Customer Reviews

Strength Down the Middle - The Story of the 1959 Chicago White Sox

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I grew up in South Texas in the 50's and 60's and related to the author's personal reflections throughout the entire book. I recall the White Sox and their pennant run while admitting to being a die hard Yankee fan not unlike most boys of those times without our own team to cheer for. I played many a sandlot game with my neighborhood buddies using the same broken and mended bats and decaying baseballs. I could recall my mother calling me in for dinner from our street playing fields as I read Larry's fond memories of the mongrel dog and his brother's game-winning home run. The baseball trading episodes left me wondering where my own boyhood treasures rest today. What a respite from my day ending pressures that I bring home from the office today. The day to day account of games also brought back memories of my early introduction to major league baseball by Dizzy Dean and Pee Wee Reece. I envy the author's fond recollection of sleep time radio broadcasts of his heros exploits; my experiences were relegated to Saturday afternoon television. The author nonrtheless took me back with him to where I thought I was in the room with him on those joyful radio celebrations. This book is a wonderful recall to days of joy and fun for boys and girls lucky to grow up in good family neighborhoods with caring parents and many friends. Thank you Mr. Kalas; I will read the book again soon to take me back again to a time lost for a middle-aged man with deep rooted baseball dreams.

Author Kalas has provided the reader with pretty much a game by game summary of the 1959 Chicago White Sox season. I went through the book in two sittings. The book contains too much game summaries with no real in depth information. Occasionally, he provides some nostalgic information from that period of time. I was in high school when the Pale Hose won their first flag in forty years so I am well aware of this time period and the players that were on each team's roster. The author concludes the book with a biographical summary of each player and mentions if they are now deceased. I guess I expected more. If you want to read a book on the 1959 White Sox I would suggest "'59: Summer of the Sox."

Summer 2004 Reading List - Mini Review

I really enjoyed this book for many of the same reasons other reviewers were disappointed with it. I really like Larry Kalas's perspective on the 1959 series. Not having been born soon enough to experience the the ecstasy of a city in celebration of an AL Pennant, I feel like I lived that experience vicariously through this fine narrative.

An enjoyable feature of Strength Down the Middle is the way the story segued from the exploits on the field to the showmanship of Bill Veeck to the childhood of the author to the major headlines of the season in the world of sports and beyond. Reading it in many ways, evokes the feelings of opening a time capsule 45 years after the 1959 season unfolded.

I do not feel that this book is particularly well titled. This volume is a very personal history and should wear a title that communicates the nature of the narrative. I believe the tweaking of the subtitle could achieve this. Remembrances of the 1959 Chicago White Sox would have better suited the material contained within.

The 1959 Chicago White Sox were an godsend for a young Yankee hater in the '50's. Larry Kalas, a local fan at the time, takes you back to through a day-by-day accounting of the season recalling all the runs, hits and errors of his beloved Go, Go, Chisox. With roster changes and pitching performances his research of games provides the reader with throw back memories of the time. Names like Bill Tuttle, Rocky Colavito, Don Buddin and Jackie Jensen will jog your brain and take you back to a better time for the world, yourself and baseball. The book drags at times as he never alters from his game-to-game format. A little more local flavor of the stadium crowd and neighorhood following could have been substituted for his school stories. All-in-all it is a book I've been hoping to find for years since the Sox were a boyhood favorite that year. Nostalgia of Nellie Fox, Jim Landis and little Looey Aparicio is well worth the journey back with this book.

I was expecting quite a bit more from this book. Essentially every game that the White Sox played in 1959 is summarized in a paragraph or two with both highlights and lowlights. What's lacking is current interviews by the author with the men who played the game. The few quotes mentioned are easily obtainable from other printed sources.

Another thing that I found somewhat annoying was the author's nostalgic trips into his own childhood. If I was interested in his little league activities and visits to Comiskey Park with his dad I wouldn't be looking for a book titled "The Story of the 1959 White Sox". Enjoyed the extensive stats in the back of the book and the game chronologies but was left wondering, "Is that all there is?".

