Nats and the Grays
Subtitle: How Baseball in the Nation's Capital Survived WWII and Changed the Game Forever
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Incorporated
Published: 2015
Language: eng
Number of pages: 342
ISBN-13: 9781442245747
Subjects: Washington nationals (baseball team); Washington senators (baseball team); Baseball, history
Description: This book examines the impact of the war on the two teams in Washington, DC—the Nationals of the American League and the Homestead Grays of the Negro Leagues—as well as the impact of the war on major league baseball as a whole. Each chapter is devoted to a wartime year, beginning with 1941 and ending with the return of peacetime in 1946, including the exciting American League pennant races of 1942-1945. This account details how the strong friendship between FDR and Nationals team owner Clark Griffith kept the game alive throughout the war, despite numerous calls to shut it down; the constant uncertainties the game faced each season as the military draft, federal mandates, national rationing, and other wartime regulations affected the sport; and the Negro Leagues’ struggle for recognition, solvency, and integration.