A review by orangefan65
Split Season: 1981: Fernandomania, the Bronx Zoo, and the Strike that Saved Baseball by Jeff Katz

4.0

As always, I am a fan of sports histories. This one is about the MLB season of 1981, interrupted by a strike that lasted 2 months, and then resumed as a "separate" but equal half-season instead of continuing where they left off. This was the year of the rookie phenom, Fernando Valenzuela, of the LA Dodgers, the year Pete Rose broke Stan Musial's all-time National League hits record, and the year that George Steinbrenner proved to be out of control in his daily interference with the Yankees. In the end, the World Series consisted of Yankees vs. Dodgers when the best records in baseball would have had Oakland A's vs. Milwaukee Brewers in AL and St. Louis Cardinals vs. Cincinnati Reds in NL for the right to play in World Series.