Library's review
You might wonder how a seven-game World Series can take 475 pages to describe (the first game of the Series itself begins on Page 401). That's the genius of Halberstam: Before he gets down to recounting the twists and turns of the championship, he deftly builds up the reader's knowledge of everything essential that came before. Of course there are profiles of key players on each team, but he also weaves in the history of each franchise, the history of baseball itself, and the social climate in which the season and Series were played.
One of the things that makes 1964 such a great season to read now is that it was the cusp of what became the modern era of baseball. Free agency had not yet been implemented (in fact, the player who would be most responsible for forcing the owners' hands on that matter was Curt Flood, who was playing for the Cardinals in 1964), but player salaries had begun to rise (modestly; we're talking about five-digit annual salaries, not the eight-digit salaries of today), and more tellingly, young players were no longer so easily controlled in any way except who they played for. Old-school managers and front-office personnel who began working in baseball during the old military-style, my-way-or-the-highway, all-white era were baffled at young players who chafed at too many rules and thought there was more to life than a game. (They also held ambivalent and racist attitudes about the black players they reluctantly signed, even 17 years after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier.) It seems every generation must have its "kids today!" moment.
My friend Beth told me she loved October 1964 even though she doesn't like baseball, and after reading it I can understand why. Yes, it's nominally about baseball, but it's also about the way American life and society changed in the 1960s in ways both incremental and radical. (In that sense, it's a perfect companion to Halberstam's [The Children], about the Civil Rights Movement.) And it's written by a man who was a master at presenting a complex subject clearly and who always let the personalities of the era take center stage.
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THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER THE BEST SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR "October 1964 should be a hit with old-time baseball fans, who'll relish the opportunity to relive that year's to-die-for World Series, when the dynastic but aging New York Yankees squared off against the upstart St. Louis Cardinals. It should be a hit with younger students of the game, who'll eat up the vivid portrayals of legends like Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris of the Yankees and Bob Gibson and Lou Brock of the Cardinals. Most of all, however, David Halberstam's new book should be a hit with anyone interested in understanding the important interplay between sports and society." --The Boston Globe "Compelling...1964 is a chronicle of the end of a great dynasty and of a game, like the country, on the cusp of enormous change." --Newsweek "Halberstam's latest gives us the feeling of actually being there--in another time, in the locker rooms and in the minds of baseball legends. His time and effort researching the book result in a fluency with his topic and a fluidity of writing that make the reading almost effortless....Absorbing." --San Francisco Chronicle "Wonderful...Memorable...Halberstam describes the final game of the 1964 series accurately and so dramatically, I almost thought I had forgotten the ending." --The Washington Post Book World "Superb reporting...Incisive analysis...You know from the start that Halberstam is going to focus on a large human canvas...One of the many joys of this book is the humanity with which Halberstam explores the characters as well as the talents of the players, coaches and managers. These are not demigods of summer but flawed, believable human beings who on occasion can rise to peaks of heroism." --Chicago Sun-Times… (more)