Summer of ’49.

HALBERSTAM, David.

Item Number: 73248

New York: William Morrow and Company, 1989.

First edition. Octavo, original half cloth, illustrated endpapers, illustrated. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the half-title page to his publisher, “For Howard and Susan In expectation that this trip down the The Grand Canyon will be a success and therefore we can do even more in the future Bless David Halberstam.” The recipient, Howard Kaminsky was the former president and publisher of Warner Books, Random House and William Morrow/Avon. Among the authors he published were Elmore Leonard, E.L. Doctorow, Gore Vidal, and Richard Nixon. Fine in a fine dust jacket.

The year was 1949, and a war-weary nation turned from the battlefields to the ball fields in search of new heroes. It was a summer that marked the beginning of a sports rivalry unequaled in the annals of athletic competition. The awesome New York Yankees and the indomitable Boston Red Sox were fighting for supremacy of baseball's American League, and an aging Joe DiMaggio and a brash, headstrong hitting phenomenon named Ted Williams led their respective teams in a classic pennant duel of almost mythic proportions—one that would be decided in an explosive head-to-head confrontation on the last day of the season.