Bridging Two Dynasties: The 1947 New York Yankees ed. by Lyle Spatz (review)

The 1947 New York Yankees seem the most unlikely of the storied franchise’s twenty-seven World Series championship teams through 2013. Given little chance to unseat the mighty Boston Red Sox as the American League pennant winner, the 1947 Yankees were a team in transition. The club was sold in 1945, legendary manager Joe McCarthy (who had led the team to seven titles) was fired in 1946, and long-time Washington Senators skipper Bucky Harris was an improbably choice to pilot the club. Nevertheless, led by the venerable Joe DiMaggio, rookie Yogi Berra, and a cast of overachieving, cagey veterans, and poised youngsters, the squad won a then record nineteen consecutive games and cruised to the pennant. Published by the University of Nebraska and the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), Bridging Two Dynasties documents this unheralded team and its surprising season with detailed biographies of its players, coaching staff, ownership, and broadcasters while providing a historical context for the team’s success.

Edited by Lyle Spatz, Bridging Two Dynasties consists of seventy-four chapters, beginning with four insightful essays setting the stage for the1947 season. Mark Armour and Dan Levitt discuss how Larry McPhail, Del Webb, and Dan Topping purchased the club in January of 1945; Art Spanjer recounts the behind-the-scenes maneuvering in the team’s unexpected hiring of Bucky Harris. Following Walter LeConte and Bill Nowlin’s review of spring training, Jeffrey Marlett investigates the Yankees’ role in the year-long suspension of Leo Durocher, manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Additional essays, such as Sol Gittleman’s “Reynolds, Raschi, and the Building Blocks of a Dynasty,” and those summarizing regular season games and the World Series help round out the volume.

Baseballs fans may associate advanced, complicated statistical analysis with SABR; however, SABR appeals to more than just stat-fanatics. Founded in 1971 at the Baseball Hall of Fame, SABR is committed to preserving baseball history with a scholarly approach. In this context, Bridging Two Dynasties is an invaluable contribution to baseball history. The overwhelming majority of the volume consists of the biographies of each member of the team and coaching staff. The biographies average about 4,000 words in length and trace the individual’s career in baseball, from his earliest influences as an adolescent through the minor and major leagues. Though some players, such as DiMaggio, Berra, and Phil Rizzuto have been the topic of full-length books, many of the players, like Jack Phillips, Ted Sepkowski, and Butch Wensloff, were well removed from the limelight during their careers, and most have faded from memory since their retirement.

The individual biographies provide a human face to the players and coaching staff without falling into the trappings of sentimentality and hero-worship. After years of depleted rosters due to World War II, the Yankees were again at full strength, but many players seemed out of place to Yankees fans, such as George McQuinn, a career St. Louis Brown, who was acquired in the offseason and held down first base; or completely unknown like future American League President, rookie Bobby Brown. The reader learns about the players’ personal and team successes but also about their frailty and struggles during and after their big-league career. Mark Stewart traces the rise of Aaron Robinson’s development into an All-Star catcher in 1947, only to be unseated by Yogi Berra the following year; Chip Greene recounts the rise of slugging leftfielder Charlie Keller who seemed destined for stardom until back injury suffered in 1947 effectively ended his career; Nicholas Diunte writes about the career of journeyman pitcher Don Johnson who was shot in the head and almost died while a cab driver long after his career ended; and Warren Corbett provides a detailed view of Mel Allen, the voice of the New York Yankees for twenty-six years and how the most prominent radio announcer in America evolved...