Verwandte Artikel zu 1978: Baseball and America in the Disco Era

1978: Baseball and America in the Disco Era - Hardcover

Krell, David

 
9781496239600: 1978: Baseball and America in the Disco Era
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 1496239601 ISBN 13: 9781496239600
Verlag: University of Nebraska Press, 2025

Inhaltsangabe

Americans struggled to find their footing in the late 1970s. The Vietnam War ended with more than fifty-eight thousand American soldiers’ deaths; the public’s trust in politicians plummeted amid the Watergate scandal. As deadly blizzards ripped through the Midwest and Northeast in early 1978 and caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damages, Americans turned to baseball for the welcome distraction and promise of a new season.

From spring training to the World Series, 1978 gave baseball fans one of the sport’s greatest seasons, full of legendary moments like the battle between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox for the American League East pennant, Gaylord Perry’s three thousandth strikeout, Tom Seaver’s only career no-hitter, Willie McCovey’s five hundredth home run, and Pete Rose’s marathon forty-four-game hitting streak. The 1978 season played out against a backdrop of disco music, bell-bottom pants, and gas-guzzling cars, while Hollywood answered a desperate longing for a simpler time with nostalgic offerings such as Grease, The Buddy Holly Story, American Hot Wax, Animal House, and Superman. Robin Williams became a household name with a guest appearance on the popular TV show Happy Days, Atlantic City debuted its first casino, and Jill Clayburgh symbolized the emerging independence of women in An Unmarried Woman.

In a memorable end to the baseball season, Reggie Jackson and Bucky Dent led the Yankees to their second consecutive World Series over the Dodgers after losing the first two games, then winning four in a row. With a month-by-month approach, David Krell breaks down major events in both baseball and American culture at large in 1978, chronicling in novelistic detail the notable achievements of some of the greatest players of the era, along with some of the national pastime’s quirkiest moments, to capture an extraordinary year in baseball.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

David Krell is the author of 1962: Baseball and America in the Time of JFK (Nebraska, 2021), Do You Believe in Magic? Baseball and America in the Groundbreaking Year of 1966, and The Fenway Effect: A Cultural History of the Boston Red Sox (Nebraska, 2024).
 

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1

THE BEST INTERESTS OF BASEBALL

JANUARY

Ellicott Creek Park look like it jumped off a Currier and Ives Christmas card.

Snow blanketed the Buffalo area, a typical occurrence during winter in
western New York. Saint Christopher Parish stood adjacent to the park
under gray skies, fulfilling its duty on this mid-January day in 1978 as a gath-
ering place to honor the life of a person who had recently passed.

Joseph Vincent McCarthy, Baseball Hall of Fame, class of 1957.

His death from pneumonia at the age of ninety triggered an outpouring
of nostalgia for eras when newspapers had evening editions, baseball teams
leaving their cities was a forbidden idea, and the designated hitter did not
exist. As mourners scouted for seating opportunities among the pews in the
brick-faced church on Niagara Falls Boulevard in Tonawanda, their thoughts
turned to bygone years, when the world seemed simpler, slower, and less
crowded for time.

Baseball notables were among the attendees. Hall of Famer Monte Irvin,
New York–Pennsylvania League president Vincent McNamara, Hall of Fame
director Ken Smith, New York Yankees vice president Marshall Samuel, and
former Yankees pr director Bob Fishel filed into Saint Chris along with others
paying their respects and preparing to take the legendary manager to his
final resting place at Mount Olivet Cemetery.

Unlike fiery Leo Durocher or colorful Casey Stengel, McCarthy had a
quieter way about him. “Joe McCarthy understood what good players could
do for a manager and never pushed too many buttons to inhibit the best
results,” Buffalo News sportswriter Franklyn Buell reminded readers.

His management style led to seven World Series titles in his eight Fall Classic
appearances with the Yankees, between 1932 and the early part of May 1946,
when he stepped down. McCarthy, a Philadelphia native, might not have chosen
baseball as an outlet when he was a kid except for a fateful shopping trip for a
new suit with his mother. There was an added incentive for ten-year-old Joe—a
bat and ball were part of the purchase at Snellenburg’s Department Store on
the corner of Twelfth and Market Streets. “Mother argued against buying it,”
recalled McCarthy in 1937. “I coaxed and finally won.” The New York Giants
were in town to play the Phillies; they walked by the store as Mrs. McCarthy
and her son walked out. “From that minute baseball became my life,” he said. “I
started to dream about the game—and have never stopped.”

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Verlag
University of Nebraska Press
Erscheinungsdatum
2025
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1496239601
ISBN 13 
9781496239600
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
208
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Mare Nostrum Group B.V.
gpsr@mare-nostrum.co.uk

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