The New Boys of Summer: Baseball’s Radical Transformation in the Late Sixties

Baseball historian Hensler (The American League in Transition, 1965–1975) delivers an excellent examination of the ways that America’s national pastime was challenged by the cultural changes affecting the country in 1968 and 1969. Each chapter explores individual topics that delineate how baseball “ended its mid-twentieth-century stodginess” and moved into a “modern era punctuated by other changes that were radical in nature.” Among these topics are the expansion of the American and National Leagues to new cities such as Kansas City, intended to compete with the growing popularity of football; the influence Marvin Miller had as director of the Major League Baseball Players Association in leading “baseball’s labor force” into a new era of financial gains; the rise of computer technology (such as the IBM System/360) to enhance and change the use of statistics; and the ways that advocates for racial equality pushed management to increase the presence of minority players on MLB teams. Hensler’s book is an enlightening look at the many ways baseball became the game we know today. (Oct.)