The Era, Roger Kahn's most important book since The Boys of Summer, chronicles the golden age of modern baseball by following the Yankees, the Giants, and the Dodgers from 1947 - the year of racial integration - through 1957, when the Giants and the Dodgers moved to California. During these eleven seasons the three teams dominated the game. Those years, when baseball was America's unrivaled national sport, saw the integration of the major leagues, the dominance of the Yankees, the arrival of television on the sports scene, and the ascendancy of the United States as a world power. Roger Kahn's keen eye and sharp pen bring it all to life again.The Era starts with Jackie Robinson taking the field for the Dodgers, the first black man ever to play major league baseball. Joe DiMaggio is brooding after an off season. The Giants languish under the bland leadership of genial Mel Ott. The decade that follows witnesses some of the most extraordinary events in the history of sport: the brilliant success of Robinson, followed by the signing of Roy Campanella and Don Newcombe; the controversial retirement of the Yankee Clipper; the bursts to stardom of Yogi Berra, Bobby Thomson, Mickey Mantle, Duke Snider, and Willie Mays; Leo Durocher's move from Brooklyn to New York and his building of "my kind of team"; and the wizardly managing of the man Kahn calls Field Marshal Casey von Stengel. The Yankees play in nine out of eleven World Series. The great career of Branch Rickey rises, peaks, and winds down. A little-known collection lawyer named Walter O'Malley obtains control of the Brooklyn Dodgers. As the Era concludes, O'Malley uproots the Dodgers from Brooklyn to Los Angeles, and the physiognomy of baseball is changed forever.Roger Kahn's The Boys of Summer is one of the all-time classics of baseball storytelling. Now Kahn turns his attention to the greatest age of baseball. He brings to the task an unrivaled eye for the sport and a lifetime of writing about the game. The result is a grand slam of a book as fresh, controversial, and original as his previous masterpiece. The Era is a contribution to baseball and a contribution to Americana. It brings back the golden age of baseball through the pen of our golden baseball writer. Read Less