Exactly how the Continental League gathered strength and then faltered, and exactly how its impact is felt today, are treasures to be unearthed in Ninth. There are others, many in Stengelese.
Michael Shapiro lays out in detail the behind the scenes negotiations that led to the threat of a new league helping bring back National League baseball to NYC plus the drama between Bill Shea, Casey Stengel and the Mahatma himself.
Michael Shapiro’s Bottom of the Ninth was released last week by Times Books/Henry Holt, and I barely put it down between the time I got my copy in the mail and the time I finished it.
Some books you know are going to be terrific before you even crack open the spine, given the subject and the author.
Interview with Bernadette Pasley
A little-remembered chapter of our national pastime, chronicling the fallout from the departure of the Dodgers and Giants for California after the 1957 season.
If you were the commissioner of Major League Baseball, what would you change (assuming no union issues)? I’d want to actually be in charge. Like the commissioners of other sports. The owners run baseball. Always have. Somehow the game survives them.
Shapiro is best known to baseball readers for his book on the departure of the Dodgers from Brooklyn, “The Last Good Season.” It was one of the best sports books of the past few years, using great research mixed with excellent insight. If you’d like to call “Bottom of the Ninth” a sequel to that, be my guest.
I was always curious about the story of the Continental League, which Buffalo tried to use to gain admission to major league baseball about 50 years ago. This answered my questions nicely. Fine job
Interesting book released today from Michael Shapiro, a baseball historian who has written about, among other things, the Brooklyn Dodgers in the past. “Bottom of the Ninth: Branch Rickey, Casey Stengel, and the Daring Scheme to Save Baseball from Itself” is about Rickey’s vision for how to “save” baseball, largely through the creation of a third major league, the Continental League.