LizzieMaine
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Tis the season for baseball reading, so I recently picked up "Electric October: Seven World Series Games, Six Lives, Five Minutes of Fame That Lasted Forever," by Kevin Cook.
No baseball season in all the history of the game has exceeded the micrometer study focused over the years on the 1947 campaign -- it was considered a landmark season in its own time, marking the peak of the game's postwar popularity, and in the decades since it's come to be seen as marking the start of a new epoch: the advent of Jackie Robinson and the desegregation of the major leagues has become a historical point that transcends sports. But this book isn't about Jackie Robinson, or Branch Rickey, or sociology, or race. All of those factors weave in and out of the story, but instead the book takes a tight look at that year's World Series -- a long-awaited rematch between the haughty New York Yankees and the proud but frustrated Brooklyn Dodgers. Their last meeting, in 1941, is one we experienced first hand over in the Era Day By Day thread, and the wounds of that year's Series remained very fresh six years later -- leading into a Series fraught with drama.
But rather than just rehashing the story of that series as such, Cook singles out the six men who played critical roles in those seven games: Dodger manager Burt Shotton, Yankee manager Bucky Harris, Yankee second baseman George "Snuffy" Stirnweiss, Yankee pitcher Floyd "Bill" Bevens, and Dodgers Al Gionfriddo and Harry "Cookie" Lavagetto. Shotton wouldn't have been there if Leo Durocher hadn't been suspended for a year for assorted offensive peccadilloes, Harris was a baseball lifer given the unenviable job of replacing Joe McCarthy, Stirnweiss was a player who excelled during the war but could feel his career slipping away as the "real" major leaguers returned, Bevens was a scatter-armed journeyman pitcher who'd never quite lived up to his promise, Gionfriddo was an undersized backup outfielder with a chip on his shoulder, and Lavagetto was an old Brooklyn favorite in the twilight of his career, trying to hang on.
The story of what happened in the 1947 Series really isn't the focus of the book -- Bevens almost pitched a no-hitter until Lavagetto came off the bench to break it up with a pinch-hit double that won the game for Brooklyn. Gionfriddo made one of the greatest catches in the history of the game to rob DiMaggio of a homer. Stirnweiss proved he could play with the "real" stars. And both managers surprised even themselves by even getting there in the first place. Rather, the book emphasizes how the Series and the momentary fame it brought them affected the rest of their lives. Bevens and Lavagetto made card show appearances together, laughing and joking about That Game, but Bevens wasn't always joking when he said "I could've had a no-hitter. Why didn't you let me have it." Cookie never had to pay for a drink again, and was beloved in Brooklyn to the end of his days. And Snuffy Stirnweiss was just getting on his feet in a successful post-baseball career when he was killed in a horrific New Jersey railroad accident in 1958. Shotton died an all-but-forgotten man, and didn't seem too bothered by that, but Bucky Harris lived long enough to make it to the Hall of Fame. And Al Gionfriddo, though understanding the fame his catch brought him, resented Branch Rickey for sending him to the minor leagues just short of qualifying for a major league pension -- and he'd spend his declining years fighting the Commissioner's Office in an attempt to get what he felt was coming to him. Sic transit, as they say, gloria mundi.
This is a breezy, anecdotal book, but with an air of real melancholy in its final chapters. The image of Cookie Lavagetto, frail and elderly, watching himself on a VHS highlights tape, opens the book -- but it's also a fitting way to point out that no matter what we've done and what we've accomplished in our lives, someday all we'll be left with are memories.
No baseball season in all the history of the game has exceeded the micrometer study focused over the years on the 1947 campaign -- it was considered a landmark season in its own time, marking the peak of the game's postwar popularity, and in the decades since it's come to be seen as marking the start of a new epoch: the advent of Jackie Robinson and the desegregation of the major leagues has become a historical point that transcends sports. But this book isn't about Jackie Robinson, or Branch Rickey, or sociology, or race. All of those factors weave in and out of the story, but instead the book takes a tight look at that year's World Series -- a long-awaited rematch between the haughty New York Yankees and the proud but frustrated Brooklyn Dodgers. Their last meeting, in 1941, is one we experienced first hand over in the Era Day By Day thread, and the wounds of that year's Series remained very fresh six years later -- leading into a Series fraught with drama.
But rather than just rehashing the story of that series as such, Cook singles out the six men who played critical roles in those seven games: Dodger manager Burt Shotton, Yankee manager Bucky Harris, Yankee second baseman George "Snuffy" Stirnweiss, Yankee pitcher Floyd "Bill" Bevens, and Dodgers Al Gionfriddo and Harry "Cookie" Lavagetto. Shotton wouldn't have been there if Leo Durocher hadn't been suspended for a year for assorted offensive peccadilloes, Harris was a baseball lifer given the unenviable job of replacing Joe McCarthy, Stirnweiss was a player who excelled during the war but could feel his career slipping away as the "real" major leaguers returned, Bevens was a scatter-armed journeyman pitcher who'd never quite lived up to his promise, Gionfriddo was an undersized backup outfielder with a chip on his shoulder, and Lavagetto was an old Brooklyn favorite in the twilight of his career, trying to hang on.
The story of what happened in the 1947 Series really isn't the focus of the book -- Bevens almost pitched a no-hitter until Lavagetto came off the bench to break it up with a pinch-hit double that won the game for Brooklyn. Gionfriddo made one of the greatest catches in the history of the game to rob DiMaggio of a homer. Stirnweiss proved he could play with the "real" stars. And both managers surprised even themselves by even getting there in the first place. Rather, the book emphasizes how the Series and the momentary fame it brought them affected the rest of their lives. Bevens and Lavagetto made card show appearances together, laughing and joking about That Game, but Bevens wasn't always joking when he said "I could've had a no-hitter. Why didn't you let me have it." Cookie never had to pay for a drink again, and was beloved in Brooklyn to the end of his days. And Snuffy Stirnweiss was just getting on his feet in a successful post-baseball career when he was killed in a horrific New Jersey railroad accident in 1958. Shotton died an all-but-forgotten man, and didn't seem too bothered by that, but Bucky Harris lived long enough to make it to the Hall of Fame. And Al Gionfriddo, though understanding the fame his catch brought him, resented Branch Rickey for sending him to the minor leagues just short of qualifying for a major league pension -- and he'd spend his declining years fighting the Commissioner's Office in an attempt to get what he felt was coming to him. Sic transit, as they say, gloria mundi.
This is a breezy, anecdotal book, but with an air of real melancholy in its final chapters. The image of Cookie Lavagetto, frail and elderly, watching himself on a VHS highlights tape, opens the book -- but it's also a fitting way to point out that no matter what we've done and what we've accomplished in our lives, someday all we'll be left with are memories.