The Golden Age

The story of baseball and New York post-World War II—a rise-and-fall tale of brilliance, explosive wealth, and the cultural earthquake that changed the sport, the city, and the country

After the war, New York seemed indestructible, the invincible hub of finance, fashion, art, power—and baseball.

The Golden Age transports readers through the next three decades, from 1945 to the mid-1970s: a time when the gods lived among us (but were still paid like human beings), and the legends on the Giants and Dodgers and Yankees walked and even played stickball in the streets of Washington Heights, Brighton Beach, and Staten Island; the era of Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, Duke Snider, Jackie Robinson, Yogi Berra, Casey Stengel, Sandy Amoros, and so many more. But hubris and changing global economics pushed New York to the edge, as corruption, crime, deindustrialization, drug addiction, riots, and near ruin descended upon the city. The Giants and the Dodgers fled, convinced that New York was finished, one more aging eastern city that would never recover.

Onto this stage stepped the Mets, a “satire of a baseball team,” Baker writes, but one perfect for the moment. Their dark horse run to the 1969 World Series injected a new energy and hope into a city plagued by despair, and the sport has never been the same since.

In this riveting and rollicking ode to America’s favorite pastime, Baker pays homage to the sport’s indomitable home city, the catalyst for baseball’s rapid changes, including a huge influx of money to the sport and the desegregation of the game in 1945, when Jackie Robinson signed with the Dodgers. From the diamonds and bleachers to the streets of Jackson Heights and Arthur Avenue, to the new wonder of television, and the dazzling nightclubs where ballplayers drank and brawled in their off-field hours, this character-driven portrayal of baseball’s golden years will leave diehard fans and those who have just discovered the game charmed, fascinated, and nostalgic.