 "Disjointed, Superficial, and Sloppy" | 2009-10-22 |
| - Reviewed By User: A3QGF3WIYLJQGV |
As a serious baseball fan, I came to this book with high expectations but was left thoroughly disappointed. Many of the same flaws that were present in Halberstam's earlier Summer of '49 (P.S.) are on full display here: a misleading title (the actual World Series accounts for no more than 30 or so pages), superficial analysis, lazy factual errors (e.g., Ralph Terry could not have met Cy Young as a rookie, as Young died the year before), sloppy editing, and a disjointed narrative plagued by constant rambling digressions. As others critical of this book have pointed out, amazingly more time is spent discussing tangential figures like Buck O'Neil and Tom Greenwade than on the Phillies' historic collapse, the Yankees' and Cardinals' second-half turnarounds, or any single game of the epic seven-game World Series. As a result, the '64 regular season and World Series--the ostensible subjects of the work--recede far, far into the background and become almost an afterthought. Though OCTOBER 1964 offers the occasional interesting anecdote, those few flashes of insight are not enough to save a book that lacks a central story and reads instead like a loose, tedious, and factually-suspect collection of two-dimensional vignettes.
As a final note, one should be advised that the book also lacks an index, seriously diminishing its reference value. |
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 "Good but not great" | 2009-09-30 |
| - Reviewed By User: A2ZTKCU56HMWHH |
I gave this three stars cause I did get a lot out of the book Yet not what I expected. As One reviewer here said Why did Mr. Halberstam spend time on Buck O'Neil's history.
I will go one further Why did he spend nearly as much time on Buck O'Neil as he did on the Philadelphia Phillies collapse That's a bigger part of the story of October 64
That's actually the story I thought I would be reading Cause without it, You don't have the Cardenals in the serise at all.
Yet its not all bad Some of the things covered that I did find interesting was the coming of age of Television, And the fall of the Yankees How it happened and what the 60's and College did to the modern Athlete College gave them other choices instead of Baseball so the bonus baby was born
So there was things to get out of this book but the story of October 1964 You have to wade through 300 pages before he gets to September and the series. |
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 "A Turning Point in Baseball & American History" | 2009-08-16 |
| - Reviewed By User: A3FHSO1SKHU378 |
David Halberstam's masterpiece depicts a remarkable scenario for baseball & American society as well; the Yankees' dynasty was beginning a twelve year hiatus & the upstart Cardinals were coming into their own, bringing with them a style of play that would be emulated by the rest of the National League for another 20 some odd years; manifested by its domination in All-Star play over that time frame. Remember those days?
American society was undergoing a period of turbulence; the Civil Rights Movement was heating up, Vietnam was becoming a National tragedy & The Beatles were holding everyone's hand. At least we had that going for us.
Players like Bob Gibson & Lou Brock would go on to re-write World Series record books and were destined for the Hall of Fame. They formed the nucleus for their own mini-dynasty, going to the Series in '67 & '68 with a bunch of players who really seemed to love each other. Racial tension was replaced with free-spirited comaraderie and they played an exceptional brand of baseball. Ironically, helping the Cardinals to the success in '67 & '68 was the great former Yankeee, Roger Maris, who retired after the '68 season with a Busch Beer distributorship to call his own.
Halberstam brilliantly captures the essence of baseball at the crossroads, and a country trying to cope with tumultuous change. We somehow survived the '60s in spite of ourselves & baseball is no longer concerned about embracing diversity; instead they're dealing with a scandlous performance enhancing drug issue that is shaking the game to its core. Whether baseball can recover any time soon is open to conjecture.
The late David Halberstam would've had a field day writing about these antics in 2009. |
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 "How teams rise--and fall" | 2009-07-19 |
| - Reviewed By User: A1Z2XK25QX43Z9 |
The power pitcher. The stolen base. The old. The young. The white. The black.
David Halberstam chronicles how the St. Louis Cardinals adopted new playing techniques, challenged racial barriers, and built a team from the dirt--all to overthrow the long dominant New York Yankees. "October 1964" bends its knee to the George Romney quote (spoken of General Motors): "There is nothing more vulnerable than entrenched success."
I have to admit. I found myself skimming over the chapters about the Yankees. The pinstripes seemed boring, old. (One Cardinal asked why a young Yankee player ran with a limp. "Because Mantle does," he was told.)
I'm from St. Louis--so my allegiance to the Cardinals is now clear. But, it's interesting to note how the Cardinals, with its fan base straddling the South, seemed so racially beyond the Yankees.
The Cardinals had great, young black players. Bill White, Lou Brock, Curt Flood, and Bob Gibson, who pitched the Cardinals winner in game seven of the World Series. "It had long been part of the myth of white America that blacks were not mentally as tough as whites and therefore could not be counted on in the clutch: it was the performances of such athletes as Gibson that destroyed that particularly scabrous fiction," Halberstam wrote.
It was a battle. Not just October of 1964--but the events leading up to it. The book tells of how Bob Gibson, pitching in the minor leagues, was constantly referred to as "alligator bait," an Old South expression for "when the good old boys went into the swamps in search of alligators and tied a rope around a black man...and threw him in the water has bait."
But there are other battles. If you are interested in front-office machinations and executive leadership, this book details the often ego driven moves of Gussie Busch, the late Cardinals owner and Anheuser-Busch icon.
The one place the book falls short is the last chapter. It just sort of ends. But, the epilogue makes up for it, telling the reader what happened to the two organizations after the series. (Both remained classy, storied organizations. The Cardinals went on to play in two more world series that decade, the Yankees faded until the late 1970s.)
And perhaps the epilogue says it all. While the Cardinals embraced young talent in the 1960s, it forgot that strategy in the 1970s.
