Halberstam has once again given us an absorbing tale of an exciting season and a great Word Series that reflected a changing era in both baseball and the rest of society as well: The fabric that insulated baseball from the turmoil in the rest of the country was beginning to tear. Louis Cardinals were a young tough team on the ascent, featuring talented black players - Bob Gibson, Curt Flood, Lou Brock, and Bill White - who were changing the very nature of the game with their unprecedented speed and power. Though the Yankees boasted such great names as Mantle, Maris, and Ford, theirs was an aging team: Mantle, hobbled by injuries, was facing his last hurrah in post-season play. The Yankees, like most American League teams, reflected the status quo and, in contrast to the National League teams, had been slow to sign the new great black players (indeed, for a time, their best scouts were ordered not to sign them). Like the previous book, it is both sports and history, and it is a fascinating account of an electrifying baseball championship against the background of profound social change.

October 1964 is Halberstam's exciting new book about baseball - this time about the last season of that Yankee dynasty. October 1964 / David Halberstam Book Bib ID

October 1964 by David Halberstam