The end of the Dodgers' long run and the beginning of the Orioles'. The stunning part was how dominant the Orioles were and how finished the Dodgers looked, much in the way the 1963 series made the Yankees look like a spent force when the Dodgers swept them. The book is a bit ham-handed here and there, but all in all worth a read for baseball fans. ( )

A good baseball history about the 1966 baseball season and the surprising World Series between the Baltimore Orioles and the Los Angeles Dodgers. Adelman does a good job of setting the cultural context of the 1966 baseball season, without going overboard or being too heavy handed. Those factors include the beginning of the counter-culture, the heating up of the anti-Vietnam War movement and, most importantly for the book, the fact that Baltimore was still a fully segregated city (but with a truly progressive mayor doing his best to change conditions).

There is a fair bit toward the beginning that will be old news for devoted baseball fans, such as the history of the Dodgers' move to LA, but I can of course understand Adelman's need to review such events before proceeding. Adelman does a nice job of moving the focus around and giving profiles of several of the most important/interesting players on both teams. He also avoids the worst pitfall of baseball books that chronicle a single season, which is to rely too heavily (and lazily) on simply giving a blow by blow account of game results instead of providing insights about events.

I learned a good bit about Frank Robinson, about Sandy Koufax (because while I have Jane Leavy's bio of Koufax on my baseball shelf, I haven't read it, yet) and in particular about how the stress of the close NL pennant race really ground the Dodgers down that year (the Orioles had things locked up early and were fresher in October). There's quite a bit more, as well, but I don't want to ruin the fun of reading this book. The account of the World Series itself is excellent. ( )

Ron Kaplan's review on Black and Blue appears in the next issue of Nine. ( )