* Author Q&A: Michael Shapiro

June 12, 2009

Metsmerizedonline posted this interview with the author of Bottom of the Ninth.


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Tagged as: Dodgers, Giants, Mets, Michael Shapiro, Walter O'Malley

{ 1 comment }

1 BaseballinDC July 20, 2009 at 2:14 pm

I just finished reading BOTN – very interesting recollection of events that propelled MLB’s expansion in the early 1960s.

Most interesting was Branch Rickey’s vision for a new league, which would operate differently than the established ones. Had it succeeded, baseball would have been much more successful at a much earlier time in its history. Very interesting parallels between the Continental League and AFL. I can understand why the existing leagues resisted – the real failure in my view was that of the perspective Continental League owners who used Rickey to get their real goal – a seat at the MLB table – rather than his vision of a better way to run a baseball league.

On the other hand, I found the story revolving around Casey Stengel to be an amusing but not very relevant to the main story line – it was more like two tails from the late 50s (the Continental League and the passing of Casey Stengel from baseball) than one really cohesive tale.

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