally and would car-pool to the ballpark.

If you dig baseball and are attracted to the golden era when the Giants, Dodgers and hated Yankees ruled, this book's 267 pages offers unexpected rewards. Can't recommend it enough.

[Jack · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book dragged on . Too much about the wonderful Oliphant family, and New York is Utopia and Brooklyn is the garden of Eden! Not enough about Gil Hodges and the Dodgers. I also didn't care for all the name dropping and general self-indulgence.

[Alan Zimmerman · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you were a Brooklyn Dodger fan in the 50s, this is the book for you. Very centered on the 1955 World Series, remember, when the Dodgers finally beat the Yankees. Oliphant weaves in his childhood in Manhattan and all the fun he had, despite a lack of affluence. He shows us his parents' struggles with health and money issues but the Dodgers were their saviors.

[Charles · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book contains many different threads; all tied together by a love of the Brooklyn Dodgers and the void that remained when they moved to California. It is largely an autobiography of Oliphant in his early years growing up in a small apartment, attending school, engaged in youth and school activities and being devoted to the Brooklyn Dodgers. His father was stationed in the South Pacific in World War II and operated on land. Like so many that slogged through the humid jungle, he came down with serious cases of tropical diseases.
Increasingly finding it difficult to carry out his work as a freelance writer, his father reached the point where he could no longer earn a living. This put a severe strain on the family finances, yet as Oliphant emphatically states, he never felt deprived.
Intertwined with the story of his life is the history of the Brooklyn Dodgers, with a focus on their ability to win pennants and lose in the World Series to the New York Yankees. Often in incredible ways. No history of the Dodgers would be complete without some detailed coverage of Branch Rickey and his move to sign Jackie Robinson and integrate baseball.
No sports book is complete without some form of “big game at the end,” and that happens here as well. That event is the 1955 World Series, when the Dodgers were finally able to defeat the Yankees, touching of celebrations throughout Brooklyn. Oliphant does a superb job in intertwining his life, the characteristics of the Brooklyn populace and explaining the background of the Dodger team in the first half of the decade of the fifties. He covers the reasons for the departure of the Dodgers, pointing out that attendance at Ebbets Field had declined and it was a dilapidated structure by the time the Dodgers left. Oliphant even does a bit to come to the defense of Walter O’Malley.
Although this is largely an autobiography of Oliphant, a non-athlete, it is also a first rate sports book. The writing is superb and some significant name-dropping is done. For example, Oliphant describes his interactions with Arthur MacArthur, son of General Douglas MacArthur. He also gives his impressions of the General’s personality. This is one of the best non-fiction sports books of all time.

[Tim Timberly · Rating 2 out of 5]

Parts of this book were a one-dimensional story about a one-dimensional myth- Dodgers were lovable losers, the Yankees were serious and usually won. I expected more context for the sections on baseball, something about greater trends in the national pastime or how the Dodgers fit into what was happening in the rest of the baseball world. I also expected a book entitled Praying for Gil Hodges to have at least some spiritual aspect to it. The title comes from one anecdote that the author found in a newspaper, and the closest the author gets to the intersection of spirituality and baseball in his life are the superstitions he and his father had during game seven of the 1955 World Series. The narrative is redundant in places as the author writes about things when he remembers them. When so much detail went into building up to the 1955 World Series, I also expected more about what happened after. Instead, you learn that the Dodgers moved to California, his family moved to California, his dad died, and then his mom died. How did his memories of the Dodgers or his love of the Dodgers change in the past sixty years? Does he still follow baseball with the same determination as he did when he was younger? Did other things take baseball's place?

