The Boys of Summer

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The Boys of Summer by Roger Kahn came out nearly fifty years ago. Since it was published many have recommended it to me. For who knows what reason, I just picked it up last week.

The Boys of Summer is a very good book that got more engaging the more I read.  It was one of those reads that I did not want to end.  I finished it in a library and looked around to see if there were newer editions which might have more inclusions. The edition I read had a late 1990s addendum so I thought that since the author is still alive, he may have included more stories. I discovered that I had read an edition that included all the subsequent additions.

The Boys of Summer can seem like two separate books. Initially I thought they were so distinct that it should have been two separate books, but later I thought the connection was less tenuous. The first part of the book describes how the author got his job covering the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1952 and 1953. There is a good deal about him growing up, his folks, the steps he took to become a journalist, and some stories about the 52 and 53 Dodgers.  

The second part is "where are they now?" That is, where are the Dodgers in 1971 that he covered in 1952 and 1953. Where is Preacher Roe, Andy Pafko, Jackie Robinson, Billy Cox, Pee Wee Reese, Carl Furillo, Gil Hodges, Joe Black, Duke Snider, Carl Erskine.  In 1971 he was able to meet up with these ex players and learn how they had fared once the summer ended.

Now most if not all the people he interviewed in '71 are dead.  Jackie Robinson And Gil Hodges died  very shortly after the book was published. Carl Erskine and the author are alive, but the rest are gone.  

Where are they now books may be more popular now than they had been when The Boys of Summer was published. One of the reasons for the book's enormous popularity could be that there were fewer such books at the time. Also, the book was about a team that was beloved among New Yorkers. Reading about the Dodgers to many was an opportunity to relive young years.

 But the book, to me, is more than about the Brooklyn Dodgers.  We all have our summers, and we are all boys and girls of summer at one point—but then there is fall and winter.  The people who come out the best in the book are Pee Wee Reese, clearly number one, and Jackie Robinson. Some others kept their heads up and were mensches. Others fell on hard times or took routes to hard times. 

Billy Cox went home to an area that was very racist,  Furillo retained anger that was debilitating.  The people who fared the best were those who, like Reese, dodged the inevitable toxins and did not "give way to hating."

There are several good stories in the book, but my favorite is how Reese, when Robinson was getting berated by racists, walked across the diamond from his shortstop position and put his arm around Robinson at first.  And Reese was from Kentucky.  When Robinson was promoted to the Dodgers, several players approached Reese and asked him to sign a petition refusing to play with Robinson. Reese, refused to sign.  

I had heard of nearly all the people Kahn interviewed, but did not really know the Dodgers of 52 and 53. My consciousness with baseball arrives when Don Larsen pitched his perfect game in 1956.   One could contend, I suppose, that I like the book because it was about baseball regardless of the era. Yet, I think anyone who is interested in what happens to people past their prime, will find the book engaging.

The title comes from the first line of a Dylan Thomas poem. "I see the boys of summer in their ruin."

We are all, as I wrote above, boys and girls of summer.  We have our moments in the sun.  What happens in the fall and how we decay is up to us and the choices we make..