Bottom of the Ninth: Branch Rickey, Casey Stengel, and the Daring Scheme to Save Baseball from Itself

This account of the expansion of the major leagues is "a fascinating look at an almost forgotten era . . . One of the best baseball books of recent seasons" (Cleveland Plain Dealer).

In Bottom of the Ninth, Michael Shapiro brings to life a watershed moment in baseball history, when the sport was under siege in the late 1950s. He reveals how the legendary executive Branch Rickey saw the game's salvation in two radical ideas: the creation of a third major league—the Continental League—and the...