October 1964

One of the subplots in this amazing story --- frankly, I don't recall if it's mentioned in the book --- is what happened immediately following the Cardinals' 1964 home opener, April 22nd vs. Los Angeles: A Washington University student named James Ready was stabbed to death a few blocks from Busch Stadium while searching for his friends' car for the ride home. It was illustrative of the north side neighborhood's rapid descent into poverty and crime as "white flight" from north St. Louis City to north County became rampant in St. Louis. Gussie Busch issued a challenge grant of $5 million to fund the completion of the downtown stadium that opened 25 months later.

I just finished this book today, and it was AWESOME. In my opinion, this book was NOT biased or pro-St. Louis. It simply showed one team that wanted to remain mostly old-school and segregated, and another where youth played a big role and integration was welcomed and thrived. It showed in great detail the lives of all the major players involved in the Series, from the pitchers to the catchers to the managers. It gave a very detailed setting, and made me feel like I was there with the players. A FANTASTIC read for the avid baseball fan. If you want to read the ultimate story of head-to-head all-star competition (Mantle vs. Brock, Maris vs. White), this is it. From Bob Gibson to Lou Brock, Mickey Mantle to Elston Howard, this book covers all the stars of the '64 Yankees & Cardinals teams and chronicles their amazing season. Definitely an A+ on this book!

"OCTOBER 1964" by David Halberstam (1995) Sometimes the best sports books are not really sports books, as is the case with David Halberstam's brilliant "October 1964", which tells the story of a changing America through the microcosm of two very different baseball teams. Halberstam, one of the great living American writers, concentrates on events that occurred during tumultuous times. Halberstam examines the loser of the 1964 World Series, the New York Yankees, who represent the old America, and the winners, the St. Louis Cardinals, who represent the new. The Yankees were the Republican Party, conservative, white, country club elite, old money, Wall Street, the status quo, featuring Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, and Whitey Ford. Their style of play was to not take chances, and they only had a couple black players. The Cardinals mirrored Berkeley rabble rousers, and they played "National League baseball"--aggressive, stealing bases, stretching singles into doubles. Bob Gibson-black, college-educated, a man's man with something to prove, was their undisputed leader. Curt Flood was another thoughtful black athlete who harbored quiet resentment over his treatment by rednecks in Southern minor league towns. Tim McCarver came from a well-to-do white family in Memphis that employed black servants, his only frame of reference, until Gibson asked to take a sip from his coke. McCarver hesitatingly handed Gibby the can, Gibby took a big old honkin' Samuel L. Jackson sip, flashed the kid a giant smile, and handed the can back. McCarver's lesson: Sharing with black's is just like sharing with whites. Halberstam details the metaphor of these two clubs, in which the Yankees would fall from their lofty perch, only to rise once they changed their ways in accordance with the world around them, mirroring the Reagan Revolution. The Cardinals would win three pennants in the `60s, Gibson ascending to Hall of Fame status, while McCarver grew up to be the modicum of tolerance. Flood became the symbol of the union movement with a fall-on-his-sword lawsuit challenging the reserve clause, opening the door to freedom and riches for numerous players.

The book's title - 'October 1964' - is in a way misleading, as it is more about how the teams *got* to the '64 World Series as opposed to the Series itself. In fact, Halberstam doesn't begin his coverage of the Series until page 316, and then it's seven quick chapters (one per game) and a fine epilogue to the completion at page 373.Regardless, '64' is an outstanding piece of work. Written in Halberstam's inimitable style, the book hops back and forth between the Yankees season and the Cardinals season. For true Yankee and Cardinal fans, the amazingly detailed & finely researched chapters on Mickey Mantle (Chapter 7, get it?) and Bob Gibson are the absolute high points of the many richly detailed portraits that form the core of the book.On Mantle in 1964: "That spring training was more an ordeal than ever for Mantle. He was only 32, a relatively young age for outfielders, but his body was an old 32. Convinced by his family history that Mantle men died before they were 40, he had never taken care of himself. He had played hard and caroused hard during the season, and he had both caroused and loafed when each season was finished, letting his body slip out of condition by not doing even minimal exercise."On Gibson in 1964: "Later, in the seasons that followed, as he watched Gibson intimidate opposing hitters, Tom Tresh thought the Yankees had been relatively lucky in this series in the sense that they were new to Gibson. They were battling only his skills, no small thing in itself, instead of having to battle both that and his reputation, as teams would have to in the future. For after this World Series he would not be just Bob Gibson, he would be the great Bob Gibson, and his myth would loom bigger, and because of that, in the minds of hitters, his fastball would be faster, the slider would break sharper and wider, and the word about how he shaved hitters with a fastball would be more ominous."Great stuff or what? And plenty more where that comes from. The portrait of Gibson alone - all of it incredibly strirring material about his hard work and perserverance in making it to the Cardinals - stretches to 24 pages.This book is an absolute must-read for any true fan of baseball and its rich history.

The 1964 baseball season was a time of great change and re-alignment in baseball. David Halberstam's "October 1964" captures the entire story. Reading this book is like reading a Greek tragedy- the great hero Mickey Mantle battling a multitude of injuries in one final attempt to capture the glory of the world series, the decline and fall of the great Yankees dynasty, the brash young upstarts (the St. Louis Cardinals) whose style of aggressive baserunning, hard-nosed defense and take-no-prisoners pitching would define the way the game has been played. There are dozens of stories of hard-ache and triumph, and they are all here written in Halberstam's you-are-there prose. "October 1964" is a true treasure.