The 10 worst years of baseball: The zany, true story of baseball in the Forties

A history of major league baseball during the 1940's, told mainly from the perspective of the St. Louis Browns. WW II had taken its toll on team rosters, leaving only "the lame, the too old, the too young, and the too slow" behind to play the National Pastime. Mead has researched thoroughly the time period and conducted interviews with many of the players. The interviews are, as usual in books like this, the best parts of the book. There are even a few chapters dealing with some of the big name pros (DiMaggio, Ted Williams, Hank Greenberg) who were in the service and what life was like for them. Major league baseball sold millions of dollars in war bonds and helped maintain a certain amount of normalcy during tough times. Mead's fondest memory is of the 1944 Browns, usually in the cellar of the American League, who that year won the Pennant and played their cross-town rivals in the World Series. (They lost.) Mead, to his credit, stays critical and honest in his reportage and doesn't stoop to nostalgia. An interesting account, and a book that baseball enthusiasts with an eye on the game's past should enjoy.