We are pleased to welcome author Tim Wendel to the store this summer as a part of our summer author series. Mr. Wendel is the author of Summer of '68 and he will be joining us for a free wine and cheese event which will include a reading, signing and question answer session.
Mr. Wendel will join us on Wednesday, August 1st from 7:00 to 8:00 pm. For more information about this free event, please contact us at 231-347-1180 or via email. Reservations are requested for this event.
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The extraordinary story
of the 1968 baseball season—when the game was played to perfection even
as the country was being pulled apart at the seams From the beginning,
’68 was a season rocked by national tragedy and sweeping change. Opening
Day was postponed and later played in the shadow of Martin Luther King,
Jr.’s funeral. That summer, as the pennant races were heating up, the
assassination of Robert Kennedy was later followed by rioting at the
Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
But even as tensions boiled
over and violence spilled into the streets, something remarkable was
happening in major league ballparks across the country. Pitchers were
dominating like never before, and with records falling and shut-outs
mounting, many began hailing ’68 as “The Year of the Pitcher.” In Summer of ’68,
Tim Wendel takes us on a wild ride through a season that saw such
legends as Bob Gibson, Denny McLain, Don Drysdale, and Luis Tiant set
new standards for excellence on the mound, each chasing perfection
against the backdrop of one of the most divisive and turbulent years in
American history. For some players, baseball would become an insular
retreat from the turmoil encircling them that season, but for a select
few, including Gibson and the defending champion St. Louis Cardinals,
the conflicts of ’68 would spur their performances to incredible heights
and set the stage for their own run at history.
Meanwhile in
Detroit—which had burned just the summer before during one of the worst
riots in American history—’68 instead found the city rallying together
behind a colorful Tigers team led by McLain, Mickey Lolich, Willie
Horton, and Al Kaline. The Tigers would finish atop the American League,
setting themselves on a highly anticipated collision course with
Gibson’s Cardinals. And with both teams’ seasons culminating in a
thrilling World Series for the ages—one team playing to establish a
dynasty, the other fighting to help pull a city from the ashes—what
ultimately lay at stake was something even larger: baseball’s place in a
rapidly changing America that would never be the same. In vivid,
novelistic detail, Summer of ’68 tells the story of this
unforgettable season—the last before rule changes and expansion would
alter baseball forever—when the country was captivated by the national
pastime at the moment it needed the game most.
