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Summary: The amazing 1949 pennant race between the Red Sox and Yanks.
Review: Halberstam has an incredible knack for telling a story and integrating anecdotes into the work as well. This truly was an amazing book, Halberstam did a masterful job.
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Summary: A Nostalgic Look at America
Review: I decided to write this review tonight because Ted Williams died earlier today. It reminded me of this nostalgic and terrific book by David Halberstam that covered the day to day tug of war between the Red Sox and Yankees during the '49 season. Williams single handedly carried the Sox on his back the whole season and Dimaggio came back from an injury to lead the Yanks.
Halberstam contrasts the two personalities and how the way they lived was reflected in how they played the game. Players rode on trains in '49 and formed friendships while playing cards on the long road trips. Guys like Cal Ripkin Jr. would fit right in back then. Guys like Bonds and Belle would have found themselves walking on the tracks.
During this race we see a time that is gone. It was a time when America was baseball and baseball was America. Williams had lost part of his career to serve his country. Halberstam doesn't just paint a nostalgic picture with a broad brush but gives us the small details also. The New York Press may have loved Dimaggio and Berra's great quotes but Williams had just the opposite relationship with the Boston sportswriters. They were always questioning his ability and his attitudes.
Ted Williams was a man who LOVED baseball and revered the game. Williams had his own personal code he played by. Many Boston sportswriters were all over Williams because he WOULDN'T make a fuss over a home run. Ted refused to tip his cap coming around third after hitting one out, he felt it was "showing off" and did not belong in baseball. Wow! Where have you gone Ted Williams?
Williams had an integrity about hitting that could prompt him to talk for hours about it. He got a lot of walks in his career because he simply refused to go after a pitch that was two inches outside. The '49 race between the Sox and Yanks came down to the final two games of the season, head to head. By the time Halberstam brings us here we have had a wonderfully nostalgic look at baseball and America. It is aterrific read about a great time in our history we will never see again. Read this book and remind yourself what baseball once was.
Ted Williams will be missed both by baseball and America....
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Summary: THE best explanation of the glory years of baseball
Review: I read this a couple years back but I still remember the cast of characters and their triumphs, failures, and think about them quite often, much to my surprise. It reads more like Shakespearean tragedy than a "sports book". It leaves you wondering about the fates of all those players who were forever changed---mostly for the worst. And of course DiMaggio, the hero: you'll understand why he is considered the greatest of all time.
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Summary: best moment in baseball
Review: I think that this book is one of the best baseball books that I have ever read. I think that people who want to know about the history of the Red Sox and the Yankees should read this book. This book is about the1939 to 1949 seasons. It talks about a number of players and it explains everything that they had to go through before they got into the major leagues. The players are all from the Yankees and the Red Sox. Also, it is very interesting because it talks about how hot it was in 1948 while they were playing baseball. I think that all Yankees and Red Sox fans should read this book.
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Summary: A Look Back at when Baseball mattered
Review: I was very impressed with this book. As an avid reader of sports books I appreciated the expertise that David Halberstam has brought to this book. The book centers around the 1949 American League pennant race but it is so much more than that. It is the story of a Joe DiMaggio in the declining years of his masterful career. The portrait of Dimaggio painted by the author is a powerful one. In this book DiMaggio is depicted as a man who despite his declining physical gifts is able through sheer force of will to still dominate the game and to elevate the play of his team. The research done by the author is impeccable as he interviewed most of the players involved (with the exception of DiMaggio) and you hear their stories as well. The author is able to weave the players stories against the backdrop of the pennant race with fantastic results. From the managers Joe McCarthy and Casey Stengel down to the players this book has many characters that will bring a smile to your face and make you long for when baseball was a simpler game.
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Summary: a total baseball immersion experience
Review: I will keep this as succient as possible. Before I read the Summer of '49, I thought baseball was just a game. After reading it, I knew there was no going back. I became a hardcore baseball and Yankee fan. This book almost seems as if it is some ancient Greek myth, but that is the beauty of it: it all really happened.
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Summary: There's something missing here
Review: Prize-winning journalist David Halberstam tells the story of the 1949 American League pennant race. Or at least, he tells his story of the race, with a little help from his friends, the baseball players that he interviewed forty years later. Early on, Halberstam reveals his original perspective on the season in question -- as a pre-adolescent Yankees fan, listening to the games on his radio. He finds several other fans of the day, and gets them to recount the meaning of baseball to their young lives. This perspective is important, because this is where the myth of these giant players began. And then much later on, Halberstam, now a prominent journalist, decided to recreate the myth, but to also use his tools as a journalist to get a glimpse of the forces behind the myths. We are talking, here, about giants that strode the earth. And the giants that manipulated their salaries, and the giants that wrote about them. They are all very pale giants. Halberstam shows us the managerial politics, the salary negotiations, the long road up from the minor leagues. He shows us the families of the players, he shows us the grisly wear and tear of the long season. He shows the bars, with their newly installed televisions. Climactically, he shows us the amazing conclusion of the 1949 regular season, and its devastating impact on the Red Sox. He also inadvertently shows us what was missing. As an afterthought, one of the latter chapters details the 1949 World Series. There, the Yankees make mincemeat of the semi-integrated Brooklyn Dodgers. Oddly, though, the tale of the black Dodgers playing in Yankee Stadium is the most electrifying in the book. That energy, that tension, is clearly what's missing from everything that goes earlier. If Halberstam recognizes this, he only decides to focus it on his follow-up, OCTOBER 1964. One should also note that The Summer of '49 is a fairly gauzy interpretation. Halberstam relies heavily on his interviews, and the accuracy of this book was stridently challenged by Bill James (1991 Baseball Abstract). Ted Williams (may he freeze in peace) died while I was reading this book, which made me grateful for its in-depth portrait of him.
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Summary: One of the best baseball books ever
Review: Simply put, this is a great story. From the owners, players and mangers to the vendors and fans, this story truely takes you back in time to when baseball was a great American pastime. Nothing will compare when you finish this book
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Summary: Good look at bygone game.
Review: Some baseball seasons are more important than others- the 1941 season saw the twin feats of Joe DiMaggio's 56 game hitting streak and Ted Williams .406 batting average, the 1951 season saw the incredible comeback of the New York Giants and Robby Thomson's miracle home run, and the 1964 season saw the final decline and fall of the New York Yankees. The 1949 season is a special one for baseball as well. The New York Yankees, poised to begin their glory years, would square off with a talented Boston Red Sox team and defeat it in dramatic style thanks to the heroics of an injured Joe DiMaggio. Summer of '49 is David Halberstam's story of that astounding season. More than a simple account of the season's wins and losses, Halberstam delves deep into the background of the players and coaches. The picture that comes into focus is a fascinating look at the way baseball was played in the 1940s and 50s, when players (many of whom had grown up on small farms in the Great Depression) fought hard to win and played every day as if it were their last. While not quite as interesting as his "October 1964", Halberstam has nevertheless written a wonderfully exciting account of what baseball was like over a half century ago. This is a book that will make any baseball enthusiast smile.
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Summary: Passionate Rivalry in Baseball's Golden Age
Review: The author gives you a great insight into the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry as played out in 1949, and does a remarkable job of making you feel like you are in the stands watching these 2 terrific teams do battle. I read most of this book on the beaches of Cape Cod, and it felt like I had the game on the radio and I was transported to baseball's golden age. I particularly enjoyed the inside stuff on Joe DiMaggio (even though I'm a Red Sox fan!)
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