Epic Season: The 1948 American League Pennant Race

by David E. Kaiser, Jack Harrison (Designed by)

This book recounts the story of one of the most memorable seasons in the history of major league baseball. Drawing on interviews with surviving participants as well as daily newspaper accounts, David Kaiser re-creates the drama of the 1948 American League pennant race and places it within a broader historical context. Unfolding at a time when baseball truly was America's "national pastime," the '48 season saw three teams vie for a championship that always seemed within reach but was never assured. In Cleveland, under the guidance of maverick owner Bill Veeck and charismatic player-manager Lou Boudreau, the Indians set new attendance records with a team that included the first black player in the American League, Larry Doby, and perhaps the most famous pitcher never to have appeared in a major league game, Satchel Paige. In Boston, Ted Williams enhanced his already fabled reputation with another extraordinary season, leading a Red Sox team that new manager Joe McCarthy had reshaped during the off-season. In New York, the defending champion Yankees struggled to repeat behind a crippled Joe DiMaggio, whose clutch hitting down the stretch enthralled baseball fans everywhere.

Genres: Baseball, Sports

320 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

David E. Kaiser, born June 7, 1947, is an American historian whose published works have covered a broad range of topics, from European Warfare to American League Baseball. He was a Professor in the Strategy and Policy Department of the Naval War College from 1990 until 2012 and has also taught at Carnegie Mellon, Williams College(2006-7 and 2012-3), and Harvard University.

Reviews

[Everhat · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid read that takes the reader through each day of the 1948 American League season that culminated with the greatest pennant race in Major League Baseball history. I didn't know anything about this baseball season and even less about the American League year or the pennant race and the unfolding of events was intriguing and then engrossing. It left me with much more respect with these men who competed nearly every day for months with only a few wins between then from mid-season onward. The amazing pennant race was the largest take-away from the book, but second to that is how in the midst of that and all the other star players, Joe DiMaggio played and stood above them all. If you are baseball fan, this is must-read. If you are a fan of history books, you should also read this.

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unfortunately for this book, it reads like exactly what it is purported to be. That would be a book written by a person that didn't directly witness that pennant race of 1948 but read it through newspaper clippings and then strung together the weekly events of a very exciting pennant race...when teams won the pennant out of the regular season.

The subject matter of the book completely had me, being from Cleveland and being interested in baseball. I found the epilogue of the book to be the most compelling feature of the book. The epilogue spelled out a statistic from Bill James that should project to winning percentage [Runs-Squared / (Runs-Squared + Opposition Runs-Squared)], and how the Indians actually were about ten wins better than their record in 1948.

Not to say that this book has no merit, because it does, but I much more would have wanted and insider's story that would have followed the formula of Terry Pluto's "When All The World Was Brown's Town," which described the 1964 NFL Championship season of the Cleveland Browns.

[Daryl Grigsby]

fascinating book with info on Satchel Paige's and Larry Doby's impact on the 1948 Cleveland Indians