The 1957 PCL season faced uncertainty about the impending "invasion of major league baseball" in 1958. While the meetings, wheeling and dealing and politics took place off the diamond, the historic San Francisco Seals, a charter member of the Golden Era of the league, 1903-1957, played baseball and clinched the pennant two days before the season ended. We follow this team one game at a time as players faced historic rivals from spring training through the final game of the era. Readers experience minor league baseball as it was more than fifty years ago when there were no agents, next year's contract was based on this year's performance, and PCL teams consisted of a blend of major league veterans and minor leaguers on the cusp. The Pacific Coast League was no ordinary league, the Seals were no ordinary team, and 1957 was no ordinary season.

The San Francisco Seals were members of baseball's Pacific Coast League from 1903 until 1958. Arguably the most successful minor league franchise ever, the Seals held the minor league attendance record from 1946 until it was broken by Louisville in the 1980s, and remained independently owned until 1956. The Seals were also Joe DiMaggio's first team and many another major league star was on the team's roster on his climb up the ranks. This work is a collection of oral histories of players who took the field for the Seals from 1946 through 1957, just before the Giants came to San Francisco and when the Seals played their final game. Ferris Fain said of the 1946 Seals, "I just think that that was the best ballclub that I've ever played on, including major league. I mean, as a team." Frank Seward, Don Trower, Jack Brewer, Roy Nicely, Neill Sheridan, Joe Brovia, Bill Werle, Con Dempsey, Dario Lodigiani, Lou Burdette, Ed Cereghino, Bill Bradford, Reno Cheso, Nini Tornay, Jerry Zuvela, Leo Righetti, Jim Westlake, Ted Beard, Chuck Stevens, Bob DiPietro, Don Lenhardt, Riverboat Smith, Jack Spring, and Bert Thiel also reminisce about their careers with the Seals.

The San Francisco Seals were members of baseball's Pacific Coast League from 1903 until 1958. Arguably the most successful minor league franchise ever, the Seals held the minor league attendance record from 1946 until it was broken by Louisville in the 1980s, and remained independently owned until 1956. The Seals were also Joe DiMaggio's first team and many another major league star was on the team's roster on his climb up the ranks. This work is a collection of oral histories of players who took the field for the Seals from 1946 through 1957, just before the Giants came to San Francisco and when the Seals played their final game. Ferris Fain said of the 1946 Seals, "I just think that that was the best ballclub that I've ever played on, including major league. I mean, as a team." Frank Seward, Don Trower, Jack Brewer, Roy Nicely, Neill Sheridan, Joe Brovia, Bill Werle, Con Dempsey, Dario Lodigiani, Lou Burdette, Ed Cereghino, Bill Bradford, Reno Cheso, Nini Tornay, Jerry Zuvela, Leo Righetti, Jim Westlake, Ted Beard, Chuck Stevens, Bob DiPietro, Don Lenhardt, Riverboat Smith, Jack Spring, and Bert Thiel also reminisce about their careers with the Seals.

For more than half a century, San Francisco Seals baseball was a fertile source of future major league players, with a legacy firmly grounded in the annals of Pacific Coast League baseball. Paul and Lloyd Waner, Ping Bodie, Earl Averill, William Kamm, Ferris Fain, Harry Heilmann, Smead Jolly, "Lefty" O'Doul, Frankie Crosetti, the DiMaggio brothers (Joe, Vince, and Dom), Larry Jansen, and others all launched their careers as Seals. From 1903 to 1957, the Seals were the toast of the town, offering tight pennant races and intense games with the Oakland Oaks -- their cross-bay rivals -- while playing at Recreation Park and Seals Stadium. In almost 6 decades, the Seals won 11 pennants and 4 Governor's Cups. They survived the earthquake and fire of 1906, the Great Depression, and two world wars.

In 1903, a small league in California defied Organized Baseball by adding teams in Portland and Seattle to become the strongest minor league of the twentieth century. Calling itself the Pacific Coast League, this outlaw association frequently outdrew its major league counterparts and continued to challenge the authority of Organized Baseball until the majors expanded into California in 1958. The Pacific Coast League introduced the world to Joe, Vince and Dom DiMaggio, Paul and Lloyd Waner, Ted Williams, Tony Lazzeri, Lefty O’Doul, Mickey Cochrane, Bobby Doerr, and many other baseball stars, all of whom originally signed with PCL teams. This thorough history of the Pacific Coast League chronicles its foremost personalities, governance, and contentious relationship with the majors, proving that the history of the game involves far more than the happenings in the American and National leagues.

