New York City Baseball

Book excerpt: New York City Baseball recaptures the extraordinary decade of 1947-1957, when the three New York teams were the uncrowned kings of the city. In those ten years, Casey Stengel's Bronx Bombers went to the World Series seven times; "Joltin'" Joe DiMaggio stepped gracefully aside to make room for a young slugger named Mickey Mantle; Bobby Thomson hit "the shot heard 'round the world"; and the Brooklyn Dodgers achieved the impossible by beating the Yankees in the 1955 World Series. Over the decade, the teams averaged an astounding 90 wins against 63 losses a season, making it, according to The New York Times, "a helluva ten years."