The book that I was reading when Leonard died.... ( )

The summer of 1949: It was baseball's Golden Age and the year Joe DiMaggio's New York Yankees were locked in a soon-to-be classic battle with Ted Williams's Boston Red Sox for the American League pennant.

If you're a big baseball fan, especially from the northeast part of the United States, then you will probably love this book. There are lots of stories about baseball characters and some baseball history. However, this is very much a big collection of anecdotes centered around the author's childhood focus on the rivalry between the New York Yankees, especially Joe DiMaggio, and the Boston Red Sox, especially Ted Williams. Roughly a half-dozen other players from each of those teams is given somewhat less emphasis with other players and other teams barely mentioned at all. This extends all the way to the World Series with the Brooklyn Dodgers where only one player for that team gets much of any attention and it isn't Jackie Robinson. The best parts of the book are really the analysis of how major league baseball was managed back then, and the realization of how much it has changed to the huge business it is today. Other than that, imagine you're sitting around with similarly-minded baseball fans with nothing particularly meaningful to accomplish except be nostalgic for those good old days we keep hearing about. ( )

Narrative of the Red Sox/Yankee season of 1949 ( )

Two Halberstams in my top 10 baseball book list. This is a fantastic account of the 49 season, written by a true journalist, not a sportswriter. ( )

A grand slam ( )

What I most appreciated about this Halberstam baseball book was his sense of the ends and beginnings of different eras in the evolution of the game: racial integration, the dawn of televised games, the last seasons of Joe DiMaggio's career and the beginning of the years of Yankee dominance through the 1950s. A great read! ( )

4983. Summer of '49, by David Halberstam (read 15 Dec 2012) This book was published in 1989 and is a history of the 1949 American League pennant race, won on the last day of the season by the Yankees. There is much discussion of the Yankee and Red Sox players of that year, particularly of Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams. Much of the book was derived from interviews with the players 40 years later, but they seemed to remember well what happened. Since I am not an American League fan and since I have always hated the Yankees the book could have been better but there is a lot of interesting stuff in the book, and it provides quite a good insight into the thinking and behavior of players in 1949, when they made a lot less money than players do today. ( )

A bit on the soft and sentimental side, for sure, but really a pretty good look into an exciting and iconic pennant race in 1949. ( )

Read this when it originally came out in the mid-80's. It was well worth revisiting for Halberstam's terrific writing and portrait of DiMaggio, as well as a reminder of why free agency exists. Ball players were essentially indentured servants, all but a handful having to return to 'real world jobs' during the off season just to get by. Also worth it for the history lesson on the ongoing Yankees-Red Sox rivalry.

David Halberstam is one of the best baseball writers, bringing luminosity and color to the players and games of the past. This is one of his classics, mainly about the 1949 pennant race between the Yankees and the Red Sox, although there is a short bit about the prior season, and the 1949 World Series. Includes several photographs and an epilogue telling how the players and other characters spent the rest of their lives after baseball. ( )

Halberstam gives a great slice of America in the late 1940's, through the Red Sox / Yankees rivalry. Even if you aren't a fan of either team (I'm not), the story of the players, managers, writers, and society at large is fascinating. ( )

Even you aren't a baseball fan (sigh I am not) this is good...the season down to two games in New York ... but you knew the Red Sox had to lose ( )

Not only an intimate sports story but a history of blue collar life in 1949 Brooklyn ( )

A real baseball fan's delight. Has all the ingredients from one of baseball's golden eras - bigger than life players, writers, owners, broadcasters, and even middle management. These guys played for a living, and the games really mattered to them. Especially the Yankees, for whom a World Series winner's share was figured into their contracts (which were very meager by today's standards, to begin with). I found interesting the role of the broadcasters (esp. Mel Allen) in developing the mythology of the players and the games themselves. Having listened to a lot of games on radio myself (not of that era, but before cable TV was in most homes), I can relate to how imagination had such an impact on people's perceptions of the players and the teams. ( )

"Summer of `49" focuses on the rivalry between the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees as they fought for first place during the Summer of 1949. This was before the days of the wild card and first place meant a trip to the playoffs while second place meant a trip home. The two teams fought for first place all season long and (perhaps fittingly) it all came down to the last game of the season.

"Summer of `49" is an excellent book about baseball, the men that played it, the men who ran it, the men who called the games on the radio, and the fans who loved the game. Author David Halberstam focuses mostly on the players (rightfully so) and does an evenhanded job of portraying players on both teams. Halberstam provides a fascinating glimpse at players such as Ted Williams, Bobby Doerr, and Ellis Kinder of the Red Sox and Yogi Berra, Phil Rizzuto, and Vic Raschi of the Yankees. Equally interesting to read was the relationship between brothers Joe and Dom DiMaggio (Joe played for the Yankees while Dom played for the Red Sox). Also featured in the book are the managers of the Yankees and Red Sox - Casey Stengel and Joe McCarthy. Another person I found fascinating to read about and wish I had been able to hear announce games was Mel Allen.

Halberstam also provides an interesting insight into what the game of baseball was like during the 1940's. It was an age when starting pitchers pitched entire games whenever possible and relief pitchers were not specialists; a time before the designated hitter; and a time before the wild card. I was not alive then, but as a once long-suffering Red Sox fan (2004 changed all that), I could picture how frustrating that year must have been for Boston fans. Halberstam does a good job of describing game action and I could feel the anguish of the Red Sox players and fans after that final game.

Published in 1989, "Summer of '49" is a bit dated at the end (both Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams are still alive at the end of the book and Williams is developing a relationship with and yet to be manipulated by his son John Henry), but it is excellently done and I highly recommend it. ( )

This is the book that cemented my love for the Red Sox and my anti- love for the Yankees, even though the Yankees finished 20 games behind the Red Sox the year that I read this. (1990).

This is the best baseball book I have ever read. It is a quick, easy read. I delves into the history and society of the time, as much as the game. ( )

Makes me think back to a time when baseball meant something - before the dollar signs and drugs came into play - when it was real and not corrupted and corporate. ( )

Fiction