Warm Summers and Cold Winters : How Baseball Survived the Korean War

A fascinating examination of the Korean War years and its impact on Major League Baseball

Although baseball’s history in the immediate post-World War II years has sometimes been characterized as a “golden age,” such was not the case. By the time North Korean troops crossed the 38th parallel in June 1950, Organized Baseball was still struggling to re-integrate returning veterans into its labor force, fight off an attempt at unionization, and deal with a competing major league south of the border.

In Warm Summers and Cold Winters, historian Steven P. Gietschier carefully examines four baseball seasons—1950, 1951, 1952, and 1953—set against the background of Cold War America and the Korean War, a “forgotten war” that is often overlooked and underappreciated for its impact on US and baseball history. These four seasons saw exciting pennant races, the success of the Philadelphia Phillies’ Whiz Kids in 1950; the “shot heard ‘round the world” in 1951; the debuts of Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle; and the tenure of Bill Veeck as owner of the St. Louis Browns. On the warfront, the hostilities in Korea stand as the first time the United States tried to fight a war with one hand tied behind its back, attempting to fight a limited war without disrupting civilian life. Simultaneously, the United States’ limited military commitment meant that the war imposed peculiar challenges and uneven pressures upon individuals and institutions throughout American society, including Organized Baseball.

Providing rare insight into how baseball responded to the unique situation the country found itself in during the Korean War years, Warm Summers and Cold Winters will be of interest to baseball and military historians alike.