A Chat With Author of 'The Boys of Summer'

Oct. 20, 2000 -- Once upon a time, Subway Series were common in New York City. In just 10 years, New York baseball teams met each other in the World Series seven times. Usually, the New York Yankees won. Between 1947 and 1956, they beat the Brooklyn Dodgers five times and the New York Giants once. The Brooklyn Dodgers gained their only

Subway Series victory over the Yankees in 1955.

Roger Kahn remembers, and wrote the landmark book, The Boys of Summer, about the Brooklyn Dodgers of the 1950s.

His latest book is The Head Game: Baseball Seen From the Pitcher's Mound. Look below for the transcript of ABCNEWS.com's live chat with Roger Kahn.

Moderator at 12:02pm ET

Welcome Roger Kahn! Thanks for joining us today. First off, what's your prediction for this year's World Series?

Roger Kahn at 12:03pm ET

My prediction is that New York is going to win. I mean that lightly, but also seriously. I remember not so long ago when New York City was flirting with bankruptcy, Times Square seemed to be a suburb of hell and the word around the country was that everyone with sense had either left New York for Houston, or was about to do so. You are not hearing that talk today.

A glorious element in baseball is surprise. The one time people did know who would win a World Series in advance was 1919, when the Chicago White Sox "threw" the Series. Fortunately, since then, nobody has known in advance.

Moderator at 12:05pm ET

Do you think a Subway Series has national interest, or is it a turnoff to baseball fans outside New York?

Roger Kahn at 12:06pm ET

A World Series at its best is a seven-act drama. Right now, people in Boise are telling Ted Koppel they don't care. If one of these teams rolls over the other in four straight, that may be how it is. But if we get a great, competitive Series, they'll end up watching in Boise, unless they're seriously ill.

Moderator at 12:07pm ET

How is this year's Subway Series different from those in the past?

Roger Kahn at 12:08pm ET

The last Subway Series ran down in 1956. That was the seventh Subway Series in the 10 years from 1947 through 1956. We believed in New York in those days that the Declaration of Independence guaranteed us life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness and a World Series every October. Not the case today.

Steve from diablo.fw.gannett.com at 12:08pm ET

Please talk about what it was like to be a kid growing up during a Subway Series.

Roger Kahn at 12:11pm ET

I was a kid growing up in Brooklyn when the team was more famous for jokes than for winning. By the time the Subway Series arrived annually, I was a young newspaper man covering those series. What was that like? In a word, wonderful. I loved the high humor and baseball savvy of Casey Stengel, who, as Yankee manager, won five World Series in a row. After that, we called him Field Marshall Casey von Stengel.

Beyond that there were the Dodgers, integrating baseball with Jackie Robinson — helped by his white buddy, Pee Wee Reese. They were integrating baseball, and in a sense, the country. To cover these people and events was a young man's dream.

Moderator at 12:13pm ET

How has the game itself changed since the last Subway Series?

Roger Kahn at 12:16pm ET

The first and loudest difference in the game is that ball players don't have to get jobs in the winter to buy Thanksgiving turkey. Gil Hodges, the fine Dodger first-baseman, sold Buicks on Flatbush Avenue during the winter. I don't imagine Mike Piazza will be doing that come the cold weather.

A second difference was that players — who incidentally had no real negotiating rights — stayed with the same team year after year. Phil Rizzuto was the YANKEE shortstop. Pee Wee Reese was the DODGER shortstop. Mickey Mantle was the Yankee center fielder, Duke Snider was the Dodger center fielder. There were no free agents, nobody hopped around from Atlanta to Cleveland to New York.

Finally, these players had more or less come out of the great American Depression. They played hard because the hounds of poverty nipped at their heels. Some, but not all of today's players, are more casual. Some don't run out pop-flies.

Moderator at 12:17pm ET

Do you think the experience of going to a game has changed?

Roger Kahn at 12:20pm ET

Going to games is different in a number of ways: Crowds were ardent in the 1950s, but they were more sober. I worked game after game. A beer-drunk was an exception in the 50s. The crowds rooted passionately but more civilly. You didn't hear the vulgarity that you get today.

In all of those World Series through the 50s — I covered every game in '51, '52, '53, '54, '55 — every game, I never once saw a mounted policeman. I went to an exciting Mets-Atlanta game, and I walked out to the car and there was a troop of hussars on horseback. That is very different.

In passionate Brooklyn, there was appreciation of great visiting players. There was no sense of assaulting them because they'd had the nerve to double to right. Today's crowds are more hostile. That probably says more about society than it does about the Subway Series or baseball.