[Lynne · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you like baseball, this is probably a 4. If not, it could be a 2 or a 1. I like baseball, and I liked the fact that this book goes beyond baseball to talk about family dynamics, cultural changes, and general life in the 1940s and 50s. There's quite a bit about Jackie Robinson and subsequent racial integration in the major leagues. I enjoyed the structure, which goes back and forth between the seventh game of the 1955 World Series and the history of the Dodgers, the life of the narrator, etc. Towards the end of the book, the final four innings of the game are portrayed in depth, which I as a baseball fan enjoyed. I even looked up videos of some of the plays. :)

On the other hand, I was a bit annoyed by the information that repeats (the father has bleeding ulcers; the son doesn't like being the main focus of attention from the parents, etc.), because this appears to be a book, not a series of essays published separately (in which case some repetition, though possibly annoying, is more understandable). And for something written by a journalist and ostensibly edited or at least proofread, there are multiple typographic and grammatical errors. Grr.

So I averaged it out to a 3.

[Kev Willoughby · Rating 2 out of 5]

A glimpse of life in 1950s New York through the eyes of a Brooklyn Dodgers fan who had more chance encounters with the famous people of his era than Forrest Gump had in a lifetime. I wasn't sure if the purpose of the book was to portray the heartache of perennial Dodger letdowns, which was accomplished ad nauseam, or to impress the reader with constant name-dropping in virtually every chapter from the author's personal life. And as much as I enjoyed the re-telling of classic Dodgers' games from the 1940s and 1950s, the jumping around back and forth chronologically around the progressive thread of accounts from Game 7 of the 1955 World Series was difficult to follow. I would have rated this book much higher if it was presented in chronological order building up to the tension of the 1955 Series and if the editor had culled the parts of the author's personal life that had nothing to do with the story of his immediate family, with whom he enjoyed the 1955 Series. This was an endurance book for me, and if not for the baseball parts, I would have abandoned it.

[Christopher E. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a well-written, highly personal book about the author and his family that centers around life in 1940’s-50’s Brooklyn and the Dodgers, with the 1955 World Series victory by the Dodgers as a centering event. If you are looking for a more pure baseball book, or one that focuses on Gil Hodges, this is not the book for you. Unfortunately, some readers will make assumptions based on the title that are not accurate and therefore they will be disappointed. However, In the author’s defense, he never billed it as a baseball book or a Gil Hodges biography. Regardless, his love for the game and knowledge of it is impressive. Instead of hoping it would be something different, I liked this book for what it is: a poignant, wonderfully descriptive account of one family’s life in Brooklyn following World War II that happened to coincide with the Golden Age of Baseball and the peak success of the Brooklyn Dodgers. An amazing, bygone era to be certain.

[Ron Correia · Rating 1 out of 5]

I TOO had a hard time finishing this book. I’d have to say, the primary reason being the writers “style”. What started out as a loving memoir of growing up, and rooting for the beloved Dodgers, just seemed to be a hunkered down mess of too many annoying factors… the authors too detailed family life, family histories, and onto the team, with too much repeated detail! I tried, and I tried to stay with this book and give it a chance! Those 40 page redundant chapters just did me in! The most entertaining thing I’ve found about this book was it’s enchanting front cover art!
As other readers have said previously…IF this subject matter interests you, read “The Boys of Summer”, Doris Kerns Godwin’s “Wait Til Next Year”, Jackie Robinson’s autobiography “I Never Had it Made”, or the great history of the Dodgers franchise “Forever Blue”!
I just hate it when I give up on a book, after devoting 100 pages read of it! Perhaps you’ll do better than me!

[Brett Van Gaasbeek · Rating 3 out of 5]

I struggled with this book. I am a big baseball fan, especially the New York teams of the 1950s (The Giants, Dodgers, and Yankees). Yet, this book jumped from topic to topic so often and repeated information, especially the author's family history, that I had a hard time staying interested in the overall narrative the author presented. There were interesting tidbits about life in 1950s Brooklyn and the background of the Dodgers leading up to Jackie Robinson in 1947 and the big event discussed in the book, the 1955 World Series. But, the book meandered its way through the game, the athletes then and now, and the backdrop of Americana present in 1955 NYC that it became difficult to stay involved in the reading. This book provides quite a few baseball stories and Dodger lore that would keep a baseball fan at least intrigued, but the casual reader might find this challenging.

