1954
Subtitle: the year Willie Mays and the first generation of black superstars changed major league baseball forever
By: by Bill Madden
Edition: First Da Capo Press edition.
Published: 2014
Language: eng
Number of pages: 290
ISBN-13: 9780306823329; 9780306823336
Subjects: History; Baseball; Discrimination in sports; African American baseball players
Other titles: Nineteen fifty-four.
Description: "Jackie Robinson heroically broke the color barrier in 1947. But how--and, in practice, when--did the integration of the sport actually occur? Bill Madden shows that baseball's famous "black experiment" did not truly succeed until the coming of age of Willie Mays and the emergence of some star players--Larry Doby, Hank Aaron, and Ernie Banks--in 1954. And as a relevant backdrop off the field, it was in May of that year that the US Supreme Court unanimously ruled, in the case of Brown v. Board of Education, that segregation be outlawed in America's public schools. Featuring original interviews with key players and weaving together the narrative of one of baseball's greatest seasons with the racially charged events of that year, 1954 demonstrates how our national pastime--with the notable exception of the Yankees, who represented white supremacy in the game--was actually ahead of the curve in terms of the acceptance of black Americans, while the nation at large continued to struggle with tolerance"--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 267-268) and index.