Joe DiMaggio . . . Ted Williams . . . Joe Louis . . . Billy Conn . . . Whirlaway Against the backdrop of a war that threatened to consume the world, these athletes transformed 1941 into one of the most thrilling years in sports history. In the summer of 1941, America paid attention to sports with an intensity that had never been seen before. World War II was raging in Europe and headlines grew worse by the day; even the most optimistic people began to accept the inevitability of the United States being drawn into the conflict. In sports pages and arenas at home, however, an athletic perfect storm provided unexpected—and uplifting—relief. Four phenomenal sporting events were underway, each destined to become legend. In 1941—The Greatest Year in Sports , acclaimed sportswriter Mike Vaccaro chronicles this astounding moment in history. Fueled by a somber mania for sports—a desire for good news to drown out the bad—Americans by the millions fervently watched, listened, and read as Joe DiMaggio dazzled the country by hitting in a record-setting fifty-six consecutive games; Ted Williams powered through an unprecedented .406 season; Joe Louis and Billy Conn (the heavyweight and light-heavyweight champions) battled in unheard-of fashion for boxing’s ultimate championship; and the phenomenal (some say deranged) thoroughbred, Whirlaway, raced to three heart-stopping victories that won the coveted Triple Crown of horse racing. As Phil Rizzuto perfectly expressed, “You read the sports section a lot because you were afraid of what you’d see in other parts of the paper.” Gripping and nostalgic, 1941—The Greatest Year in Sports focuses on these four seminal events and brings to life the national excitement and remarkable achievement (many of these records still stand today), as well as the vibrant lives of the athletes who captivated the nation. With vast insight, Vaccaro pulls back the veil on DiMaggio’s anxieties and the building pressure of “The Streak,” and chronicles the brash, young confidence Williams displayed as he hammered his way through the baseball season largely in DiMaggio’s shadow. He takes readers inside the head of Billy Conn, a kid who traded in his light-heavyweight belt for a shot at the very decent and very powerful Joe Louis, and tells the story of the fire-breathing racehorse, Whirlaway, who was known either for setting track records or tearing off in the wrong direction. Rich in historical detail and edge-of-your-seat reporting, Mike Vaccaro has crafted a lasting, important book that captures a portrait of one of America’s most trying, and extraordinary, eras. Yankee shortstop Phil Rizzuto may have crystallized America's collective 1941 psyche when he said you read the sports page because the rest of the paper was so scary. As America was drawing ever closer to the war raging in Europe and Asia, Joe DiMaggio was hitting safely in an unprecedented 56 consecutive games, Ted Williams was in the process of hitting .400, Thoroughbred racehorse Whirlaway was captivating the nation, and the Joe Louis-Billy Conn heavyweight bout became an instant classic. Vaccaro, sports columnist of the New York Post, re-creates the excitement surrounding each of these sporting milestones as he places them in the ever-more-dangerous world of 1941. For example, Louis and Conn fought on June 18, the same day a report was issued saying that one-third of the world's Jewish population was living under Nazi rule. Similar juxtapositions pepper the pages as Vaccaro contrasts the excitement of the sporting events with the horrors of the real world. Expect considerable demand for this carefully researched and entertainingly written sports history. Wes Lukowsky Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved “Plenty for baseball fans, boxing fans, horse racing fans, and World War II history buffs alike . . . expertly researched, neatly written . . . a nifty Father’s Day present.” — The Star-Ledger “This was simply a genius idea . . . It is of little surprise the New York Post ’s Vaccaro, the best sports columnist in that city, delivered an exceptionally written and researched book that fascinates even the many of us born long after the year in question.” – Yahoo! Sports is a lead sports columnist for the New York Post and is the author of Emperors and Idiots. He has won more than fifty major journalism awards since 1989 and has been cited for distinguished writing by the Associated Press Sports Editors, the New York State Publishers Association, and the Poynter Institute. He lives in New Jersey. 1 “ Good – bye, dear, I ’ ll be back in a year. ” The draft hovers over everybody, even a slugger named Hammerin’ Hank Hank Greenberg tomorrow dons khaki A very fine soldier he’ll be He’ll worry the enemy wacky By sniping at .333 —Tim Cohane, New York World – Telegram , May 6, 1941 The cops knew early on that they were in for a long night. There were 1,489 of them on duty, most of them in uniform,