In 1960, Major League Baseball reached a crossroads in its history. Facing a challenge from the Continental Baseball League, the owners of the original 16 major league teams elected to admit new clubs. This in-depth look at that pivotal season--the last played with only the original 16 teams--follows the New York Yankees and the Pittsburgh Pirates on their march to the 1960 World Series. The trials and triumphs of these two teams reflect the changes, large and small, that came to define the sport in the following decades--surnames on the backs of the uniforms, exploding scoreboards, the increasing impact of international players, and foremost of all, expansion. Marking the end of the "Golden Age" of baseball and the beginning of the ascendancy of professional football as the national pastime, this historic season witnessed the intersection of the past and future of American professional sports.

The Flame and the Arrow constitutes an important work in film score history beause not only a film score master wrote it but also because it shows the shift Hollywood underwent during the 1950s towards a more realistic style and a sparser use of film music. In this way, The Flame and the Arrow represents the end of an era, the Golden Era of Film Music.

The 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates were a special team--team being the operative word. There were no superstars, although Roberto Clemente would become one, and nobody had a record season. The Battling Bucs frequently came from behind to win late in the game, with Pirates broadcaster Bob Prince signing off, "We had 'em all the way." Pittsburgh was the Sad Sack of baseball through most of the 1950s, and as the Pirates grabbed the National League lead early in the 1960 season, fans wondered if the guys in vest-shirts and black sleeves could indeed hang on. And then there was the World Series, the one everybody but the Pirates thought would be won by the Yankees, in which Bill Mazeroski provided the most dramatic finish of all sports championships. This book, featuring interviews with Clemente, Dick Groat, Bob Friend and Dick Schofield, chronicles the Pirates of 1960--a team of friends--and their push through a long and magical season.

The New York Yankees were the strongest team in the majors from 1948 through 1960, capturing the American League Pennant 10 times and winning seven World Championships. The average fan, when asked who made the team so dominant, will mention Joe DiMaggio, Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford or Mickey Mantle. Some will insist manager Casey Stengel was the key. But pundits at the time, and respected historians today, consider the shy, often taciturn George Martin Weiss the real genius behind the Yankees' success. Weiss loved baseball but lacked the ability to play. He made up for it with the savvy to run a team better than his competitors. He spent more than 50 years in the game, including nearly 30 with the Yankees. Before becoming their general manager, he created their superlative farm system that supplied the club with talented players. When the Yankees retired him at 67, the newly franchised New York Mets immediately hired him to build their team. This book is the first definitive biography of Weiss, a Hall of Famer hailed for contributing "as much to baseball as any man the game could ever know."

Sweet ’60: The 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates is the joint product of 44 authors and editors from the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) who have pooled their efforts to create a portrait of the 1960 team which pulled off one of the biggest upsets of the last 60 years. Game Seven of the 1960 World Series between the Pirates and the Yankees swung back and forth. Heading into the bottom of the eighth inning at Forbes Field, the Yankees had outscored the Pirates, 53-21, and held a 7–4 lead in the deciding game. The Pirates hadn’t won a World Championship since 1925, while the Yanks had won 17 of them in the same stretch of time, seven of the preceding 11 years. The Pirates scored five times in the bottom of the eighth and took the lead, only to cough it up in the top of the ninth. The game was tied 9–9 in the bottom of the ninth. At 3:36, Bill Mazeroski swung at Ralph Terry’s slider. As Curt Smith writes in these pages: “There goes a long drive hit deep to left field!” said Gunner. “Going back is Yogi Berra! Going back! You can kiss it good-bye!” No smooch was ever lovelier. “How did we do it, Possum? How did we do it?” Prince said finally, din all around. Woods didn’t know—only that, “I’m looking at the wildest thing since I was on Hollywood Boulevard the night World War II ended.” David had toppled Goliath. It was a blow that awakened a generation, one that millions of people saw on television, one of TV’s first iconic World Series moments.

Indiana boasts a rich baseball tradition, with 10 native sons enshrined in Cooperstown. This biographical dictionary provides a close look at the lives of all 364 Hoosier big leaguers, who include New York City's first baseball superstar; the first rookie pitcher to win three games in a World Series; the man who caught most of Cy Young's record 511 career wins; one of the game's first star relievers; the player who held the record for consecutive games played before Lou Gehrig; an obscure infielder mentioned in Charles Schulz's Peanuts comic strip; baseball's only one-legged pitcher; Indiana's first Mr. Basketball, who became one of baseball's greatest pinch-hitters; the first African American to play for the Cincinnati Reds; the only pitcher to throw a perfect game in the World Series; the skipper of the 1969 "Miracle Mets"; the pitcher for whom a ground-breaking surgical procedure is named; and the only two men to have played in both the World Series and the Final Four of the NCAA Basketball Tournament.