New York New York

I’ve always said urban history is anything that happens in New York and local history is what happens everywhere else.  You could say the same about baseball.  It’s only “the national pastime” when played in certain boroughs.

I just finished a book, Electric October, about the 1947 World Series.  The subtitle reads, “Seven World Series Games/Six Lives/Five Minutes of Fame/That Lasted Forever.”  The title comes from the fact that this was the first televised Series.  But not really.

Everything about Electric October, from the title to the major publisher (Henry Holt) cries “New York” because this was the best kind of World Series, at least for certain people, those with power and a myopic view of life in America.  Put another way, the book got written because the ’47 Series featured the Yankees and Dodgers.  Not much traveling involved, which is just how New Yorkers like it.

Why not write about the 1945 Series, between the Cubs and Tigers?  I mean, it’s the first Series following World War II.  No, too local.  What about the ’68 Series, between the Tigers and Cardinals?  There’s a serious line of thought that the Tigers’ run unified Detroit and kept it from burning down.  Again, too local.  Don’t get me wrong.  These kinds of books get written, but not by the kind of writers who merit big advances from big publishers.

Long story short, Cookie Lavagetto and Al Gionfriddo are nobodies until they arrive in the Big Apple and do their thing in the World Series.  Joe DiMaggio, of course, is DiMaggio, and publishers can never get enough of the Yankee Clipper.  By playing in New York, the son of Italian immigrants became American.

God forbid DiMaggio played his whole career in Chicago.  That would be too local a story.