Michael Shapiro (2)

I'm old enough that I remember vaguely the central facts of this book: the decline of the Yankees through the 1960s and the campaign to create a third major baseball league. Shapiro tells the story well, and evoked for me some strong memories: sitting in the bleachers at Yankee Stadium cheering in Maris and Mantle in1961, going to the Polo Grounds for the last time to see the new Mets play there, and going to Shea Stadium for the first time. The book will enlighten younger folks about a now mythial era of baseball.… (plus d'informations)

Summary: The story of how two legendary figures, Branch Rickey and Casey Stengel, attempted but failed in schemes to transform the game of baseball.

When I first picked up this book, my attention was arrested by the front cover photograph. It shows a group of fans on a high vantage point overlooking a baseball park. I studied it more closely and wondered if the ballpark was Forbes Field, where I'd caught a game as a kid. It was indeed! It turns out that this was a famous photograph taken by George Silk from the top of the Tower of Learning at the University of Pittsburgh at the moment Bill Mazeroski's bottom of the ninth home run won the 1960 World Series for Pittsburgh, defeating Casey Stengel's Yankees, and ultimately Stengel himself who was "resigned" by the Yankee owners. This ended Stengel's tenure as the "managerial genius" of a string of pennant and World Champion Yankee teams.
This was also a moment of defeat and vindication for Branch Rickey, who weeks earlier saw his dream of a third major league, the Continental League, die. He envisioned a league of young, talented players, not yet as polished as the other two leagues, but on parity with each other, and in time with the rest of the majors. Eight cities would get teams, some, like Bob Howsam's Denver, for the first time, and some like Bill Shea's New York gaining a new team for those it had lost. Oddly, Pittsburgh's victory vindicated at least part of Rickey's vision, because he had helped assemble the core of the championship team, including Hall-of-Famer Roberto Clemente.

Michael Shapiro weaves together the narratives of these two men over the three years preceding October 1960. I will grant that both are interesting subjects, but I could not see how Stengel was trying to transform baseball, other than to leave his mark as a shrewd manager. It felt to me that Shapiro needed Stengel to inject a baseball element into a book concerned with Rickey's attempts to recruit prospective owners and through suasion and legal maneuvering to win over existing league owners to the idea. Much of this involved negotiations, personal meetings, and public relations, not the most interesting material narratively.

Still, both stories demonstrate the power of owners zealous to protect their own financial interests, even when this was not in the best interests of the game. Del Webb and Dan Topping, as Yankee owners figure large in both stories. Walter O'Malley, who took the Dodgers from Brooklyn to L.A., denied Webb the opportunity to build Chavez Ravine, and was concerned to protect and expand his own TV earnings, exemplified the spirit of the owners. Ultimately, they block the new league by luring Bill Shea, who was seeking a team for New York (after whom Shea Stadium was named) and three other prospective owners with the lure of expansion franchises, which generally spent the rest of the sixties at the bottom of the standings.

Shapiro cites the experience of the American Football League as an example of what could have happened if Rickey's dream had been allowed to come to fruition. The league teams developed rapidly, played with competitive parity, and eventually merged with the NFL, injecting new life into pro-football, which surpassed baseball in viewership during this period.

Shapiro's book makes an interesting read, especially as he recounts the 1960 World Series, Stengel's fateful pitching choices, his choice to pull Clete Boyer early in the Series and the fateful seventh game. Likewise, Rickey's vision to transform baseball and the missed opportunity is fascinating to ponder. However, Shapiro's interweaving of Rickey and Stengel only makes sense as an attempt to spice up Rickey's story with some baseball, and one of baseball's most colorful managers, not as a story of two men trying to "save baseball from itself" as the subtitle asserts.… (plus d'informations)

I recently read Amazin', a history of the New York Mets and that got me interested in the whole Continental League saga that played out from 1958-60. Well, this is the book to read if you're interested in the Continental League. I found the whole period from 1957 when the Dodgers and Giants left New York until 1961-62 when Major League Baseball expanded by four teams (new Washington Senators after the original team moved and became the Minnesota Twins, LA Angels, New York Mets, Houston Astros) very intriguing.

I've always believed that the Continental League was just a ruse created by Branch Rickey and the baseball interests in New York and Houston to force MLB to expand into their cities. After reading this book, I'm not so sure. I think at heart Mr.Rickey truly wanted to create a new major league just as his hero Ban Johnson had done sixty years earlier.

What I find most interesting is that of the eight cities that were originally involved with the Continental League, Major League Baseball eventually expanded/moved to seven of them (New York, Houston, Minneapolis, Dallas, Denver, Toronto, Atlanta). Only Buffalo has been left out.

What I'd like to find now is a book about the 1961 AL expansion, specifically about the LA Angels. They sure were a late comer to expansion discussions and how they pulled off fielding a team in such a short time must make an interesting story.… (plus d'informations)

The kind of book that leaves you wanting more--more info on that 1956 season, more about this team, more about the civic leaders who neglected & wooed the Dodgers, more about the fans and the neighborhoods they came from. Shapiro does a good job here--keeping the narrative short enough to be an easy read, but complete enough to sell this as a story to be concerned about from a number of different perspectives. Deserving of a less-structured, fact- & anecdote-filled follow-up. Shapiro obviously has the material to do so.… (plus d'informations)