Nicholas Colucci from treas.gov at 12:21pm ET

Mr. Kahn, when I was nine or 10, I knew every player in the Majors and watched TWIB and the Saturday afternoon game. I am now 30. Now, it seems younger children do not care about or watch baseball. What has changed?

Roger Kahn at 12:25pm ET

Baseball in the old Subway Series days was an afternoon game. It was televised, but it was played in the afternoons. The New York teams, generally on a weekday afternoon, about the second or third inning, would let the children who hung around the ballparks in for free. Not really for free, because a kid in a baseball park is a human popcorn-eating machine — they have to buy the popcorn. But it was a sense that when you let urchins into your ballpark, you were building for the future.

Obviously now, other sports have risen. Also, baseball games are played at night, and it's sort of tough for an eight-year-old to stay up and watch a game and make it to the third grade the next day. I'd like to see some of the games played in the afternoon. Lose network money now, but invest in the future. And I'd like to see, generally, more games played in the afternoon after school. Not only the great World Series teams, but the Chicago Cubs and the San Diego Padres could pick up the old practice of letting in children free on summer afternoons.

Additionally, all the TV commercials don't breed little kids who are great at baseball. The commercials breed little kids who are great at hitting the mute button.

Skate from dallas.navipath.net at 12:27pm ET

What do you remember about Don Larsen's perfect game?

Roger Kahn at 12:28pm ET

After Don Larsen pitched his perfect game on October 8, 1956, one acerbic baseball writer remarked in the box, "The imperfect man has just pitched a perfect game." Amid the wild celebrations in the Yankee clubhouse, there appeared a process server; Larsen was behind in his child support payments.

Alvin Dark at 12:28pm ET

Did Furillo have the best arm of any right fielder in New York?

Roger Kahn at 12:30pm ET

Boy, that's a very good question. Carl Furillo had an arm that came straight from Mt. Olympus. I never saw any right fielder, even including Roberto Clemente, who could through out of right field like Furillo. That was not an arm, that was a Springfield rifle.

Moderator at 12:31pm ET

Steve asks: "What did the '55 win by the Dodgers mean to Brooklyn?"

Roger Kahn at 12:33pm ET

When Brooklyn won the 1955 World Series — the only time the Brooklyn Dodgers ever did or ever will win a World Series — the borough became a place of triumph. After all, Brooklyn was not a city — it had no daily newspaper, it had no mayor, people spoke of it as Manhattan's bedroom, comedians desperate for a laugh could say, "Brooklyn."

Now, finally, the Brooklyn baseball team, with Jackie Robinson and Pee Wee Reese, was not only a social statement, they were the best baseball team in the universe. The borough was no longer a joke. This was a very important moment in the history of the 20th century.

Paige at 12:35pm ET

As someone who doesn't live in New York, I find the Subway Series to be a major annoyance. Most people outside New York don't like how the media, including the sports media, is so New-York-centric. Like the way this story is being played: "This is so great for baseball. It takes us back to the glory days." Why is it good for baseball to have the World Series involving only one city — and the largest market city at that?

Roger Kahn at 12:37pm ET

That's a good question. Which baseball? Baseball Inc., or the baseball of little league in Oklahoma? I think it's good for everything. Like it or not, New York is the media capital, and this World Series is going to get the most intense coverage imaginable. Not so if Kansas City were to be playing Philadelphia.

Of course New York is arrogant. But when last I looked, the United Nations was not centered in Portland, Oregon. Wall Street was not an alley in Boulder, Colorado. The networks and the publishers were not located in Santa Fe.

I think it's a good thing that New York should be capital of the world. And I believe in the city in history: Athens, Rome, London, Paris. Myself, I live up the Hudson Valley, 50 miles out of town.

bob laure at 12:38pm ET

Mr. Kahn, baseball is dying a slow death — big $$$, juiced ball, foundering small-market teams, dwindling attendance. Your comments?

Roger Kahn at 12:42pm ET

Not much leprosy among the ball players, though. I don't think baseball's dying a slow death. The head game — baseball seen from the pitcher's mound — looks at the game from its origins until today. The history of baseball is cyclical. How? In 1905, when the Giants swept the World Series, the lead story in the New York Times focused on an automobile race, talking about cars going as fast as 60 miles an hour. The great Giant pitcher, Christy Mattewson, threw a changeup of about 80 miles an hour.

