Yankees 1936-39, Baseball's Greatest Dynasty: Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio and the Birth of a New Era

by Stanley Cohen

Overview

The Story of the Greatest Yankees Team—and Baseball Team—of All Time
New York, 1936. Red Ruffing, Lefty Gomez, Bill Dickey, Lou Gehrig, Tony Lazzeri, and rookie Joe DiMaggio—with these six future Hall of Fame players, the Yankees embarked on a four-year run that would go down in the history books as the greatest Yankees team, if not, the greatest baseball team of all time.
Over the next four years, the Yankees won four straight pennants, finishing an average of nearly fifteen games ahead of the second-place team. They won their four World Series by an overall margin of 16-3, sweeping the last two, putting the punctuation mark on baseball’s first true dynasty. Even the Ruthian Yankees of the twenties never won more than two consecutive world championships.
From 1936 to 1939, the world was changing rapidly. America was in the grip of the Great Depression. Franklin D. Roosevelt was re-elected president in the greatest landslide in American history. And Hitler’s Germany was on the move in the fall of 1939, just as the Yankee dynasty reached its climax. Against the backdrop of a world in turmoil, baseball, and America’s love for baseball, thrived.
Starring the best team of all time, featuring little-known anecdotes of players and set against a history of the world, Yankees 1936–39, Baseball's Greatest Dynasty tells the tale of a legendary team that changed history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781510720633
Publisher:	Skyhorse
Publication date:	04/10/2018
Pages:	316
Sales rank:	1,048,518
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.20(d)
Age Range:	13 - 17 Years

About the Author

Stanley Cohen is a veteran award-winning newspaper and magazine journalist. He has worked as an editor, writer, and reporter for newspapers, magazines, and an international news service for more than fifty years and has also taught writing, journalism, and philosophy at Hunter College. He is the author of ten books, including the acclaimed The Game They Played. He lives in Tomkins Cove, New York.

Table of Contents

1936

1 A Savior Arrives from Out of the West 3

2 An Auspicious Beginning Ends with a Setback 14

3 The Yanks Take Charge, and New York Embraces DiMaggio 29

4 The Yankees Dominate, and Pennant Drought Ends 42

5 The Dynasty Starts with World Series Victory 54

1937

6 New Season Begins with an Aura of Inevitability 71

7 Inevitability Takes a While to Kick In 83

8 Inevitability Looks More Like Destiny; Yanks Win Second Straight 96

1938

9 Where Have You Gone, Joe DiMaggio? 113

10 Late Season Surge Puts Yanks in Control 126

11 Yankees Cruise to the Finish, Setting Major League Record 137

1939

12 1939 Opens with Events that Will Mark Its Place in History 159

13 Quest for Fourth Title Begins with Gehrig Hurting 168

14 A Door Closes; the Beat Goes On 182

15 Baseball Hall of Fame Puts Cooperstown on the Map 197

16 The Luckiest Man on the Face of the Earth 210

17 Yanks Stutter-Step on Way to Finish Line 224

18 Yanks Full Speed Ahead as Destiny Awaits 235

19 Fourth Straight Title Marks the End of the Beginning 248

Epilogue 263

Postscript 277

About the Author 281

Note on References 282

Source Notes 285

A Note of Appreciation 291

Editorial Reviews

"In this engaging book, Stanley Cohen has done a skillful job of vividly describing the action and personalities that created the indomitable Yankees dynasty of the late 1930s with an overview of a world readying for war."
—David Fischer, author of Aaron Judge and Derek Jeter #2
"From Joe DiMaggio's debut in 1936 to Lou Gehrig's final season in 1939, Stanley Cohen captures the symmetry of a transition in Yankee history that was embodied by one of the greatest teams in baseball history."
—Howie Karpin, author of So You Think You're a New York Yankees Fan?

"A treat for Yankee fans interested in learning about this golden era of baseball and the Yankees’ long legacy of greatness."
—Ft. Meyers Magazine

"In this engaging book, Stanley Cohen has done a skillful job of vividly describing the action and personalities that created the indomitable Yankees dynasty of the late 1930s with an overview of a world readying for war."
—David Fischer, author of Aaron Judge and Derek Jeter #2
"From Joe DiMaggio's debut in 1936 to Lou Gehrig's final season in 1939, Stanley Cohen captures the symmetry of a transition in Yankee history that was embodied by one of the greatest teams in baseball history."
—Howie Karpin, author of So You Think You're a New York Yankees Fan?

From the Publisher