Summer of '49 (Mass Market Paperback)

by David Halberstam (Author) "In the years immediately following World War II, professional baseball mesmerized the American people as it never had before and never would again..." (more)
Key Phrases: power pitcher, other ballplayers, backup catcher, Red Sox, New York, World Series (more...)

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.

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

• Mass Market Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Avon (April 2, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0380710757
• ISBN-13: 978-0380710751
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 3.9 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (53 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #473,612 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Goddam, But Playing Baseball Is Fun", August 5, 2007

By	prisrob "pris," (New EnglandUSA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Summer of '49 (P.S.) (Paperback)

"Old-time baseball players and fans love to denigrate the modern ballplayer. "Baseball today is not what it should be," one old-timer once wrote. "The players do not try to learn all the fine points of the game as in the days of old, but simply try to get by. They content themselves if they get a couple of hits every day or play an errorless game... It's positively a shame, and they are getting big money for it, too."
Bill Joyce, 1916 Ballplayer

'The Golden Age of Baseball' began when players returned from the war until 1958, when the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants decided to continue their rivalry in California. That time saw many of the most memorable and significant events in the game's history: in 1947, Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier; that same year, the second Yankee Dynasty began with its first of ten pennants and eight championships in a twelve-year span; in 1951, Bobby Thomson hit the "Shot Heard 'Round the World" to win the pennant for the Giants; in 1954, Willie Mays made his spectacular World Series catch; in 1956, Don Larsen pitched the only perfect game in World Series history.

For those of us who are Boston Red Sox or New York Yankee fans, one of the biggest baseball rivalries in history, 'Summer of '49' explains much of the history and romance of these two teams. David Halberstam brings to us the glories, the rivalaries, the drinking, the social and personal stories of the players on both sides. The subject is the pennant race of 1949 between the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox which wasn't decided until the last game of the season. Is there really any value to another book telling us what a legend Joe DiMaggio was, or what a great hitter Ted Williams was, or what a great team the Yankees were? Yes,indeedy.1949 was the perfect year, because it marked a turning point in the history of American sport, which is one reason why David Halberstam wrote this book. Baseball was the number one sport, but professional basketball and football were beginning to gain acceptance. Television was just beginning to make its mark. The impact of black ballplayers was only beginning to be felt.

David Halberstam brings us the day to day spotliughts of the Red Sox and Yankees for an entire year, from the end of the 1948 season through 1949. During the summer of '49, the two teams had one of the classic pennant races of all time. The Sox struggled at the beginning, while the Yankees, took a commanding early lead. But Boston chipped away at the lead until the final day of the season, when the two teams met to decide the pennant. Sound familiar? David Halberstam reveals the characters and gives us a glimpse of baseball during The Golden Age. He interviewed almost every living member of those teams and several people on the outside--fans, broadcasters, baseball executives, writers, relatives of players--over a hundred in all. The one interview he couldn't get, was from the most important member of the Yankees: Joe DiMaggio.

Each team was made up of twenty-five men, plus perhaps ten or twelve others who played a little. We are introduced to every one of them, the drinkers, womanizers, country boys, city boys, the marginal players for whom 1949 will be their only season of glory. We feel a part of the team, traveling with them between games. And at the end of the book, he tells us what has become of them.

In the conclusion, David Halberstam tells us how enjoyable it was to write this book, to interview his idols, to do research that many would consider fun. "I was the envy of my male friends who shared my enthusiasm for baseball in those years. Caught up in the more mundane tasks in journalism or Wall Street or the law, they would gladly have traded jobs with me."

"But probably the best reasons for Halberstam to choose 1949 were, first, that it was a terrific, dramatic pennant race between two hated rivals; and, second, perhaps most importantly, as he explains in the author's note, Halberstam was fifteen years old that summer and a devoted Yankee fan. The men he describes in his book were his heroes, and he lived and died with the fortunes of his favorite players." David Martinez

David Halberstam is gone now. However, his writing will live on, and those of us who loved his writing will remember him well.

What Summer of '49 does for me is to renew my love for baseball, and in particular, my love for the Boston Red Sox. Ted Williams, after reluctantly leaving the batting practice cage, once said, "Goddam, but this is fun. I could do this all day--and they pay me for it."

Highly Recommended. prisrob 8-05-07

The Best and the Brightest

Charlie Rose with Jules Witcover, David Halberstam & David Broder; Ann Druyan; Peter Balakian (July 18, 1997)

7 of 7 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.

6 of 6 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.