Bottom of the Ninth: Branch Rickey, Casey Stengel, and the Daring Scheme to Save Baseball from Itself - Hardcover

Shapiro, Michael

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0805082476 ISBN 13: 9780805082470

Publisher: Times Books, 2009

Synopsis

Fifty years ago, as baseball faced crises on and off the field, two larger-than-life figures took center stage, each on a quest to reinvent the national pastime

In the late 1950s, baseball was under siege. Up-and-coming cities that wanted teams of their own were being rebuffed by the owners, and in response Congress was threatening to revoke the sport’s antitrust exemption. These problems were magnified by what was happening on the field, as the New York Yankees were winning so often that true competition was vanishing in the American League.

In Bottom of the Ninth, Michael Shapiro brings to life this watershed moment in baseball history. He shows how the legendary executive Branch Rickey saw the game’s salvation in two radical ideas: the creation of a third major league—the Continental League—and the pooling of television revenues for the benefit of all. And Shapiro captures the audacity of Casey Stengel, the manager of the Yankees, who believed that he could bend the game to his wishes and remake how baseball was played. Their stories are interwoven with the on-field drama of pennant races and clutch performances, culminating in three classic World Series confrontations.

As the tension built on and off the field, Rickey and Stengel would find themselves outsmarted and defeated by the team owners who held true backroom power—defeats that would diminish the game for decades to come. Shapiro’s compelling narrative reaches its stunning climax in the seventh game of the 1960 World Series, when one swing of the bat heralds baseball’s eclipse as America’s number-one sport.

About this title

About the Author

Michael Shapiro is the author of The Last Good Season: Brooklyn, the Dodgers, and Their Final Pennant Race Together. A professor at the Columbia School of Journalism, he is the author of five previous books, and his articles have appeared in The New York Times, Sports Illustrated, Esquire, The Wall Street Journal, and The New Yorker. He lives in New York City with his wife and two children.

Reviews

From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com Reviewed by Steven V. Roberts When I was a correspondent in California in the early '70s, I received a call from an editor back in New York. Seattle had just been granted a Major League Baseball franchise, and I was told to write a story about "what it means to be big league." It was a brilliant assignment because it captured an enduring element of American mythology. To be "big league" means to have wealth, power, sophistication. How are you going to keep them down on the farm, after they've seen Wrigley Field? Michael Shapiro's book is about the big league myth and how it played out in post-World War II America. When God created baseball, She put 16 teams in only 10 cities (four had two teams, New York had three). None of those cities was south of Washington or west of St. Louis, and everywhere else was the bushes. But the returning veterans changed all that, streaming to the Sun Belt and reshaping the country's demographics. The Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants headed west in 1957, shattering God's plan forever, but 16 teams were not enough to go around anymore. Dallas, Atlanta and Denver yearned to be big league. New York wanted a new National League team to replace the despised defectors. There was only one, inevitable answer: expansion. Big-league owners dragged their feet, however. Into this vacuum stepped two dynamic figures: William Shea, a New York lawyer tapped to bring a new team to the city; and Branch Rickey, a retired baseball executive best known for signing Jackie Robinson. Their answer: a new league, the Continental, that would add eight teams (in seven new cities plus New York). The outcome was predictable. Less than two years later, the majors announced they were adding four teams, and the Continental collapsed before playing a single game. Yet Shapiro, a professor at Columbia Journalism School, beatifies Rickey as a far-sighted genius who promoted a "daring scheme to save baseball from itself." Indeed, Rickey had some good ideas, aimed mainly at diminishing the domination of the New York Yankees, who had won nine pennants and seven World Series titles between 1949 and 1958. Instead of permitting the richest teams to sign all the best prospects, the Continental League would allocate players based on a draft. And instead of letting each team keep its own TV revenue, a formula that favored the bigger cities, the new league would share profits equally. Baseball eventually adopted the draft but never pooled its TV earnings; pro football stole the revenue-sharing idea from Rickey, and that's one reason football teams from small cities are far more competitive than their baseball counterparts (see Packers, Green Bay). As a lifelong Yankees fan, I think football got it right, and it's a crime that baseball fans in Pittsburgh or Kansas City start every season condemned to the second division. But it's also true that powerhouse teams are good for baseball. See how many Yankees fans (including me) fill Oriole Park at Camden Yards when our team is in town. Shapiro's writing lacks grace and wit, and I question whether an idea that evaporated 70 years ago is worth a whole book. But the real flaw is the author's animosity toward baseball, which he derides as "an old game in a nation that wanted only what was new." He hails the rise of pro football as a truly national sport, where TV viewers can watch teams from around the country every Sunday. "The idea," he writes approvingly, "was to envision the game not merely as an athletic contest but as a weekly event -- a show." Poor baseball, he sniffs, remains "a local game built upon local followings." For my money, Shapiro swings and misses at a third strike. Of course, baseball is a "local game"; that's precisely its appeal. It's not a "weekly event." Over 162 games and six months, baseball threads its way through ordinary, everyday life. And it's that everydayness that breeds fierce hometown loyalties. Just watch my grandsons wear their Nationals gear to school, or grab the sports page every morning to scour the box scores. Baseball does not need saving "from itself." It needs saving from writers who don't understand or appreciate their subject.
Copyright 2009, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

In 1958, after the Dodgers and Giants had both left New York for California, a group of investors sought to bring the city a new baseball franchise, and their proposal was a bold one. Led by former Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey, they sought to create an entire new major league. Meanwhile, as the advocates for the would-be Continental League tried to make their case before the existing major league owners, New York Yankees manager Casey Stengel struggled to keep America's most popular team in championship form. Shapiro (The Last Good Season) parallels these two stories, arguing that they represent a hinge point when team owners could have taken radical steps to reclaim the sport's hold on the public imagination, but chose instead to cling tightly to their near-monopoly, paving the way for other sports, like football, to rise in popularity. The history, filled with colorful personalities, is told in a straightforward manner. While its two halves don't always fit together neatly, they offer a lively perspective on backstage dealings that almost changed the course of professional sports in America. 8 pages of b&w photos not seen by PW. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: Times Books
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0805082476
• ISBN 13: 9780805082470
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320