1962

This is a book with a really promising idea, which unfortunately is somewhat confusingly organized, making for a disjointed reading experience.

For this book, the Pros all center on the amount of research that went into it. David Krell has clearly done his homework, and there are some great nuggets of writing about events in America in 1962. He does a great job providing in depth storytelling around the creation of the two baseball expansion teams of 1962 (the Mets and the Houston Colt-45s), especially the Houston team. And you get some in depth biographies of individual baseball players, as well as good commentary on other important figures and events in 1962 America.

The Cons all center on how the author organized the material. Each of the book's 12 chapters has two heading - the calendar month January through December, and then a thematic or topical chapter name that relates to the bulk of what's covered in the chapter. To be honest with you, I completely glossed over the month chapter titles until I got to July, since the book is NOT really chronologically organized. The October through December chapters are more centered on events that occurred during those months than any of the earlier chapters, which will have events from the month at the beginning or end of the chapter - in some cases only a couple of paragraphs - before the topical thrust of the chapter sets in.

The title of the book would lead you to believe that you'll be reading about the 1962 baseball season. I so wish the author had structured the book that way, so that the biographies of the players would come naturally out of the stories of their play during the season. As it is, they are arranged within rosters of each of the teams he covers, and so feel very disjointed. Likewise, the topics of each chapter, though some of them really interesting, don't build on each other.

If you are a baseball fan, and you are interested in events in the early 1960s, this book has a wealth of information and, if you can get past the issues with the organization of the material, may be worth your time.

This book brought back memories for me. 1962 was the year that I initially became more than passably interested in baseball, and I memorized the lineups of both world Series teams (S.F. Giants and the N.Y. Yankees). I cheered for the Giants because I lived in the community where Chuck Hiller grew up (who hit a grand slam in the second game) and for a short period of time after the series, he and his family lived a half block away from me. John F. Kennedy was the first president I remember being aware of, and John Glenn was a household name.

Author David Krell does not stop with the obvious people, however. He has delved deep into the space race, politics, and baseball to offer us a book steeped in the knowledge of these niches. Mr. Krell provides what seems to be an endless supply of stories and anecdotes, slices of life of those who were living and providing a backdrop to what the rest of us were doing. As a child, they were bigger than life. As an adult, some of the magic wears off, yet it is still interesting to learn about the lives of those I only could see in the papers or through television.

“1962” provides all that and more. Most of the baseball lore centers around the teams in the World Series, teams that had moved cities and those teams that found their way into a growing league (Houston Colt 45s and the New York Mets). Political stories are not limited to JFK, they extend into others working in the government. There were also stories about the space race I had not heard before. These three areas provide plenty of opportunities for the author to find interesting tidbits and fill up an entire book.

Some of the stories/anecdotes last for a few pages while others only take up a few paragraphs. This would make it easy to set the book down and return later, not worried about trying to figure out where in the story you left off. Well researched, and enjoyable not only for those who witnessed some of the action firsthand, but also for those who wish to take a look back at how some of the world was before larger events in the 1960s took over. Five stars.

My thanks to NetGalley and the University of Nebraska Press for a complimentary electronic copy of this book.