The Year of the Pitcher: Bob Gibson, Denny McLain, and the End of Baseball’s Golden Age by Sridhar Pappu (review)

Sridhar Pappu set out to write a book that would show that a baseball team (the Detroit Tigers) helped calm a volatile situation in one of the most devastated cities in the United States following the riots during the summer of 1967. As he admits, he was unable to accomplish this. What did happen is an excellent book about three flawed individuals who were great ball players in their times, but who suffered with the fame that came from playing the game.

The 1960s were one of the most turbulent times in American history and baseball was becoming more distant from the events that were shaking the nation. Baseball’s leadership continued to keep their heads in the past (in the sand?) and were generally out of touch with what was happening in America. They were men from a different generation, a generation when employees and young men were expected to do their duty and keep their mouths shut.

Bob Gibson and Denny McLain could not keep their mouths shut. While Gibson is often seen as taciturn and difficult, he could speak eloquently about the injustices he saw a black man living in one of the most racist cities in the major leagues. Denny McLain just could not keep his mouth shut. The third man who figured strongly in Pappu’s book is one who he did not even expect to appear, Jackie Robinson. Pappu found Robinson popping up in his research regularly as Robinson continued his on-going efforts to find a place for blacks in baseball management.

Pappu sets the stage for the 1968 season and World Series through relating what led to it. How did Bob Gibson become Bob Gibson? How did Denny McLain become Denny McLain? What was so special about 1968 for baseball and America? He relates the story of a battered Detroit during, and after, the 1967 riots. This was to be the premise of his book, that the Detroit Tigers had saved the city of Detroit in the aftermath of the riots. Pappu came to the realization that this was not the case. That even after the Tigers won the emotional 1968 World Series nothing had changed for Detroit and Detroiters.

At the same time, Pappu examined Bob Gibson, who would not agree to an interview for the book, and explored what made Gibson so great as a pitcher and bitter as a person. Gibson’s competitive nature is well-documented and once Gibson was able to harness his talent as a pitcher he could intimidate hitters due to his pin-point control. As a young black man growing up in Omaha, traveling through the minor league teams in the South and becoming a pitcher in St. Louis, Gibson encountered every kind of prejudice and he could not countenance the indignities that he felt he and his family suffered.

While this book serves somewhat as a dual biography (Gibson and McLain), it also serves as a portrait of a troubled time in America. African Americans were standing up for their rights as citizens of the United States and as human beings. Many whites feared this behavior by baseball players and other athletes. Many people wondered why Bob Gibson could not be more like Willie Mays, an African American who always seemed to make friends with everyone.

Gibson was more in the mold of Jackie Robinson. Robinson was a fierce competitor on the field, and while his early career in retirement did not hint of any political desire, he found himself embroiled in several different issues dealing with race in the 1960s. An early supporter of Richard Nixon, and a member of Nelson Rockefeller’s circle, Robinson eventually found himself moving to support the Democratic candidate for president in 1968, Hubert Humphrey. As time passed Robinson was more out of touch with African...