Soderholm-Difatte: MLB’s golden era, a time of transition and integration
From SABR member Bryan Soderholm-Difatte at Baseball Historical Insight on November 16, 2015:
Rowman & Littlefield has just published my book on major league baseball in the 1950s, The Golden Era of Major League Baseball: A Time of Transition and Integration. Narrative themes include integration—especially the opportunities for blacks who were not elite players to compete for starting positions against whites of comparable ability; the Yankees and Dodgers many years of triumph; the powerful impetus for expanding the geographic reach of the major leagues, resulting in the first movement of franchises in half-a-century and leading inexorably toward expansion; the growing sophistication in structuring pitching staffs, the use of relief pitchers, platooning, and position-player substitutions; and the 1950s not being as boring in the style of play as has been the accepted wisdom. I also provide an in-depth analysis of the impact of Giants manager Leo Durocher’s center field-clubhouse spy operation on the 1951 pennant race and Brooklyn manager Charlie Dressen’s decisions in the Bobby Thomson-home run playoff game.
Read the full article here: http://brysholm.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-golden-era-of-major-league-baseball_12.html
Originally published: November 16, 2015. Last Updated: November 16, 2015.