Brooklyn Dodgers: The Last Great Pennant Drive, 1957 by John Nordell - Guest Review

Brooklyn Dodgers: The Last Great Pennant Drive, 1957 by John Nordell
84 pages
Published 2007 by Tribute Books
Source: the publisher

A few weeks back, I was approached by Tribute books to review a book about Mickey Mantle (famed player with the New York Yankees). Not being a big fan of baseball, but knowing one, I asked if I might get a copy for my father to read and review. By the time I got back to them, however, that book was gone. Would my father be interested in reviewing a book about the Brooklyn Dodgers instead? Read on to find out why he said "yes" to this one and what he thought of it.

"I became a Dodgers baseball fan when I was 10 years old, though what led a boy in Nebraska to connect with a team from the East I can't now remember. I think the name attracted me. Then I learned what Brooklyn was and how the team appealed to the working class people there. And then, two years later, the Dodgers endeared themselves to me for a lifetime when the owner, Branch Rickey, was bold enough to sign and put on the field the first black player ever in the major leagues. I read everything I could find about the Dodger players, managers, games, and Mr. Rickey. They were heroes to me and the teams who beat them the most were the first sports figures I ever regarded as villains (Take that, you Yankees!).


No surprise then, that books about the Dodgers have always appealed to me. So when I was asked to read and review Brooklyn Dodgers: The Last Great Pennant Drive, 1957, no persuasion was needed.


I'm disappointed. Author Nordell covers only three weeks of the second half of the 1957 National League season. And what he provides is little more than pages and pages of the kind of synopses of games that a newspaper far removed from major league territory (which was a much smaller area in those days) might put together after consulting the wire services. Those games which had more bearing on the Dodgers are fleshed out more, but most of them read like the way one's mind processes what's to be found in the daily box scores.


This is how much of the book reads:

"A four-run rally in the ninth inning enabled the Pittsburgh Pirates to get past  the Chicago Cubs 6-5. Trailing 5-2 in the final frame, the Pirates picked up their first run in pinch-hit singles by Roman Mejias and Gene Freese, and a sacrifice by Dee Fondy. Bob Skinner walked and Dick Groat tripled to tie the score. With only one out, the Cubs issued two intentional passes, to pinch-hitter Jim Pendleton and Frank Thomas, filling the bases for a possible double play. Second baseman Bill Mazeroski upset this plan with a single that sent Groat across the plate with the deciding run. Winning pitcher Luis Arroyo was 3-8. Loser Turk Lown was 4-4."

I'm old enough to remember the names of those players, so there was a little nostalgia in it for me. But that wasn't enough to make for an interesting book.


Some of those demi-gods Dodgers of my boyhood get fleshed out a bit in this book, but not to such an extent as to make it possible to really get to know them better. The photos of them are mostly dark and blurry.


As for the sub-title, when the book picks up the season the Dodgers are in 5th place, 5 games out of first on July 10. The last games the book reports on were on July 23, at which point my team had climbed into second place, only one game behind the Milwaukee Braves. At the end of the season, however, they were in third place, eleven games out. So much for a "great pennant drive."


The final chapter deals with owner Walter O'Malley ending the great love affair between the borough and its beloved "Bums" by moving the team to Los Angeles.


Brooklyn Dodgers is a short and easy read. But Roger Kahn's The Boys of Summer (2006) and Peter Golenbock's Bums (1984) are much better accounts of those players, those times, and that team."

Thanks for the review, Dad!  Perhaps this book might actually work better for someone who wasn't as familiar with the team and the season and wasn't looking for something new to learn?  


Update from my dad:   To the contrary, what interest the book had for me was primarily seeing again the names and deeds (no matter how skimpily fleshed out) of all those players of all those teams that I knew and was interested in in my youth.  I think they’re less likely to resonate with a reader who doesn’t have my background.

Monday Sunday Salon

Whew! What a busy weekend we had! Actually, it started on Wednesday with a Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers concert (their old stuff takes me right back to college!). Friday night we headed downtown to the Summer Arts Festival where we saw some really interesting stuff but walked away empty handed. With so many choices, we just could not make a choice!


We also got to listen to a couple of bands for free, including a really great blues band, while enjoying some kettlecorn and cold beverages. It would have been so much more enjoyable had it not been sooooo hot!

Saturday night we headed out for dinner with three other couples. All of the guys have known each other since middle school so they spend a lot of time rehashing the old days. The wives have known each other since college but we tend to focus more on things that have happened in the past year! Always fun to spend time with people you know so well.

Sunday we headed off to my mom's hometown for a family reunion on her dad's side of the family. Came home, changed, grabbed more food and a bottle of wine and headed off to the annual Shakespeare on the Green festival to watch a musical version of "Two Gentlemen of Verona." Next weekend we'll go back to see their production of "Romeo & Juliet." (picture is of their production of "The Taming of the Shrew" from two years ago.)

The only big thing going on in Omaha that we didn't take in this weekend was the College World Series. We almost always catch at least one game but just haven't made it down this year. There's always tomorrow! Maybe by then I'll have some energy again.

What fun things did you do this weekend?

