Synopsis
When it was first published in 1983,Baseball's Great Experimentreceived glowing praise from virtually all quarters.The Chicago Sun-Timescalled it "a thumpingly good baseball book," and Red Barber wrote inThe New Republicthat it was "by far the most comprehensive single book on the subject." "Eminently readable," added Jonathan Yardley inThe Washington Post Book World, "not only is this a book that is long overdue, but it turns out to be a book that was well worth the wait."
Baseball's Great Experimenttells the story of one of the most explosive and far-reaching episodes in American sports history, an event now enshrined in folklore. Jackie Robinson's breaking of baseball's color barrier in 1946 shook America almost as profoundly as the Supreme Court's decision upholding desegregation in public schools a few years later. But this book doesn't end with Robinson:Baseball's Great Experimentfollows the entire saga of baseball integration through 1959, when the Boston Red Sox--the last all-white Major League team--brought up the black infielder "Pumpsie" Green from the minors. As Tygiel makes clear, the integration of baseball transformed not only American athletics, but American society as well.
Two characters tower above all others: Robinson the gifted athlete, and Branch Rickey, then president of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Tygiel goes behind the scenes to recount Rickey's meticulous planning--his motives, his search for the right player, even his handling of sportscasters. Against the backdrop of a postwar America unprepared for the Civil Rights struggle, the story proceeds from Robinson's chilly reception among teammates and opponents alike, through his daily ordeal of taunts and death threats both on and off the field, to his triumph as rookie-of-the-year, when he led the Dodgers to the 1947 World Series, and ultimate recognition as one of the greatest players of all time.
Robinson, however, was only the first of many blacks to play in the Majors, andBaseball's Great Experimenttraces the complete, painfully slow process of desegregation, in the process telling the often neglected stories of men like Larry Doby, Satchel Paige, Roy Campanella, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, and many other pioneers. Tygiel also offers a unique look at integration in the minor leagues, and the role that the lifting of the color barrier played in the battle against Jim Crow in the South.
Based on interviews with dozens of players and baseball executives, contemporary newspaper accounts, and the personal papers of those who were there, this is the moving story of true courage--an unforgettable re-creation of a bygone era in America.