On a chilly Sunday, December 7, 1941, major league baseball's
owners gathered in Chicago for their annual winter meetings, just
two months after one of baseball's greatest seasons. For the
owners, the attack on Pearl Harbor that morning was also an attack
on baseball. They feared a complete shutdown of the coming 1942
season and worried about players they might lose to military
service. But with the support of President Franklin D. Roosevelt,
the national pastime continued. The Nats and the Grays: How
Baseball in the Nation's Capital Survived WWII and Changed the Game
Forever examines the impact of the war on the two teams in
Washington, DC-the Nationals of the American League and the
Homestead Grays of the Negro Leagues-as well as the impact of the
war on major league baseball as a whole. Each chapter is devoted to
a wartime year, beginning with 1941 and ending with the return of
peacetime in 1946, including the exciting American League pennant
races of 1942-1945. This account details how the strong friendship
between FDR and Nationals team owner Clark Griffith kept the game
alive throughout the war, despite numerous calls to shut it down;
the constant uncertainties the game faced each season as the
military draft, federal mandates, national rationing, and other
wartime regulations affected the sport; and the Negro Leagues'
struggle for recognition, solvency, and integration. In addition to
recounting the Nationals' and the Grays' battles on and off the
field during the war, this book looks beyond baseball and details
the critical events that were taking place on the home front, such
as the creation of the GI Bill, the internment of Japanese
Americans, labor strikes, and the fight for racial equality. World
War II buffs, Negro League historians, baseball enthusiasts, and
fans of the present-day Washington Nationals will all find this
book on wartime baseball a fascinating and informative read.
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