1962: Baseball and America in the Time of JFK by David Krell (review)

The old jingle for Certs mints ads used to tout they were "two, two, two mints in one." Well, 1962: Baseball and America in the Time of JFK is three, three, three books in one. Somehow managing to have it all make sense, David Krell takes readers through an exhaustively researched mix of baseball, history, and pop culture.

There is plenty of baseball here, enough for any fan. Nineteen sixty-two saw the expansion of the National League with the addition of the Houston Colt .45s and what would be legendarily known as the hapless New York Mets. The year before, the American League had brought in the Los Angeles Angels and a second incarnation of the Washington Senators.

As evidence of his extensive research, Krell provides detailed and often colorful profiles on the players who would make up the first rosters of these expansion teams.

Drama on the field was heavy on the West Coast with the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants needing a playoff game to determine the NL pennant winner. The Giants prevailed and went on to the World Series where they lost 4–3 to the New York Yankees.

The Dodgers may have lost the pennant, but 1962 found the team playing in Dodger Stadium. Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley made sure his new stadium in Chavez Ravine had every amenity a player or fan might want. As Krell discusses, the road to building Dodger Stadium was filled with obstacles ranging from negotiations for mineral rights with the city, the construction of an oil well, and disgruntled residents having to move from the area.

Krell reveals how Houston and New York used the leverage of the Continental League, which never got off the ground, in order to land their teams.

Just like the Colt .45s and the Mets, the Dodgers and Giants rosters of 1962 are colorfully and extensively profiled, from Don Drysdale and Sandy Koufax of the Dodgers through Giants stars Willie Mays and Willie McCovey along with lesser players. The New York Yankees, winners of the 1962 World Series against the Giants, also are given similar treatment along with a game-by-game review of the Fall Classic.

Krell's grasps of history and popular culture are equally as researched. There are thirty-three pages of notes as evidence of his hard work, including telephone interviews dating back several years from publication.

There are surprise nuggets all throughout the book. How many times are you going to find the rise and fall of "Romper Room's" original host Sherri Chessen and the sad life of Marilyn Monroe chronicled in the same volume along with the debuts of The Beatles and The Beach Boys and the complexities of pitcher Bo Belinsky?

Readers are taken on trips through the opening days of the space race with President Kennedy making what then seemed an impossible goal of reaching the moon by the end of the decade. They are there as Kennedy deals with the Cuban Missile Crisis, which put Russia and the United States on the path to nuclear war for thirteen tension filled days.

On a lighter note, Krell provides insight into what people were watching on television, what movies they were buying tickets for, what plays were shining on Broadway marquees, and what books were at the top of the bestseller lists.

In addition to the usual digging into newspaper and magazine articles and videos, Krell tracked down many personal interviews, including some of those involved in the times like actress Stephanie Powers. When those who were making a name for themselves in 1962 were no longer alive, Krell uses previously published interviews as well as one-on-one interviews with their children such as Chris Lemmon's remembrances of his father, Academy Award winning actor Jack Lemmon and Katherine Quinn, widow of Anthony Quinn, about his movies screened in 1962.

As an exclamation point on the depth of Krell's research...