In 1972, Gussie traded Steve Carlton, then ready to become one of the most dominating pitchers of his era, over a $10,000 difference in salary negotiations. Then, he got rid of promising left hander Jerry Reuss.
And, let's not forget the mess with Curt Flood. October 1964 isn't about an autumn in the mid 1960s. It's about how teams rise--and fall. |
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| "The Quintessential 1960s Baseball Season" | 2009-02-25 |
| - Reviewed By taxdawg |
"October 1964," written by the well-known journalist David Halberstam, tells the story of the month and the year when the St. Louis Cardinals beat the New York Yankees in the World Series, 4 games to 3, to end the Yankee Dynasty. I will start by acknowledging there is a bit of the narrative in "October 1964." The season's progress is occasionally communicated, and Halberstam captures the late-season Yankee charge and the Philadelphia Phillies' collapse that allowed the Cards to win the National League pennant. The last six chapters (35 pages) each cover one World Series game (Chapter 31 covers Games 6 & 7).
For the most part, however, "October 1964" is a sociological analysis of racial matters in baseball. The Yanks represented the establishment with its reluctance to sign black players, and the Cards represented the emergence of black stars. Halberstam gives extended profiles/discussions of the main figures, somewhat proportionate to their importance. There is much about Roger Maris, Whitey Ford, and Elston Howard as well as Lou Brock, Curt Flood, Tim McCarver, and racially sensitive manager Johnny Keane. But with the full 21 pages of Chapter VII devoted to Mickey Mantle and almost all of Chapter IX's 24 pages devoted to Bob Gibson (and many more pages for both), the reader is left wanting to know something about certain other players (Halberstam does give arbitrary focus to some lesser lights).
Halberstam sets forth extended vignettes and background information, rather than summaries with occasional quotes that characterize the narrative style. He discusses a theme or a player, manager, or general manager, and then takes off with detail and insight, weaving everything into a larger picture he desires to communicate. Sometimes his discussion gives substantial focus to people who were not on either team, such as Negro League star Buck O'Neil and major leaguer George Crowe (last with the Cards in 1961). For the Cards' black players, the segregation of the South was still something they had to endure during spring training, and they suffered many other indignities in baseball. In this book they are black players instead of players, but that is not a bother because of what Halberstam is trying to accomplish. By contrast, Halberstam sentimentally reviews the Yankee players' trials and tribulations; most were in decline, and he tries to explain why. It also must be remembered what Jackie Robinson said in the 1950s: It was Yankee management that was prejudiced, not the players; the same held true here.
Halberstam excessively dwells on Mantle's injuries and decline but fails to mention that, aside from being the most dynamic performer in the 1964 Series, Mantle was baseball's biggest offensive force in the regular season. He drove in 111 runs in only 465 at bats, and arguably should have won the MVP over Brooks Robinson. It took Cards' 1964 MVP Ken Boyer 628 at bats to get his 119 RBIs and Willie Mays 578 to get the same number as Mantle, who hit .387 with runners in scoring position and a freakishly high .424 batting right handed with 51 RBIs in 158 at bats. This underlines Halberstam's tendency to overly dwell on psychological themes at the expense of baseball analysis. Why not have a position by position size-up of the teams going into this closest of Series?
Humor/Irony: The 1964 Yanks had five black players: Howard, Al Downing, Hector Lopez, Pedro Gonzalez, and Elvio Jimenez. The Cards had Brock, Gibson, Flood, and Bill White. Can you name another? I can, but that merely makes it 5-5. Also, suppose that in 1962 Willie McCovey's series-ending line drive had fallen in. That would have meant by 1964 three consecutive World Series losses for the Yanks, first at the hands of Mays, Willie McCovey, Juan Marichal, Orlando Cepeda, Felipe and Matty Alou, and Jose Pagan. Would Halberstam have written "October 1962" if that happened? But the primary credit would have gone to the Giants' white pitchers of that pitchers' Series, as with Koufax and Drysdale when the Dodgers swept the Yanks in 1963.
Audio Cassette: I can vouch for the priorities on the cuts: The important stuff was left in. However, there is a blooper for the ages: The original has "The American League tended to rely on sluggers who were slow afoot; Mantle and Maris were exceptions." The audio cassette has "the American League tended to rely on sluggers; Mantle was the exception." Fact checking will show Halberstam himself made a few errors too.
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| "The Twilight of The Gods!" | 2009-01-30 |
| - Reviewed By User: AY7YN8E6NFY94 |
In true Halberstam form "October 1964" is an instant baseball classic. This book completes the Yankee dynasty. Mr. Halberstam writes the bookends of an old baseball dynasty the likes of which will not be seen again.
As in his depiction of a young and ostentatious Yankee team of 1949 led by the unorthodox Casey Stengel, Halberstam shows the end of the empire as an aging team trying to eke out a World Series triumph on sheer hubris.
This indeed is the end of dynastic baseball as known to New Yorkers for decades. Out with the old and in with the new!
The new is represented by a hungry and racially mixed St. Louis Cardinal team consisting of youngsters and veterans who melded into a World Series Champion by overcoming tremendous obstacles. Their way of playing baseball was aggressive and brash. Players such as Lou Brock, Curt Flood, Bill White and Bob Gibson were coming into their own and they represented the future and the new way.
The old had already begun to show their age in 1963 when the Dodgers swept them in 4 straight games. Whitey Ford and Mickey Mantle were on the other end of the hill and sliding fast. It was only by force of habit that the Yankees even won the pennant. They wouldn't win another flag for 12 seasons.
In Halberstam's flowing and readable prose, we follow the exploits of this 7 game series. In the end, it represents a major change not only in the baseball world but also a change in America's way of life. It is true that baseball imitates life.
This was written every bit as good as the "Summer of `49". Great read, 5 Stars!!
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