Baseball seemed to be dying after the fixed World Series. Baseball was being wiped out by football during the Vietnam years. Baseball was going to be killed by the players' strike. The game peaks and ebbs. I would quote my late friend, the columnist Red Smith, here about baseball: "Baseball is such a marvelous game. It can survive even the fatheads who run it."

Warren at 12:43pm ET

My dad, Bernard Meislin, knew you growing up. Anyway, my question is, do you still resent the Dodgers for moving to LA. WHAT could have been done to stop them?

Roger Kahn at 12:44pm ET

I remember Bernie Meislin. He could pluck a ground ball. Generically, Brooklyn was wounded when the Dodgers abandoned the borough, and resentment boiled and bubbled for decades. One thing this World Series means is that if someone today in a bar on Flatbush Ave. said, "You can have the Dodgers back," people at the Flatbush Ave. bar would say, "We don't want them 'crums.' Look at the mess they're in in California. Who needs them. We got the Mets."

What could have been done to keep the Dodgers in Brooklyn? It's a free society. You can move a Mercedes dealership and you can move the Dodgers. I wish a stronger baseball commissioner had said, "This is not in the best interest of baseball. Start a new team in Los Angeles. We can call them the Los Angeles Mets." There was not a strong baseball commissioner. That being so, the Dodgers going to California and abandoning a borough is one of the risks of free enterprise.

Martin Winner at 12:47pm ET

You and I are contemporaries, both from Brooklyn, reared and imbued with BROOKLYN Dodger Blue. However, with the dramatic changes in the intrinsic fabric of THE game itself, beginning with the O'Malley Charade of the 50s to the total lack of player identity with any single team (outside of the true exception of the likes of Cal Ripken, Jr.), I will find it exceptionally easy NOT to watch ANY of the World Series, as I did with the regular season and the playoffs. How much of a rare bird am I, do you think?

Roger Kahn at 12:50pm ET

Reasonably rare, although I understand your point. It used to be that Joe DiMaggio was a Yankee and Ted Williams was a Red Sox. Stan Musial was a Cardinal and Pee Wee Reese was a Dodger. No more. Today, Bernie Williams has only played for the Yankees; Derek Jeter has only played for the Yankees. So there is some sense of player identification with team. But as far as recognizing the televised product today as the relatively pure game of the 1950s, I know where you're coming from. But I say again, however the owners mess it up, baseball is the greatest game ever created, including Monopoly.

Moderator at 12:51pm ET

What can Major League Baseball do to even the playing field for all of its teams?

Roger Kahn at 12:54pm ET

Baseball does not have a significant revenue-sharing arrangement, such as exists in the National Football League. Big thinkers regard this as a disaster. It's always been that the team with the best money had the best shot at getting to the World Series, so that's nothing new.

But look at the Mets outfield. Timo Perez, right field; Jay Peyton, center field and Benny Agbayani, left field — that's a no-name, low-salary outfield. Money counts; so does great scouting. Such big market teams as the Yankees dominated baseball for decades and that will go on. Smart small-market teams will continue to get into some World Series, even some teams with no-name outfields.

Celina at 12:55pm ET

What do you think the Hispanic player influence is on the game of baseball as a whole?

Roger Kahn at 12:57pm ET

It's very hard to understand why baseball is geographically the way it is — played in the U.S. and Japan, and in a rim around the Caribbean. So you find baseball played in Mexico, and played with great passion and great skill, and in Venezuela. Andruw Jones, the centerfielder for the Atlanta Braves, is from Curacao. Scores of players come from the Dominican Republic. Yet there is no significant baseball in Argentina, Chile or Brazil.

The Latin players have made a great contribution. I just wonder why it is in some Latin nations and not in others, and I'm not sure. I don't know why the game is so prominent in Venezuela and not in Brazil. But when you look at the Mets second baseman, Edgardo Alfonzo, a Venezuelan, you recognize the great contribution Latino cultures have made.

peter at 1:01pm ET

Mr. Kahn, just got done reading Headgames — a great book. Do you have anything else in the works at this time?

Roger Kahn at 1:02pm ET

They're trying to talk me into doing a major book about a Yankees team that came from dysfunctionality to a world championship, and I think that's what I'm going to be doing next.

The dialogue was stimulating and it was nice to be with you folks.

Moderator at 1:04pm ET

Roger Kahn, thanks for joining us! And thanks to those in our audience who submitted questions.

Moderator at 1:05pm ET

If you'd like to check out recent ABCNEWS.com chat transcripts, please click here.

Moderator at 1:06pm ET

Thanks again for participating in this live event!