Tumultuous Times in America's Game

From Jackie Robinson's Breakthrough to the War over Free Agency

Bryan Soderholm-Difatte

In Tumultuous Times in America’s Game: From Jackie Robinson's Breakthrough to the War over Free Agency, Bryan Soderholm-Difatte provides a comprehensive examination of major developments and key figures in Major League Baseball from the integration of Jackie Robinson in 1947 to the owners-instigated catastrophic players’ strike of 1994-95. While many fans will recall those decades with fond remembrances of the baseball stars who played then—from Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle, and Willie Mays to Roberto Clemente, Pete Rose, Reggie Jackson, and Cal Ripken—they were also a time of substantial challenges that upended more than half a century of tradition that was the backbone of the major leagues.

Tumultuous Times in America’s Game includes histories of each of the major league franchises, presented alongside Soderholm-Difatte’s detailed examination of the controversies, developments, and innovations from these significant decades in professional baseball. Recaps of several of baseball’s most exciting pennant races round out the narrative, making this book a valuable read for fans and historians of the national pastime.

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 512 • Trim: 6⅜ x 9⅜

978-1-5381-2735-3 • Hardback • June 2019 • $42.00 • (£32.00)

978-1-5381-2736-0 • eBook • June 2019 • $39.50 • (£30.00)

Subjects: Sports & Recreation / Baseball / History, History / United States / 20th Century, Sports & Recreation / History

Tumultuous Times in America's Game

From Jackie Robinson's Breakthrough to the War over Free Agency

Hardback

eBook

Summary

In Tumultuous Times in America’s Game: From Jackie Robinson's Breakthrough to the War over Free Agency, Bryan Soderholm-Difatte provides a comprehensive examination of major developments and key figures in Major League Baseball from the integration of Jackie Robinson in 1947 to the owners-instigated catastrophic players’ strike of 1994-95. While many fans will recall those decades with fond remembrances of the baseball stars who played then—from Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle, and Willie Mays to Roberto Clemente, Pete Rose, Reggie Jackson, and Cal Ripken—they were also a time of substantial challenges that upended more than half a century of tradition that was the backbone of the major leagues.

Tumultuous Times in America’s Game includes histories of each of the major league franchises, presented alongside Soderholm-Difatte’s detailed examination of the controversies, developments, and innovations from these significant decades in professional baseball. Recaps of several of baseball’s most exciting pennant races round out the narrative, making this book a valuable read for fans and historians of the national pastime.

Details

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 512 • Trim: 6⅜ x 9⅜

978-1-5381-2735-3 • Hardback • June 2019 • $42.00 • (£32.00)

978-1-5381-2736-0 • eBook • June 2019 • $39.50 • (£30.00)

Subjects: Sports & Recreation / Baseball / History, History / United States / 20th Century, Sports & Recreation / History

Author

Bryan Soderholm-Difatte is a former senior analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Counterterrorism Center. He is a member of the Society for American Baseball Research and a regular contributor to The Baseball Research Journal. He is the author of The Golden Era of Major League Baseball: A Time of Transition and Integration (2015) and America’s Game: A History of Major League Baseball through World War II (2017), both published by Rowman & Littlefield.

Table of Contents

Preface
PART I: BASEBALL’S INTEGRATION AND EXPANSIONIST IMPERATIVE
1: Baseball’s Postwar Landscape: The “Race Question” and “Player Relationships”
2: The Yankees’ Dynastic Momentum Returns
3: Brooklyn’s Glorious Decade of Baseball
4: Relocation (Braves), Relocation (Browns), Relocation (Athletics)
5: Integration’s Incremental Progress
6: Baseball’s Manifest Destiny: The Road to Expansion
7: The First Latin Wave
PART II: THE LAST OF THE OLD-FASHIONED PENNANT RACES
8: West Coast Rivalry
9: The Perils of Genius: Explaining the ’64 Phillies’ Epic Collapse
10: The (Temporary) End of the Yankees’ Forever Dynasty
11: Waiting in the Wings When the Yanks Went Down
12: Baseball’s Last Great Pennant Race and the Impossible Dream Team
13: Expansion Decade
14: Let’s Go, Mets: Durocher on the Other Side of a Miracle
PART III: SHIFTING BALANCES IN THE GAME AND THE BUSINESS OF BASEBALL
15: Race, War, Cultural Upheaval, and Baseball in America
16: From Pitchers Rule to the DH Rule
17: O’s and A’s and Their Winning Ways
18: The Rise of the Big Red Machine and the Return of Dodger Blue
19: Sparky’s Hook: Anticipating the Quality Start
20: Marvin Miller Time: Not the (Presumed) End of Baseball History
21: A New Boss Reboots the Yankee Dynasty
22: Pennsylvania Has Its Say in the NL East
PART IV: BASEBALL’S (ALMOST) “ALL IN IT TO WIN IT” DECADE
23: 1980s AL East: Taking Advantage of Yankees Dysfunction
24: Squandered Greatness: The Rise and Demise of a Mets Dynasty
25: Red Sox, Cubs, and the Weight of History
26: How the ’80s AL West Was Won
27: Musical Chairs in the NL West
28: Failure to Launch: Where Winning Was a Losing Proposition
PART V: BASEBALL AT THE BRINK
29: The Pete Rose Affair, the A’s ’Roid Age, and the Integrity of the Game
30: Redefining the End Game: Paradigm Shifts in the Role of Relief Ace
31: The Consolidation of Integration and the Importance of Cito Gaston
32: Baseball’s Great Divide
33: From Collusion to Bud Selig’s Coup (and the Eve of Destruction)
34: The Day the Music Stopped
Bibliography
Index
About the Author

Reviews

A highly interesting chronicle of Major League Baseball, from the time of Jackie Robinson’s entry as the first African American player in 1947 to the rise of free agency and the players’ strike of 1994–95. . . The brisk pace of Soderholm-Difatte’s narrative will surely capture the attention and imagination of fans who lived through this era, as well as informing those who want to recognize the issues that made the times “tumultuous”! Highly Recommended.

— Choice

The maturity of Major League Baseball fell between Jackie Robinson and Marvin Miller. It wasn't always smooth, and Bryan Soderholm-Difatte sorts it all out in this engaging journey through the detours and triumphs.
— Marty Appel, author of Pinstripe Empire, Munson, and Casey Stengel

Bryan Soderholm-Difatte has achieved the nearly impossible: boiling down a half-century of dramatic baseball history into one highly readable, wonderfully informative book.
— Rob Neyer, author of Power Ball: Anatomy of a Modern Baseball Game

Bryan Soderholm-Difatte did his homework. Chronicling half a century of baseball’s troubles and triumphs, Tumultuous Times in America’s Game is a comprehensive, issue-centric reflection that leaves you better informed about the game. The author is equally at ease reporting on pennant races or signs of the times, from closing to collusion to relocation, but is at his best guiding the reader through the complexities of the national pastime’s integration period.
— Lonnie Wheeler, author of Intangiball: The Subtle Things That Win Baseball Games