Reel Baseball

Reel Baseball is an enchanting look back at baseball from 1932 to 1965, a time when major league teams were franchised only in America's biggest cities in the East. Back then, most Americans who witnessed baseball did so in local theaters where game highlights were shown in the newsreels before the feature film.This handsomely illustrated, two-color volume traces the seminal role of newsreels in making baseball the national pastime, before major league teams expanded to the South and West and television brought the game into homes across America. A one-hour DVD accompanies the book and presents the most thrilling moments from these original newsreels

A grand compilation of baseball at its best, Reel Baseball invites fans to both read about and watch, on the accompanying DVD, Babe Ruth as he smashed a home run in the very first All-Star Game in 1933; Bobby Thomson of the New York Giants as his bat cracked the "shot heard round the world," winning the pennant with a home run against the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1951; and Pete Gray, the "one-armed wonder" who amazed St. Louis Browns fans in 1944. The book and DVD brilliantly capture the magic of "Joltin' Joe" DiMaggio, the "Say Hey Kid" (Willie Mays), "Stan the Man" Musial,and other legendary players who elevated the boys of summer to the pinnacle of American popular culture.