From the publisher: David Halberstam begins his magnificent journey through the 1949 pennant race, in which two legendary rivals, the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees, battled down to a winner-take-all final game of the season. At that time baseball, unrivaled by other sports, seemed at the very center of American life. Halberstam has given us not merely a dramatic and intimate portrait of two great baseball teams at the height of their powers, but also a revealing portrait of a remarkably different America, when the games were still played during the day and were broadcast on radio instead of television; when teams traveled by train instead of plane and St. Louis was judged a western city; when management, not players, dictated salaries; and when alcohol, not drugs, was the most bothersome addiction. It was, in the phrase of Curt Gowdy, a rookie sportscaster with the Yankees, the last moment of innocence in sports.

SUMMER '42 NEW YORK YANKEES BOSTON RED SOX AMERICAN