DescriptionThis episode of Bob Hope's classic NBC radio show, broadcast from New York City, originally aired on October 11, 1949. Bob Hope made his radio debut on NBC in May 1937. He became a top-rated fixture on Tuesday nights with his theme song, "Thanks for the Memories". His legendary broadcasts from military bases around the world helped boost American morale during the dark days of World War II. Over the years, his radio regulars included Jerry Colonna, Brenda and Cobina, Vera Vague, Wendall Niles, and orchestras led by Skinnay Ennis and Les Brown. Featured singers on the show included Judy Garland, Frances Langford, Doris Day, and Gloria Jean. Hope's radio career lasted well into the mid-1950s. By then, he had become a major movie and television star. He died on July 29, 2003, at the age of 100.
DescriptionSet in the suburbs of New York in the 1950s, Wait Till Next Year is Doris Kearns Goodwin's touching memoir of growing up in love with her family and baseball. She re-creates the postwar era, when the corner store was a place to share stories and neighborhoods were equally divided between Dodger, Giant, and Yankee fans. We meet the people who most influenced Goodwin's early life: her mother, who taught her the joy of reading but whose debilitating illness left her housebound, and her father, who taught her the joy of baseball and to root for the Dodgers of Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, Pee Wee Reese, Duke Snider, and Gil Hodges. Goodwin describes with eloquence how the Dodgers' departure from Brooklyn in 1957, and the death of her mother soon after, marked both the end of an era and, for her, the end of childhood.
DescriptionIn the aftermath of the global conflict of World War II, few events in the United States were as eagerly awaited as baseball's spring training. But the national pastime was as unsettled as the rest of the country. Had some of the stars seen their careers ended by their service? How would wartime players fare against returning veterans? Those questions would be answered as the season unfolded, a dramatic season that included challenges to baseball's traditional status from the rival Mexican league; Jackie Robinson's signing by the Brooklyn Dodgers; a pennant race in the National League that ended in the first tie in history; and a World Series culminated in the seventh game by Enos Slaughter's legendary dash from first to home.
DescriptionOn a spring day in 1947, Mr. Rickey, the powerful General Manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, summons heavyweight champion Joe Louis, tap star Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, and actor Paul Robeson to his hotel room in Manhattan. Rickey wants their support when he taps Jackie Robinson to be the Major League's first black ballplayer. But a power struggle ensues when the eloquent Robeson raises questions about Rickey's motivations to integrate white baseball.
DescriptionIt is 1947, the year Jackie Robinson breaks Major League Baseball's color barrier by playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers and changes the world. This is the story of that season, as told through the eyes of a difficult, brooding, and wounded man named Joseph Burke. Burke, a veteran of World War II and a survivor of Guadalcanal, is hired by Brooklyn Dodgers President and General Manager Branch Rickey to guard Robinson. While Burke shadows Robinson, a man of tremendous strength and character suddenly thrust into the media spotlight, the bodyguard must also face some hard truths of his own, in a world where the wrong associations can prove fatal. A brilliant novel about a very real man, Double Play is a triumph: ingeniously crafted, rich with period detail, and resounding with the themes familiar to Parker's readers: honor, duty, responsibility, and redemption.
