I requested this book from the library expecting to love it, but the first few pages were so choked with baseball nostalgia of endless days of summer, boys growing to be gods in the green cathedrals of yesteryear, the tragic ending in the bitter days of autumn, blah blah blah. I almost put it down before I got through the intro. But I'm very glad I kept at it, because it ended up being wonderful -- if not at all what I expected when I decided to read it.I thought I was going to get the story of the 50's Brooklyn Dodgers, which the book is only partly about. What I got was two books -- Kahn's memoir of growing up in Brooklyn (which itself is drenched in that special sort of Old Brooklyn nostalgia, but it has its own kitchen appeal), becoming a journalist, and his experience reporting on the team. It is very personal, and very revealing of the people and society of the time. The spirit of the book circles around Jackie Robinson, but Kahn does Robinson a great service by NOT making the book about him, and instead casting him as a talented ball player, who just happened to be strong enough and stubborn enough to shoulder the burden of the civil rights movement, but who also was just one part of an amazing baseball team. The second book is what I wasn't expecting, but was even more engaging -- Kahn tracks down all the players in the 70's and writes about what happened to them since. No one will even be able to write this book again, as if you track down A-Rod and Derek Jeter in 20 years, they'll still be living in their mansions and dating models. The ballplayers in the 50's retired to get middle-management jobs or tend bars, gaining weight and moving on as regular men who just happened to be super-stars for a few brief years in their youth. It When Kahn explicitly writes about baseball, he gets overblown and syrupy sweet, but strangely when he writes about the men who played the game -- which 90% of the book is -- he allows them and their actions to speak for themselves. He could easily have beaten "the twilight of the gods" themes to death, but wisely opts for restraint, which actually lends the boom more power.
I was a Yankee from the age of 8. Literature to me was Sparky Lyle's Bronx Zoo or Mickey Mantle's Quality of Courage. I would sit in the floor at Walden Books and read Bill James Baseball Abstract. Always nearby was this Boys of Summer about the hated Dodgers. I had no interest. In my habit of collecting books I bought a used copy a few years ago, but it never got off the shelf. Not until last week when I saw that Sports Illustrated rated it #2 on the best sports books of all time did I acquiesce. And it was not at all what I expected. It begins as a personal memoir growing up with the Dodgers in Brooklyn. Doris Kearns Goodwin would write a whole book her own experience years later. The second part is the author's experience covering the Dodger in the 1950s for a newspaper. The third part is the author's experience tracking down the retired players in the late 1960s and talking to them much like Lawrence Ritter does in The Glory of their Times.It's really the hodgepodge in construction and it shouldn't work as a complete book and yet it's compelling and satisfying when you finish. I have to credit Kahn who finds the human being inside each ballplayer and gives us more than even the player knows he is giving. Not knowing much about the Dodgers I didn't know about the rivalry between Campanella and Robinson or how Carl Furillo felt like an outsider on the team. I knew more about Gil Hodges during his time as manager of the Mets than as a ballplayer. I didn't know that the Duke was from southern California so the Dodgers move was a perfect fit for him. Kahn wrote his book before Robert Caro published his book on Robert Moses so Kahn is a little bit harsh to Walter O'Malley for moving the Dodgers west. Moses wanted the Dodgers in Queens where the Mets wound up. O'Malley wanted a better Brooklyn location close to public transportation. O'Malley had no chance against Moses. Kahn doesn't even address this in the postscript chapter from the 1990s and it's a shame. O'Malley made a good move to take the Dodgers to LA. In fact, the myth of the Brooklyn Dodgers is a much better one with the Dodgers gone.
What do You think about The Boys Of Summer (1973)?
What I disliked about this book: I would NOT agree with those that called this book "America's finest book on sports". I think the problem is... the majority of the book was about "where are they now". When the book was originally published in 1972, most of the readers were very familiar with the players. Now-a-days, the readers are not. I was interested to hear more about the ballplayers as ballplayers and more about how the season went. I've heard that the 1952 World Series was one of the greatest ever, but there just wasn't enough detail in these areas to appease me.What I liked about the book: I did learn about the fans love of the Dodgers and I understand more why the move from Brooklyn to L.A. was devastating. I also did learn more about the ballplayers, it's just not the way that I wanted to learn. Again, I wanted to learn in the context of the baseball season(s), not necessarily what happened with the players after the fact.
—Tim
This was a hard book for me to get into. The first 100 pages or more are primarily about Kahn's childhood, his relationship with his Dad and home life and the connection he made as a boy to the Brooklyn Dodgers. It really didn't hold my interest.Then the book turns to his time at the NY Herald Tribune as a sportswriter that was assigned to the Dodgers in 1952. The best part of the book for me is his beautiful writing about those years and the unforgettable teammates from those magical years, 13 very different men who together formed an unforgettable team. The thing that I love about this book is the incredible background Kahn gets into with the players about how the game was really played at that time on a professional level. Woven throughout the book is the courageous story of Jackie Robinson, Branch Rickey and the integration of the game.Kahn follows up with visits to all the players involved in the tale 20 years or so after that magical time - they all had returned to a normal life, some bitter but most thankful for the extraordinary experience of sharing the heartache and triumph of being a Dodger during the late 40's and 50's.Kahn's special tribute to Pee Wee Reese added to the end of the book for the 2006 printing of the book really hit home for me. The theme of fathers and sons; their relationships and generational conflict runs throughout the book and I think the author handles it very well.Highly recommend this book for any Dodger fan and most definitely for any Brooklyn Dodger fan. ps - The author took the title of the book from the great Welsh poet Dylan Thomas poem, "I see the Boys of Summer" the line is "I see the boys of summer in your ruin".
—Mike Carey
There were two things that kept this from being a five star book for me. One was the focus on the author in the beginning of the book – too much autobiography of a Brooklyn kid growing up and having characters as relatives and friends, and becoming a journalist (more characters involved here as well). This entire section I didn’t expect – who knew “The Boys of Summer” referred to sports writers? I think I might have enjoyed it more as a stand-alone book – life of a sports writer in and out of sports, filed with Journalism in the library. Second was the way the player’s story’s were told. The stories of the players, highlights from their prime seasons followed with their how they lived when they were tracked down after a few decades, are excellent – humorous, full of pathos. But there have been so many books written in the same way focusing on single players (“The Last Boy” or “Sandy Kofax”), or even teams (“The Teammates”) that this will get lost in my memory. So it’s not really a weakness in the book when it was written, but in how it stands up over time. A success is copied, and the copies wear away at the success. Nevertheless, an excellent book showing time marches on and heroes are forgotten, but also showing the unexpected staying power of being on a close-knit team.
—Jay
