SEASON OF 42 CL

by CAVANAUGH,JACK

• ISBN13: 9781616087401
• ISBN10: 1616087404
• Edition: 00
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-05-17
• Publisher: FRWHEEL

Summary

Big league baseball would seem to have been a hard sell in 1942. World War II was not going well for the United States in the Pacific and not much better in Europe. Moreover, the country was in drastically short supply of ships, planes, submarines, torpedoes, and other war materials, and Uncle Sam needed men, millions of them, including those from twenty-one through thirty-fiv years of age who had been ordered to register for the draft, the age range of most big league baseball players. But after a "green light" from President Roosevelt, major league baseball played on in 1942 as it would throughout the war. It turned out to be an extraordinary season, too, spiced by a brash, young, and swift St. Louis Cardinal team that stunned the baseball world by winning the World Series. The 1942 season would be overshadowed by war, though, with many people wondering whether it was really all right for four hundred seemingly healthy and athletic men to play a child's game and earn far more money than the thousands of young Americans whose lives were at risk as they fought the Germans and Japanese abroad. In Season of '42, veteran sportswriter Jack Cavanaugh takes a look at this historic baseball season, how it was shaped and affected by the war and what, ultimately, it meant to America.

Author Biography

Jack Cavanaugh is a veteran sportswriter whose work has appeared most notably on the sports pages of the New York Times, for which he has covered hundreds of assignments. He is the author of six books, including Tunney (2006), which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, The Gipper (2010), and Season of ’42. He has also written for Sports Illustrated, Reader’s Digest, Golf and Tennis magazines, and a number of other national publications. Cavanaugh also was a reporter for ABC and CBS News, and has been an adjunct professor at Fairfield and Quinnipiac universities, and the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. 1
Opening Day and More Bad War News	p. 18
The War Gets Closer to Home	p. 41
Baseball's Gypsies and Their Mudcat Band	p. 62
Turning Point in the Pacific War?	p. 79
Baseball by Twilight	p. 85
Pistol Pete and Leo the Lip	p. 104
The Donora Greyhound	p. 118
Playing in Their Brother's Shadow	p. 125
The U-Boat Commander from the Brooklyn Navy Yard	p. 131
Riding the Rails	p. 138
Saboteurs Land on Long Island	p. 146
The "Mighty-Mite" Yankee Shortstop from Brooklyn	p. 163
A Pint of Blood Gets You into the Ballpark	p. 176
Running Doubles into Singles	p. 187
Last of the .400 Hitters	p. 195
Guadalcanal and a Dramatic Pennant Race Back Home	p. 203
A Mismatched World Series?	p. 233
Epilogue	p. 267
Acknowledgments	p. 286
About the Author	p. 290
Bibliography	p. 291
Index	p. 294
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