Summer of '49 [Paperback]

David Halberstam (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 9, 2006

With incredible skill, passion, and insight, Pulitzer Prize–winning author David Halberstam returns us to a glorious time when the dreams of a now almost forgotten America rested on the crack of a bat.

The year was 1949, and a war-weary nation turned from the battlefields to the ball fields in search of new heroes. It was a summer that marked the beginning of a sports rivalry unequaled in the annals of athletic competition. The awesome New York Yankees and the indomitable Boston Red Sox were fighting for supremacy of baseball's American League, and an aging Joe DiMaggio and a brash, headstrong hitting phenomenon named Ted Williams led their respective teams in a classic pennant duel of almost mythic proportions—one that would be decided in an explosive head-to-head confrontation on the last day of the season.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

With the airwaves saturated with so much sporting choice, it's hard to imagine how, not that long ago, baseball so completely dominated the landscape and captured imaginations. Given the 1949 season that veteran journalist David Halberstam meticulously recreates, maybe it's not so hard after all. It was a season of great public and personal drama for the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees, with the conflict finally resolving itself in a Yankee pennant following a head-to-head showdown on the final day of the season. Each team was led by a star of the highest magnitude: Joe DiMaggio spurred the Yankees despite missing half the season with a foot injury; Ted Williams virtually carried the Sox on his back, missing an unprecedented third Triple Crown by mere decimal points on his batting average. Halberstam focuses much of his narrative on the trials of these two individual sporting giants, adding fine supporting performances by Yogi Berra, Ellis Kinder, Dom DiMaggio, even restaurateur Toots Shoor. Both on and off the field, Halberstam beautifully captures the ethos of a more innocent game that no longer exists, played by heroes far more driven by their pride than by their salaries. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

This book is ostensibly about the pennant race between the Yankees and Red Sox that year and the "rivalry" between Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams. But, as he did in Breaks of the Game (LJ 11/15/81) and The Amateurs (LJ 7/85), Halberstam focuses on a season and studies an era. Baseball came of age in the summer of 1949. Postwar America looked to baseball for a sense of normalcy in its life; television began to have an impact on the sport; Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier. Summer of '49 is more than a collection of anecdotes. It is a study of all the elements and personalities that influenced baseball that year and beyond. Halberstam brings them together in such an enjoyable, interesting, and informative manner that a reader needn't be a baseball fan to appreciate the book.
- Martin J. Hudacs, Towanda H.S., Pa.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial Modern Classics (May 9, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060884266
• ISBN-13: 978-0060884260
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (60 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #118,339 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

David Halberstam, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, has chronicled the social, political, and athletic life of America in such bestselling books as The Fifties, The Best and the Brightest, and The Amateurs. He lives in New York.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's the perspective, July 4, 2005

By 

Fran Fried (Fresno, Ca. United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Summer of '49 (Perennial Classics) (Paperback)

David Halberstam's finest gift, among his many as a writer, is his ability to weave a wonderful, colorful, extremely important yet oft-ignored fabric called perspective out of the many-threaded and minute details he uses in his books. (An even better example is the way he swept away history book cliches and "Happy Days" gloss in "The Fifties," but that's another review for another day.)
In "Summer of '49," Halberstam not only gave us an engaging blow-by-blow of one of baseball's best pennant races, as well as some of the key minor players to accompany the all-star cast, he gave us a feel for why baseball was so important to so many people at the time. Even though the book is about two of the last Major League franchises to racially integrate (the Yankees in 1955, the Sox in '59), the crumbling of the color barrier works its way into the story nearly as deeply as the tales of the two teams' immigrants' sons (the DiMaggios, Pesky, Rizzuto). So do baseball's postwar popularity boom, the suburban flight that would soon force franchise shifts and expansion, and the dawn of the television age. The social perspective Halberstam sewed together is just as important, and colorful, as the fine drama that played out on the book's main stage.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars About the times, the people, the baseball, February 17, 2005

By 

S. A. Johnson "misterscooter" (Bay Area, California) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Summer of '49 (Perennial Classics) (Paperback)

This book doesn't just talk about baseball, but explores the psyche of the men who played and formed the game. An incredible history lesson of the times that will give a deeper understanding of just how great and how heartbreaking baseball really is.

Even if you aren't a fan of the Red Sox or Yankees or if 1949 isn't a part of your life, this is something for any student of the game. Of course, baseball is the main theme but it also ties in how much our culture is and was affected by it. And if you just want to learn more about DiMaggio or Williams, Halberstam offers great insight into the legendary players.

Even today, when it isn't the most popular sport in America, baseball still has sociological implications on society. I am definitely getting this for my dad.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A GREAT read even if you're not a baseball fan!, June 12, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Summer of '49 (Mass Market Paperback)

As an American history buff who has long admired the books of David Halberstam ("The Fifties", "The Best and the Brightest"), I would argue that the "Summer of 49" is one of Halberstam's best works to date. I was visiting a friend's house when I noticed a copy of the "Summer of 49" on his bookshelf. My friend, a passionate baseball fan, told me what the book was about. Although I'm not a huge baseball fan (growing up in North Carolina and following the Duke-Carolina rivalry gave me more of an interest in college basketball), I was enough of a fan of Halberstam that I borrowed the book. And, was I pleasantly surprised! Even if you're NOT a big baseball fan you'll still love this book if you're at all interested in American history. Instead of focusing on ERAs, bases stolen, and the other statistics that would appeal only to baseball buffs, Halberstam focuses on the human side of a great sports rivalry - the New York Yankees versus the Boston Red Sox. And in the "Summer of 49" he gives the story of one of that rivalry's greatest moments - the breathtaking, down-to-the-wire showdown between Joe DiMaggio's Yankees and Ted Williams's Red Sox. As always, Halberstam evokes a sense of nostalgia for the past that's almost overwhelming - reading about DiMaggio's health problems, or Williams's running battles with the vicious, always-critical Boston newspapers, or pitcher Ellis Kinder's bitterness at Red Sox manager Joe McCarthy - you get the feeling that you're right there with them. When I finished I felt awed by DiMaggio's quiet pride in winning the American League pennant and World Series after all of his health problems in 1949, and a genuine sadness at the emotional devastation the Red Sox felt after coming so close to winning the pennant two years in a row, only to lose in such cliffhanging, heartbreaking finales. If you enjoy Halberstam's style of writing, and you enjoy reading about a golden age of American sports (even if you're not a baseball fan) then you'll LOVE this book. A great read!