The Era, 1947-1957: When The Yankees, The Giants, And The Dodgers Ruled The World (2002) - Plot & Excerpts
Sports writing as God intended it: punchy, lyrical, observant, knowledgeable, and smart. At some point Kahn takes issue with the concept of progress, granting that many things (color TVs, weapons, sneakers, tennis rackets, word processors) are indisputably better today than in the past but other things are not. He lists “epic poems, violins, presidents, concert halls, blondes, plays about royalty, and—to put a point on this—managers and ballplayers” among the others. He gives some of the usual reasons that the quality of baseball hasn’t improved, such as talent dilution with the expansion of the major leagues and wealth corrupting desire, but adds new ones. Baseball is no longer the only major professional sport competing for the best athletes. Kahn also argues that baseball is not a sport where the fact that athletes are bigger, stronger, and faster is as significant as it is in football or basketball, for example. Ballplayers are bigger, stronger, and faster but Kahn makes the point many pitchers are bigger than Feller, Black, and Reynolds—Randy Johnson comes immediately to mind—but none throw faster than they did, as fast yes, faster no. Similarly, giants like Cecil Felder, Mark McGwire, and Jose Cansesco (The Era was written in 1993 when there was a naïve presumption that at least for two of those three size was not abetted by steroids) are each dramatically bigger than Mickey Mantle (five eleven, 190) but none of the three could hit the ball further than Mantle. The best athletes in the country played baseball, played it with enduring passion, played it recklessly. Today’s athletes play longer because conditioning and a sense of responsibility for multi-million dollar investments encourage prudence and longevity, but they don’t play better. There are only two amendments I’d put on Kahn’s observation: 1) baseball’s golden era, as opposed to New York’s golden era of baseball, begins in 1947 with integration but it doesn’t hit its prime until the mid 50s and 60s when baseball was fully integrated and all the best athletes were playing baseball, by the 60s other pro sports are competing and expansion is also hitting full stride; and 2) I would add to Kahn’s list of things that aren’t better today: sports writing today cannot hold a candle to the writing of the Era and before. Sports reporting may have improved but sports writing has declined. And the real joy of The Era is the writing, both Kahn’s writing and the generous space he gives to his peers and betters, particularly Red Smith, Grantland Rice, Jimmy Cannon, and many others. (Kahn makes the point that the reporters of the day were well-compromised by too close relationships to the clubs they covered and a willingness to allow much of what they witnessed to live off the record; nonetheless the boys on the buses and trains could write.) The Era is filled with great stories of Durocher, Stengel, Dressen and lesser managers. Nothing can touch the blunt, vulgar speech Durocher gives his white players when rumor reaches him of a petition against playing with Jackie Robinson. In the middle was practical observations about the fact that Robinson was a great ballplayer and would put money in their pockets and that he was only the first so they’d better wake up or they’d be run out of the league. But at the start and end was profane dismissal. He began by telling them they could wipe their asses with their petition and concluded the meeting as follows, “I don’t want to see your petition. I don’t want to hear anything about it. Fuck your petition. The meeting is over. Go back to bed.” Kahn is an insider writing with love and savvy but without cloudy nostalgia.
The Era is a good book on what is called the golden age of baseball, 1947-1957, when the Dodgers, Giants and Yankees all played in New York and were three of the best teams in baseball. Author Roger Kahn does a good job telling stories on the teams, and some of its great players like Joe DiMaggio, Jackie Robinson, Willie Mays and Pee Wee Reese, as well as coaches Leo Durocher and Casey Stengel. I would have given it a higher ranking than three if not for the following...1)I've read a lot of books better than this on teams in this time period. David Halberstam's Summer of 49 and Roger Kahn's own Boys of Summer are better. 2)I get the impression that Kahn believes he is the ONLY writer that can write about this era accurately and it feels like he he tooting his own horn too much. Too many off-to-the-side remarks about how he likes or doesn't like certain writers. He could have left that stuff out. It does nothing to the story. 3)The first half of the book is awesome, written in great detail not only about the season but the playoff and World Series gamees as well. Then the second half feels rushed. It's like Kahn realized the book was going to be 1,000 pages if he didn't hurry up, so then he goes through the 1952-1956 seasons in about 50 pages. The Dodgers finally win the World Series in 1955 and there is about two pages on it. Really Mr. Kahn? That's all? So the second half of the book feels rushed. I was on page 330 out of 338, and I realized, wow, this book is about 11 years in baseball and he still has yet to talk about the 54 Giants and Mays' great catch, the 55 Dodgers and their World Series title, the Don Larsen perfect game for the Yankees in 56, the 57 season where the Yankees lost to the Braves, and the Dodgers and Giants moving to L.A. If Roger Kahn thinks he is the only writer that can talk about this subject, and he is a great writer, than he has to do all of this in more than eight pages. That being said, if you don't read too many baseball books and don't have the baseball library I do, then this is a great book, worthy of closer to four stars. I'd recommend it to any Giants, Dodgers or Yankees fan or anyone that grew up in the 50's.
What do You think about The Era, 1947-1957: When The Yankees, The Giants, And The Dodgers Ruled The World (2002)?
I always love a good baseball book, especially books from the bygone era, where most names now are long forgotten. However, Mr.Kahn has some historical memory lapses at times, one for instance, is when he writes about the famous playoff game between the Dodgers and Giants in 1951. According to the author, only Jackie Robinson stayed on the field when Bobby Thomson hit his shot heard round the world. If you watch the film clip on youtube, you can see this is not true. All of the Dodgers stayed until Bobby crossed home plate.It does get enjoyable at times, hearing stories from behind the scenes in baseballs glory days.
—Frank Butry
Wonderful account of the characters and players that dominated baseball for a decade in what Kahn describes as the golden era of the sport. I thoroughly enjoyed being party to some of the conversations of the larger than life characters that molded that era: people like Rickey, O'Malley, Horace Stoneham, George Weiss, Larry MacPhail, Casey Stengel, Joe McCarthy, DiMaggio, Durocher, Mays, Mantle, Snider, Reese, Robinson and so many other interesting and often flawed men. Kahn writes in 1993 but his conversations with these vivid characters are expressed in their words and you feel that you can hear them speak. You will marvel at the stories of a drunken MacPhail and Tom Yawkey, and disappointed in the racial animosity that caused the Yankees to miss out on signing Mays. It is true that the book steam rolls through the 50's after the 51 season, but it still captures the move by the Giants and especially O'Malley's moves to California. One thing caught my attention. Kahn is emphatic that the players of that era were superior to the ones of the 90's. His argument is that baseball attracted the best athletes in the old days because it was the best paying sport and that's where the best talent went. He also suggests, and takes exception with John Thorn in a footnote, that baseball players of today may be stronger, bigger, and faster, but that great ball players need timing, coordination, and hand to eye response mores than the former traits. He suggests further that because of team expansion and the fact that other sports today(1993) pay as much as baseball that the pool of talent is diminished. Most players playing today, he says, wouldn't make the roster of the ERA of 47-57. Nice argument but my eyes and stats tell me differently. (Sure to a degree some of what he says is true but overall we are seeing the greatest talent of any generation). I also enjoyed the machinations of the reporters and ownership in manipulating each other in those days to get favorable press accounts. Kahn suggests strongly that no one benefited more than DiMaggio from that manipulation and that DiMaggio's career was overly idolized by the press. These and more stick with me for now. Great read.
—Harold Kasselman