[Bobby Smieszny · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book didn’t quite live up to what I was expecting. I got somewhat lost in the beginning where we dive deep into a memoir of his childhood with little mention of baseball. Over the course of the book, he builds up who the Dodgers are in terms of historical significance, but there is little new information for the well educated baseball fan to learn. Finally, we reach the World Series, and read through the 9th inning. Where this book came around for me was his conversation about watching it with his father. As I’m sure many can relate, it reminded me of watching baseball and other sports with my dad. Overall, I wouldn’t recommend this book for someone looking for a true sports book, this lean much more into the human interest category.

[Lane · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author uses the seventh game of the 1955 World Series as a focus for his story around which he wraps his family history, Dodgers history, baseball history, Brooklyn history and New York history. All sort of interesting but like my sentence too many parts that are overly explained. This is one of the most covered periods of baseball history in books and movies. This book adds to the number but there are better books available about the Dodgers and the 1955 WS.

[Will Albers · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was of interest to me as a Dodger fan who was born about 10 days before they won this championship. This is really more of a childhood memoir than a retelling of the Dodger 1955 championship. The author kind of wanders back and forth through early Dodger history so it was confusing at times. Probably of interest only to hardcore Dodger fans like myself. I found it entertaining enough but not anywhere near the best baseball book I've ever read.

[Len Roberto · Rating 5 out of 5]

a wonderful baseball book - and a great picture of what it meant to be a long suffering Brooklyn Dodger fan...

[Marty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good memoir of the Brooklyn Dodgers from the autbor's childhood.

[Catherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I laughed, I cried, I'm a dodgers stan now

[Lancelot Link · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've never seen the verb "was" used in a book so much. And, I've never seen a book that took such a lengthy detour 140 pages into the novel. Skip this. Read Boys of Summer.

[David Kruh · Rating 5 out of 5]

You don't have to be a baseball fan (but it helps) to enjoy this look at the 1955 baseball season. At times touching memoir of growing up and being a fan.

[Matt Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

where did the brooklyn dodgers go??

[Dick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Praying for Gil Hodges: A Memoir of the 1955 World Series and One Family's Love of the Brooklyn Dodgers

by Thomas Oliphant

It is rare that I give a book a 5 star. But having been a Brooklyn Dodger fan and especially a Jackie Robinson fan, this book merits a 5 star rating.

I should have known that it would be good when the review by Doris Kearns Goodwin was so good.

This book is about the 1955 World Series, which the Dodgers – finally – won, after years of frustrating coming oh so close, then faltering and losing.
The book spends a good deal of time introducing the many players and their backgrounds. Lots of interesting facts emerge in the book. i.e. that Babe Ruth pitched a World Series game and went 14 innings, winning 2-1.
T he book is based and built on game 7 of the 1955 World Series. It is very detailed and in fact deals with the minutiae with regard to how to pitch certain batters and how the pitcher’s pitching was doing on a given day. For those who say that baseball is boring . . . you do not understand how much is going on and how each play or hit can alter the strategy at a given moment or inning. The author describes every out in detail in the last 3 innings of the 7th game. I loved it. THIS, my friend is baseball.

Oliphant clearly explains how the Brooklyn Dodgers were in fact a national team and far more than the current west coast team. The roots for this team were deep and wide in the New York area and especially so in Brooklyn. Generations later have not forgiven them for leaving for California. It was a nasty walk out at midnight divorce of the worst kind. Oh he does acknowledge the economics of the situation, but broken hearts abounded and remain broken. Including mine.

He writes this book from the standpoint of his family and their love of the Dodgers, the man times they were so bitterly disappointed. They are real people who hurt, really. He and his father listened to the game on the radio without hardly a word spoken for all 9 innings The sheer joy at winning was matched by mine as I read the game. I had goose bumps as the last out was made and they WON the 1955 World Series. The author was nine at the time and I was older at 17 and living in Glenview, Illinois. There was one huge play in hat game turned in by Sandy Amoros. Here is a link to that play: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xcw7T...

