Whenever I visit the nearby public library, I always check the stacks for baseball books. The other day, I picked up “The Year of the Pitcher” by Sridharan Pappu. In it, he chronicles the 1968 baseball season, highlighted by the pitching dominance of Bob Gibson, who posted an infinitesimally small E..R.A. for the Cardinals, and Denny McLain, who won 31 games for the Tigers.
The teams would meet in the World Series, the last to be played without divisional playoffs preceding it. It was a pivotal year for Major League Baseball, and Pappu does a splendid job putting the season in the historical context of the national pastime and American history.
As Pappu tells the story, the baseball season was emblematic or at least a parallel of the racial and political tensions roiling America in the late 1960s, with the Vietnam War raging and the political assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy shocking the nation.
Gibson and McLain, products of rough-and-tumble upbringings in Omaha and Chicago, respectively, are portrayed as stand-ins for black and white America. But the story is not simple. Both men are complex characters with unique personalities and goals.
Gibson is a glowering, intimidating presence on the mound and a glowering, intimidating presence off it, challenging hitters at the plate and blowing off sports writers in the locker rooms. Yet Pappu also brings out Gibson’s sense of humor and the camaraderie he shares with his Cardinals teammates through the years.
McLain is a self-centered, ego-driven loner infuriating his teammates by missing meetings, showing up only in the nick of time for his starts and hanging out with a boozy crowd of ne’er-do-wells. Yet McLain delivers for his team, winning game after game as he battled increasingly debilitating pain in his throwing arm.
Beyond Gibson and McLain, Pappu also highlights Jackie Robinson and Johnny Sain. The former broke baseball’s color barrier, retired and turned his attention to racial justice. The latter was a successful pitcher whose impact as a pitching coach was unmatched.
I knew a fair amount about Robinson, McLain and Gibson before reading the book. I now know much more about Sain, forever remembered primarily for his part in the “Spahn and Sain and pray for rain” couplet. He was much more than that.
Even amid their successes, these four men endured hardship and tragedy. As the book progressed, I found a pervasive sadness in how things worked out for them, deaths in their families, illness, divorce and, especially for McLain, prison and disgrace.
The book recounts not only the ‘68 season but the years leading up to it and what happened to baseball in its wake. As the book’s subtitle puts it, the Year of the Pitcher marked “the End of Baseball’s Golden Age.” 🧢
The Ball Caps Blog 
Great write up Dan. Sounds like a book that raises as many questions as answers. I wasn’t yet born, but the mound being lowered after that season and the DH being added a few years later seems like seeds to the situation we’re in now with launch angles and exit velocity and swinging for the fences. I prefer the old game, but I’d be ok with the DH if it were just in the american league.
I am 100 percent in sync with you on the old game and the DH for the AL. Thanks.
At least we have a treasure chest of old games, tv and radio to choose from on you tube. Makes the winter feel less annoying.