Sunday Salon - February 7

It's no secret by now that I love football--at any level. But I was reminded once again, when I did a search for football books, that "football" is not universally the same thing. When I pulled up the first page of results, I was surprised not to recognize a single title. Then I realized my mistake--for most of the world "football" is what we, in the U.S., call soccer. I guess I should clarify, when I say that I love football, what I really mean is that I love the game where almost none of the game is played using the feet. Something else I guess I knew but was reminded of when I did my search is that you can read a book about almost any aspect of football from almost any angle. There are books by coaches and players; books that are instructional and books that are statistical; books about specific games; and books written about football at any level: Pop Warner, high school, college and professional. The Blind Side is only the most recent football book to be made into a movie. Others made into movies, that also make good reads, are Paper Lion: Confessions of A Last String Quarterback, Friday Night Lights, and Semi Tough.









Needless to say, then, that I'll be in front of my television tonight as the Indianapolis Colts take on the underdog, but undefeated, New Orleans Saints. I'll be cheering for the Saints--I'm a big fan of underdogs especially when the underdog hasn't ever been to the Super Bowl before. And when it's all over, I'll slip into a bit of a funk--I don't quite know what to do with myself when that last game is played. There's always Australian rules football to look forward to, I guess.

Wait Till Next Year by Doris Kearns Goodwin

Wait Until Next Year by Doris Kearns Goodwin
272 pages
Published June 1998 by Simon Schuster Adult
Source: My dad loaned this one to me

Doris Kearns Goodwin grew up in a suburb of New York City in the years immediately following World War II. Unlike so many suburbs that sprouted up after the war, Rockville Centre had been incorporated more than 100 years earlier, giving it a feel that those rapidly rising suburbs could never hope to have. The houses in Kearns Goodwin’s neighborhood were “so close to one another that they functioned almost as a single home.”

 On the corner of the residential area lay a group of stores the likes of which is extraordinarily rare these days. There was a drugstore, a butcher shop, a soda shop, a delicatessen, and a barber shop/beauty parlor. Kearns Goodwin writes “the shopkeepers were as much a part of my daily life as the families who lived on my street.” The families didn’t just hand down clothes and toys from their own older children to the younger ones, they passed them from house to house.

New York, in those days, boasted three major league baseball teams. As they were throughout the city, team loyalties were divided in Kearns Goodwin’s neighborhood, loyalties that families carried with them from their boroughs of origin with the Bronx being the home of the Yankees, Manhattan the home of the Giants and Brooklyn being the home of the Dodgers. These loyalties were passed from generation to generation and Kearns Goodwin’s father passed to her his passion for the Dodgers, even teaching her to keep a score book when she was only six years old. She would spend her afternoons listening to the games on the family’s Philco radio and keeping score so that she could replay the entire game for her father after dinner that evening.

Kearns Goodwin intermingles the histories of the teams and players with stories of life in the suburbs from the late 1940’s through the 1950’s when life began to change—the corner stores were driven out of business and the neighbors began moving away. Kearns Goodwin writes of growing up watching the color barrier being broken in baseball when her beloved Jackie Robinson joined the Dodgers, watching the McCarthy hearings on television, learning what to do in case of a nuclear attack, becoming aware of the growing civil rights movement, and of watching both the Dodgers and the Giants leave New York.

Kearns Goodwin writes beautifully. I felt as though I were sitting with her listening to her tell me of that long ago time. The book wasn’t entirely what I expected. I had imagined the book to have even more to do with her love of the Dodgers and her father and less to do with the rest of her life. Although she has included detailed accounts of many games, which I often skimmed over, overall Kearns Goodwin does a marvelous job of combining American history, baseball, and her own personal memoir in a book that is charming and nostalgic.

Okay, Mom--I know you're out there, lurking! You and Dad should really send me your impressions so I can let everyone know what you thought of this as well.

What To Do In Omaha: College World Series

It's good to be in Omaha this week if you're a fan of college baseball as Rosenblatt Stadium is playing host to the College World Series. We love playing host to the thousands of fans that travel here from all over the country in support of their favorite team and usually buy up the rest of the tickets to ensure a full stadium for most games, adopting a new favorite team each year. 

Last night's game between Virginia and Arkansas was a big fan favorite--Dave Horne, coach of the Arkansas Razorbacks, used to coach at the University of Nebraska and Brian O'Connor, coach of the Virginia Cavaliers, used to play ball at Creighton University which is located in Omaha. The game was what the series is all about. Arkansas was down to their last out and behind by two runs and it looked like they were headed home. Then they managed to tie up the game with a two-run home run and hold the Cavs to take the game to extra innings--three extra innings to be exact. Twice Virginia had the bases loaded but could not score and in the top of the 12th inning the Razorbacks were able to score the game winning run. You couldn't help but cheer for the Razorbacks even as your heart broke for the Cavaliers. On to the next game--play ball!

UPDATE: 
The College World Series has since moved to a new stadium, just north of downtown Omaha. Instead of parking in the yards of all of the small homes near Rosenblatt Stadium, there are now parking lots nearby. Otherwise, much of what made the event such a fan favorite has been transplanted to the new digs - food vendors, dozens of baseball clothing vendors, and concerts. They've even kept a few pieces of Rosenblatt Stadium around, including that statue.