audiobook Ireland's Great Famine in Irish-American History: Enshrining a Fateful Memory by Mary Kelly PhD superintendent of schools Amityville Union Free School District Amityville New York in History

Description

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.