Baseball Goes to War

During much of the World War II era the best teams in Major League Baseball (MLB) could be found in St. Louis, the Cardinals of the National League and the unlikely Browns who dominated in 1944 and came close to doing so in 1945. The Cardinals, a team built through the extensive farm system engineered by Branch Rickey, dominated the National League and won three World Series--1942, 1944, and 1946--and won the pennant but not the overall championship in 1943. It was a dynasty every bit as dominating as that of the New York Yankees during that time. The Cards won a franchise record 106 games in 1942, and bested the Yankees in the World Series. The next year they won 105 games, but lost to the Yankees in the fall classic. In 1944 the Cards also won 105 games and defeated the cross-town Browns in the World Series, the only "streetcar series" in St. Louis history. In 1946, just as the troops were mustering out of the military after the war, the Cardinals had to beat the emerging dynasty of the Brooklyn Dodgers in a three game playoff to claim the National League Pennant, but then they went on to defeat the Boston Red Sox in a dramatic seven game World Series. Wiliam B. Mead's "Baseball Goes to War" is an outstanding journalistic account of this era in MLB. It is built around the story of the Cardinals and Browns in St. Louis, but goes beyond that to take in and comment on the milieu of the 1940s. This is the third edition of this wonderful book. It was originally published in 1978 as "Even the Browns," emphasizing the fact that although the Cardinals were one of the most successful franchises of the National League the Browns were one of the American League's weakest. Indeed the joke, "first in booze, first in shoes, and last in the American League," characterized the plight of the Browns better than perhaps any other statement about them. A revision in 1982, "The Ten Worst Years of Baseball," followed with Mead emphasizing the loss of MLB talent to the military during the war years. Mead notes that the Browns, while becoming respectable in the early 1940s after years of mediocrity, did not so much rise to take the American League pennant in 1944 as the rest of the league declined from the loss of talent to the war effort. In reality, the Browns rebuilt into a decent team during this period, posting winning seasons in the war years 1942-1945. They finished a distant third in the American League in 1942, but finally won the big one in 1944, capturing their only St. Louis pennant. As the "streetcar series" ended in 1944, however, it took with it the last opportunity for the Browns to produce a winner in St. Louis. After a good season in 1945, they slid back into their normal place at the bottom of the league until their departure from St. Louis for Baltimore in 1953, where they became the Orioles. This is a wonderful, pleasurable history of baseball during the war years, focusing on the Browns and Cardinals, but going much beyond. Enjoy!

This book was originally published as "Even the Browns" and it is both a lovingly detailed valentine and a eulogy to baseball's worst franchise, the St. Louis Browns. Author William B. Mead, who spent his boyhood watching these mediocrities play their home games from the cheap seats at Sportsman's Park, has compiled a remarkable history of a last place team that seemed cursed to play its games before a few hundred disinterested fans year in and year out. Mead chronicles how the Browns seemed poised to achieve great success before the rival Cardinals stole the hearts and minds of St. Louis baseball fans during the Twenties. The management of the slumping Browns even rented their ballpark to the Cardinals and ended up subsidizing the successful National League club by agreeing to divide the cost of janitorial service at Sportsman's Park equally. The Browns played before empty seats while the Cardinals had capacity crowds filling the concourses with discarded paper cups, hot dog wrappers, peanut shells and litter. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor had several unintended consequences: the Browns were denied a lucrative opportunity to relocate from St. Louis to Los Angeles and military conscription meant that all of the teams lost key players to the armed forces. Suddenly, the collection of untested rookies, minor league journeymen, grizzled veterans and pathetic alcoholics on the Browns roster seemed to be competitive! Could this motley crew cope with success long enough to win? This book is an entertaining and enjoyable read. Nostalgia at its best. Welcome back to the era of rationing cards and railroad travel when baseball's sixteen major league teams were based in eleven cities and St. Louis was the far Western frontier of the big leagues.

THIS BOOK IS AN EXCELLENT LOOK AT THE WWII ERA. ALOT OF GREAT INTERVIEWS AND STORY TELLING DESCRIBE THIS HISTORIC ERA IN GREAT DETAIL. IT LIKE BEING THERE. MR. MEAD DOES A FINE JOB AND THIS IS TRULY AN EXCELLENT BOOK FOR HISTORIANS AND FANS OF THE GREAT AMERICAN SPORT. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

William Mead's wonderful book about a baseball in the 1940's has appeared under several titles (EVEN THE BROWNS, BASEBALL'S WORST DECADE). In each guise it is a sprightly written and judicious account of the personalities (Judge Landis, Pete Gray) and events of baseball in a time of national crisis.