The Boys Who Were Left Behind by John Heidenry

Heidenry and Topel have compiled a very entertaining history of one of baseball's most improbable, inspiring, and occasionally comic moments. Louis Browns, a team that had never won anything, took advantage of the depletion of the game's stars during World War II to win the American League pennant and then nearly win the World Series against their cross-town rivals, the Cardinals. He is also the art director of The Week magazine. Brett Topel is a freelance sports journalist and an adjunct professor of journalism at Adelphi University. He is the author of Theirs Was the Kingdom and What Wild Ecstasy. 'synopsis' may belong to another edition of this title. A marvel of American sportsmanship, patriotism, and boyish innocence, the Streetcar Series will forever be remembered as the best and the “worst” of an era long past. Mining a treasure trove of coverage, including on-the-spot commentary by the Hall of Fame sportswriter Bob Broeg, the authors bring this contest between baseball’s David and Goliath vividly to life, giving readers a sense of what this suspenseful six-day series must have meant both to those on the homefront and U.S. The story of this unlikely meeting between crosstown rivals-dubbed the “Streetcar Series” because so many fans took the trolley to Sportsman’s Park-is told here for the first time.

Louis Cardinals and their mvp, Stan Musial, one of the greatest hitters in baseball history.

Adding to the drama, these misfits were facing the fabled St. An ill-assorted collection of castoffs, 4-Fs, no-accounts, farm boys, and brawlers with not much more than a few minor league games under their belts, the team was playing professional ball for only one reason: the best players had been drafted or had enlisted. Louis Browns “the most astonishing ball club ever to reach the World Series,” he wasn’t handing out bouquets. When the New York Times sportswriter Arthur Daley called the 1944 St.

The Boys Who Were Left Behind by John Heidenry