1954 : the year Willie Mays and the first generation of black superstars changed major league baseball forever

1954 The year Willie Mays and the first generation of black superstars changed major league baseball forever

Bill Madden

Book - 2014

"Jackie Robinson heroically broke the color barrier in 1947. But how--and, in practice, when--did the integration of the sport actually occur? Bill Madden shows that baseball's famous "black experiment" did not truly succeed until the coming of age of Willie Mays and the emergence of some star players--Larry Doby, Hank Aaron, and Ernie Banks--in 1954. And as a relevant backdrop off the field, it was in May of that year that the US Supreme Court unanimously ruled, in the case of Brown v. Board of Education, that segregation be outlawed in America's public schools. Featuring original interviews with key players and weaving together the narrative of one of baseball's greatest seasons with the racially charged even...ts of that year, 1954 demonstrates how our national pastime--with the notable exception of the Yankees, who represented white supremacy in the game--was actually ahead of the curve in terms of the acceptance of black Americans, while the nation at large continued to struggle with tolerance"--

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Location Call Number   Status
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Subjects
Mays, Willie, > 1931-
Baseball > History > 20th century.
African American baseball players > History.
Discrimination in sports > History.
Published
Boston, MA : Da Capo Press, a member of the Perseus Books Group 2014.
Language
English
Main Author
Bill Madden (author)
Edition
First Da Capo Press edition
Physical Description
xiii, 290 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 267-268) and index.
ISBN
9780306823329
Contents unavailable.
Review by Booklist Review

Madden, veteran New York Daily News baseball writer and inductee into the writers' section of the Baseball Hall of Fame, attempts here to do the sport and readers a service beyond the lines of the diamond. He dates the true and full integration of baseball, despite Jackie Robinson's debut in 1947, to 1954, not unrelatedly the year of the Supreme Court's Brown decision. African Americans Willie Mays and Larry Doby brought their respective teams (the Giants and Indians) to the World Series that year, and Hank Aaron and Ernie Banks, among others, were beginning to etch their considerable marks on the sport. There were some laggards (notably the Yankees and Red Sox), but, Madden argues, the sport was, by 1954, ahead of much of the rest of the country in racial matters. Regrettably, he does not make the point convincingly and often loses sight of that focus, which is buried in far more conventional accounts of franchise shifts, batting races, and pennant chases, not only in the pivotal year of 1954 but also in the years preceding it. Still, the book brings together plenty of valuable information regarding the integration of baseball.--Levine, Mark Copyright 2010 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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