Southside Chicago native Larry Kalas was a fourth grader in 1959 when his beloved White Sox put together all the pieces for a magical season and made it to the World Series for the first time since the 1919 Black Sox scandal. "Strength Down the Middle" (SDM) is Kalas's recounting of the 1959 season, published 40 years later. Although Kalas does intersperse some personal stories and items of popular culture and general news from that time period, much of the book is a game-by-game recitation of facts and figures. As a fan and not a player or team outsider, Kalas doesn't have access to many inside stories of what went on in the player's minds either during or between the games. Thus, while SDM does provide the facts and figures for what happened on the field, it falls short of providing the full story of the 1959 White Sox season.

As a current day White Sox fan, there are several aspects of the book that I found interesting. Kalas does provide some context around the White Sox and what they meant to the south side of Chicago in that era, especially to young boys playing sandlot baseball. There are notable parallels between the 1959 White Sox and the next White Sox team to make it to the World Series, the 2005 team: both teams had excellent defense and pitching, with several pitchers having career years; while both teams had excellent won/loss records, many of their wins came in tight games in which they had to grind out victories; both teams played very well on the road; and while the composition of both teams was in flux before, during and after the season, for that one special season, everything gelled on the field and the result was magic. It is interesting to see the differences in how pitchers are used in 1959 versus today, with the strong specialization (starter, middle reliever, 8th inning set-up man, closer) that has become standard. And although fans today may think of the pre-free-agent days as a time of much greater stability in team composition, there were far more roster moves and trades in that era than I was expecting, especially considering that there were only 7 other teams in the American League in 1959.

Although Kalas did talk to several players and members of the 1959 White Sox organization, one can infer that his primary source of material was newspaper clippings about the games. So, Kalas saves the fan interested in the 1959 season from having to read 160 newspaper stories and box scores. The black-and-white photos in the middle of the book are excellent. One addition to the book that would make it more special is for it to include the CD contained in Lew Freedman and Billy Peirce's book "Then Ozzie Said To Harold", which contains the 1959 radio broadcast of the first World Series game versus the Dodgers.

Bottom line: "Strength Down the Middle" is worth reading for White Sox fans interested in the 1959 season, but it doesn't tell the whole story.

This book provides a day-by-day chronology of the 1959 Chicago White Sox - that team's first pennant winner in 40 years. Author Larry Kalas provides a summary of every Sox game that year, when the Sox took the pennant by five games over Cleveland (New York was 15 back). Chicago's solid pitching (Early Wynn, Bob Shaw, Billy Pierce) and stellar glove work (Luis Aparicio, Jim Landis, Nellie Fox, Sherm Lollar, Jim Rivera) overcame a weak-hitting lineup that clubbed just 97 home runs - fewest in baseball that year. True, Chicago lost the 1959 World Series to LA, but it was the most fun their fans had in 40 years. And Chicago fans then waited another 46 years for the next pennant, when the 2005 White Sox finally won it all. No wonder this working class team from the City's less glamorous South Side has never been considered trendy or media favorites.

Unfortunately, Kalas provides too little in the way of analysis and player portraits. He should have interviewed key figures, including manager Al Lopez (1908-2005) who was still around when this book came out in 1999. Despite these flaws, fans that remember 1959 should enjoy memories from this book.

This was a joy to read. My father had told me stories about the '59 White Sox and Mr. Kalas did a wonderful job of recreating the season. It helped me feel a little more connected with my dad. I especially like the bits of personal information he gave. I live close to where he grew up so I am familiar with the scenery he descibes. A great book for baseball lovers no matter what team you root for.

Here we find a deadly dull, rote day by day of the 1959 GO GO Sox exciting run to the World Series. Little serious reflection or research appears to have been put into this amateur effort.