In my view this book is a brilliant piece of work that captures the pure essence of what was the national pastime. How “wait until next year” is something that we have all experienced and probably will again. While all the players were not angels, this was long before the drugs and enhancement junk that created new records. Those records – some of them to me – are not real. Simply put, some of the more modern day players just plain cheated and in doing so, cheated the game and the fans. We had those old fashioned values in those days that came to us from our parents – The Greatest Generation. I cannot end this review without my admiration for Jackie Robinson – his character, skills and courage on and off the field. I have strong feelings for Roy Campanella, too.

And yes, I have visited The National Baseball Hall of Fame and spent time at the Dodger exhibit . . . the REAL Dodger part. I have a replica 1955 Brooklyn Dodger jersey and cap, and wear it with pride.

It is a wonderful book and I hated to see it end. It was one of those books that as it got closer to the end, my reading slowed down to almost slo-motion so it would not end.

Respectfully submitted,

Dick Freeman www.lincolntogo.net

[Roger · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a book that made me think quite a bit. Being a native of Brooklyn and a Dodgers fan since as long as I can remember, I had lots of reactions to this book.

Let's start with the negative reactions to begin with. The author is 5 years older than I am, so he was a little more aware of things that I was. I didn't see a game at Ebbets Field until 1956, a year after this Game 7. (And the author also ignores the '56 World Series, where the old Yankee dominance reasserted itself, in another excruciating Game 7).

I wasn't very happy with the politics that the author drags into the story. He excuses the Democrat support for segregation by saying it was the "Dixiecrats" that blocked integration, but fails to note that ALL Democrats voted against integration until JFK took up the mantle in the early '60s. Republicans uniformly supported integration during those years but were blocked by Democrats. Just a historical inaccuracy in the book he uses to back up his liberal/progressive agenda.

And I was also a bit taken aback that the author didn't live in Brooklyn, but in Manhattan, attending an exclusive school. He notes that Brooklyn was a very unique place to live in those days, but didn't actually experience it.

Nonetheless, his descriptions of the game itself were awesome. He notes that no actual video of the game survives, only bits and pieces of the good plays. So his reconstruction of the events were meaningful.

And he also gives short shrift to the Dodgers moving to LA. A couple of pages, backing up the O'Malley agenda (he admits to HATING Robert Moses, who wanted the Dodgers to move to the future site of Shea Stadium).

But it brought back some great memories of my childhood in Brooklyn. I remained a Dodgers fan after they left because I was too young to realize that a "move" actually meant. But the author moves to California a few years later and doesn't update us on whether he remained a Dodgers fan. Curious.

[Mary · Rating 2 out of 5]

Enough, I am stopping reading, not enjoying this. The subject was much better covered by Doris Kearns Goodwin twenty years ago, and I do recommend her book. This was an attempt at a paean to Brooklyn, but it drags, brings in every reference to Brooklyn ever made, and Oliphant is too fond of dropping names. (Yes, maybe you went to the same school as Sigourney Weaver, but in that she is three years younger than you it is highly doubtful that you had much contact with her at the time.)

In addition to Kearns's Wait Til Next Year, I suggest that readers who like baseball books read Veeck as in Wreck; Ball Four; The Soul of Baseball; and The Universal Baseball Association, J. Harry Waugh Proprietor. Don't bother with this.

[Kurt · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lifelong Dodger fan, I certainly enjoyed the detailed recreation of the Dodger's only title in Brooklyn but that is only the surface of Oliphant's look at his childhood. The continually thwarted aspirations of the Dodgers mirrored his loving parent's struggles with financial and health problems while steeping their only child in the unique art and culture of a condensed and thriving Brooklyn post WW II. The Dodger's victory acts as a kind of familial crescendo of bonding, love and the understanding that some moments crystalize perfectly who we are, what we want and just what we need to hold onto.