"...one of the most heart-felt baseball books to come out in the last few months, written not by a journalist with nice advancement but by a simple fan who put up his own money, got it self published, and got himself heard." - Tom Hoffarth, columnist for the Los Angeles Daily News "His take on some of baseballs major events and personalities are refreshingly different from the conventional wisdom of baseball insiders." - Jeffrey Stuart, author of Twilight Teams "...the purest fan memoir Ive yet read...Lewers is...everyfan USA." - Nicholas Croston, Lit Bases website "...Lewers book reminds us why we love the game so much." - Matt ODonnell, Fenway West website "Every fan has his or her memories, but not everyone can express them as well as Lewers has." - Ron Kaplan, Ron Kaplans Baseball Bookshelf website "...Lewers is the pioneer for the personal baseball narrative." - Bill Jordan, Baseballreflections.com website "Covering a broad sweep of personal and baseball history, Lewers democratically recognizes many unsung heroes and ventures some refreshingly candid opinions." - Judy Johnson, Watching the Game website There is no shortage of books written by baseball insiders players, managers, and writers. What seems to be lacking are books by ordinary fans. Six Decades of Baseball will not put you on the field or in the dugout. Rather it will put you in the cheap seats of the upper deck where baseball can be viewed through lens of Bill Lewers. This book is not just a recitation of baseball history (although a lot of baseball history is included). Rather it is a narrative of a relationship between a fan and a game a relationship that has evolved through the years. Bill has been hooked on baseball ever since his first outing at the Polo Grounds in 1951. Not content with the three local choices offered by his native New York, Bill decided at a very early age that he would root for the Boston Red Sox. Much of what follows in this decade-by-decade narrative is a consequence of that monumental choice. The book starts in the 1950s with Bills formative years as he grew up in the awesome shadow of the New York Yankees and experienced Five oclock Lightning first hand. A healthy amount of Red Sox minutiae is presented not because these were things that Bill memorized but rather that they were the reality that he lived. Greats like Ted Williams and Mickey Mantle are remembered but also recounted are tales of the more obscure including the Red Sox Youth Movement of the early 1950s, the Never-Never-Boys, and the Fastest Man in the Majors. There is even an all too brief encounter with the Boys of Summer at Ebbets Field. As the narrative moves to the 1960s the new team in town, the New York Mets enters the picture and those special early days at the Polo Grounds are recalled. So too are visits to Bostons Fenway Park at a time when tickets were $1.50 and attendance was frequently below 10,000. All this changed with the 1967 Impossible Dream which Bill recalls from the vantage point of a New Yorker. The decade ends with a baseball adventure gone amuck and the tragic end of one of the mainstays of Bills Red Sox youth. The 1970s sees changes as Bill moves to Maryland and encounters a new home team, the highly successful Baltimore Orioles. Both Boston and Baltimore heroes are recalled as well as both the Red Sox triumph of 1975 and collapse of 1978. Much of the 1980s revolve around the Red Sox almost World Championship of 1986. A young buck achieves dominance even as an aging superstar makes his last stand. Bill also examines the managerial decision that may have cost the Red Sox the championship (its not the one you think). The 1990s sees the unveiling of an exciting new ballpark as

In 1957 Horace Stoneham took his Giants of New York baseball team and headed west, starting a gold rush with bats and balls rather than pans and mines. But San Francisco already had a team, the Seals of the Pacific Coast League, and West Coast fans had to learn to embrace the newcomers. Starting with the franchise’s earliest days and following the team up to recent World Series glory, Home Team chronicles the story of the Giants and their often topsy-turvy relationship with the city of San Francisco. Robert F. Garratt shines light on those who worked behind the scenes in the story of West Coast baseball: the politicians, businessmen, and owners who were instrumental in the club’s history. Home Team presents Stoneham, often left in the shadow of Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley, as a true baseball pioneer in his willingness to sign black and Latino players and his recruitment of the first Japanese player in the Major Leagues, making the Giants one of the most integrated teams in baseball in the early 1960s. Garratt also records the turbulent times, poor results, declining attendance, two near-moves away from California, and the role of post-Stoneham owners Bob Lurie and Peter Magowan in the Giants’ eventual reemergence as a baseball powerhouse. Garratt’s superb history of this great ball club makes the Giants’ story one of the most compelling of all Major League franchises.