| Baseball's Great Experiment: Jackie Robinson and His Legacy |  | Author: Jules Tygiel
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 342556
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 404
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.7
Dimensions (in): 9.6 x 6.5 x 1.2
ISBN: 0195033000
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.3570924
EAN: 9780195033007
ASIN: 0195033000
Publication Date: July 28, 1983
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Former Library book. Shows definite wear, and perhaps considerable marking on inside. 100% Money Back Guarantee. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy!
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
In 1997 the American people will celebrate with great fanfare and publicity the fiftieth anniversary of Jackie Robinson's explosive entrance into major league baseball. Robinson has become a national icon, his name a virtual synonym for pathbreaker. Indeed, much has transpired between this young African-American's first bold strides around the baseball diamonds of a segregated America and General Manager Bob Watson's pride in assembling 1996 World Champion New York Yankees. Recognizing this monumental event in America's continuing struggle for integration, Jules Tygiel has expanded his highly acclaimed Baseball's Great Experiment. In a new afterword, he addresses the mythology surrounding Robinson's achievements, his overall effect on baseball and other sports, and the enduring legacy Robinson has left for African Americans and American society.
In this gripping account of one of the most important steps in the history of American desegregation, Tygiel tells the story of Jackie Robinson's crossing of baseball's color line. Examining the social and historical context of Robinson's introduction into white organized baseball, both on and off the field, Tygiel also tells the often neglected stories of other African-American players--such as Satchel Paige, Roy Campanella, Willie Mays, and Hank Aaron--who helped transform our national pastime into an integrated game. Drawing on dozens of interviews with players and front office executives, contemporary newspaper accounts, and personal papers, Tygiel provides the most telling and insightful account of Jackie Robinson's influence on American baseball and society.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
 Baseball as History February 22, 2008
9 out of 10 found this review helpful
This is the book from which John McCain and his ghost writer "borrowed" most of the content, both of facts and of rhetoric, for the first chapter of McCain's "Hard Call". The ghost does acknowledge Tygiel, but merely in passing.
And this is surely the deepest historical biography of any sports figure ever written. Jules Tygiel is a professor of history at San Francisco State University, and the author of a fine dispassionate biography of Ronald Reagan, as well as the book "Baseball As History", which quite brilliantly examines the culture of America in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries through the lens of baseball.
You can read "Baseball's Great Experiment" simply for pleasure, as a baseball lover, or you can read it for historical insight, which it offers aplenty. It's a great irony that baseball and the army were integrated meaningfully long before corporate business, the mainline Christian churches, the federal bureaucracy, or academia!
Tygiel writes firm straight-forward prose, with a minimum of sermonizing (McCain's big fault as a writer) or academic pomposity. His portrayals of Branch Rickey and Jackie Robinson are well-rounded and believable, with both their strengths and their weaknesses. Even if you have a total indifference to baseball, you'll find the human drama fascinating.
As for yours truly... Do it again, Red Sox!
Real Eye-Opener April 11, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
THis is a wonderful book that I can't praise enough. If you - like me - have been putting off reading about Jackie Robinson and the other black baseball pioneers of the late 1940's and 1950's, this is the book for you. It's a shocking description of just what life was like for blacks at that time. It's a real eye-opener that needs to be read by all baseball fans and all students of American history.
 Exceeds Expectations December 12, 2001
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
I purchased this book to learn more about Jackie Robinson and his relationship with Branch Rickey. Jules Tygiel gave me that (in an unbiased, thorough manner with great historical perspective) and then some! I gained an increased appreciation for the role of the Negro Leagues in the development of Major League baseball. I gained insight into the changing perceptions of baseball management, players and fans toward African-Americans and their contributions to the game. I was momentarily transported to that time, not as long ago as I would have thought, where non-white players were treated as second-class citizens. It was really an eye-opener. In addition, Mr. Tygiel's style was so honest and even-handed that I can't wait to read his book, "Past Time: Baseball As History," which I ordered today!
Well Done September 1, 2001
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
This scholarly yet readable look at baseball integration from 1947-1959 goes well beyond the inspiring story of Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey. Author Jules Tygiel also informs about such secondary figures as Larry Doby, Bill Veeck, Hank Aaron, Pumpsie Green, etc. Tygiel shows that integration proceeded slowly and in the face of strong resistance - the Boston Red Sox didn't add a black player until 1959, three years after Jackie Robinson retired. We also see how baseball integration spurred civil rights, while hastening the end of the Negro Leagues. I'd have liked more coverage of baseball's declining attendance after 1949 (probably caused by television), and the suspected correlation between athletic dominance and underclass poverty. Still, BASEBALL'S GREAT EXPERIMENT is a well-researched look at an interesting period in sports history.
A book that increased my understanding July 27, 2000
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
I have a better understanding of integregation and how it affected every American no matter what his race or beliefs. Baseball was a pioneering vechicle for social questioning and challenged many men other than Branch Rickey and Jackie Robinson into greatness. They were courageous men who had to fight convention and who lead other Americans to follow their example. I realize the impact integration had on everyone involved Black or White: the team owners, the players, broadcasters, vendors, and families. Many individuals sacrificed to improve their freedom and the freedom given to other humans. Mr. Rickey and Mr. Robinson are not portrayed as mythological figures but rather as real men I can respect more because they are like all of us. I am convinced that Mr. Robinson endured because he had strong character and determination and he believed in "the experiment." I feel I know him better now that I know more about his struggles and triumphs. I kept reading because everything was explained simply and with logic and with an absence of bias.
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