MICHAEL LEAHY
Meet the Players
The Principals
Maury Wills: The Dodgers’ electrifying All-Star shortstop who, in 1962, stole 104 bases, breaking Ty Cobb’s single-season major league record, while serving as the team's leadoff hitter and catalyst. In an era when the Dodgers' offense was periodically anemic, Wills alone often represented the difference between winning and losing, finding ways to score when no one else could. Winning the National League’s stolen base crown during six consecutive seasons in the Sixties, he has become renowned as the base running genius who revolutionized the game. Calls have steadily grown among Wills's admirers for his election to baseball's Hall of Fame.
Sandy Koufax: Widely regarded as the greatest pitcher ever, he dominated the New York Yankees and Minnesota Twins in lifting the Dodgers to two World Series championships; became the first player in history to toss four no-hitters; captured an unprecedented five consecutive National League Earned Run Average titles; won three Cy Young Awards; and led the league in victories for the third time during his final season, in which he also sat atop the league in ERA and strikeouts, a category he dominated during four campaigns. With his career cut short by an arthritic pitching elbow, he left the game at 30, on his way to the Hall of Fame.
Wes Parker: He won six consecutive Gold Gloves as the preeminent defensive first baseman in the National League during the late Sixties and early Seventies, ultimately to be selected, in a 2007 fan vote conducted by the Rawling Sporting Goods Company, as the greatest fielder at his position over the last half-century. Privately distraught as a young player about his struggles at the plate, Parker made himself into one of the National League's outstanding hitters during 1970, batting .319 and leading the league with 47 doubles. Before the start of the following season, he found himself featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated.
Tommy Davis: The winner of consecutive National League batting titles in 1962 and 1963, he also led the league in RBIs during the first of those seasons, building a reputation as baseball’s best young hitter and an emerging superstar. When he suffered a broken ankle during a slide into second base against the Giants in 1965, the moment marked a dramatic reversal of his fortunes, with the Dodgers trading him away after the 1966 season. Never would he be quite the same force, though he would end his 18-year career with a .294 lifetime average after playing for 10 teams.
Lou Johnson: Everything good in the game came to him late. After Tommy Davis’s 1965 injury, the Dodgers summoned the thirty-year-old Johnson, who had been languishing in the club’s minor league organization. Johnson responded with a bravura performance for the remainder of the season, climaxed by his home run in the seventh game of the 1965 World Series, as Koufax and the Dodgers defeated the Twins, 2-0, to win the World Championship.
Jeff Torborg: A collegiate All-American and bonus baby when signed by the Dodgers in 1963 out of Rutgers University, the wunderkind Torborg never became the superstar that some baseball executives had envisioned. But, as a backup catcher for the Dodgers, he was skilled even as a young player at leading men and handling pitchers, including Koufax, whose perfect game he caught in 1965. At 35, four years after his playing days ended, Torborg became the manager of the Cleveland Indians, the first of his five stints at the helm of major league clubs.
Overview of The Last Innocents
It’s rare for a team to encapsulate an era as indelibly as the Los Angeles Dodgers did the 1960s. White, black, Jewish, Christian, wealthy, working class, conservative, liberal—the Dodgers embodied the disparate cultural forces at play in an America riven by race and war.
In The Last Innocents, Michael Leahy tells the story of this mesmerizing time and extraordinary team through seven players—Maury Wills, Sandy Koufax, Wes Parker, Jeff Torborg, Tommy Davis, Dick Tracewski, and Lou Johnson—taking readers through the high drama of their World Series appearances, pivotal triumphs, and individual setbacks while the Dodgers reigned and baseball was king.
It is a story about what it was like to be a major leaguer when the country was turned upside down by the tumult of the civil rights movement, a series of wrenching political assassinations, and the shock waves of the Vietnam War. Outside the public eye, these seven Dodgers—friends, mentors, and confidants—struggled to understand their place in society and in a sport controlled by owners whose wishes were fiat. Even as they starred in games watched by millions, they coped with anxieties and indignities their fans knew nothing about—some of their wounds deeply personal, others more common to the times, though no less painful. In their dissatisfaction, they helped plant the seeds of a rebellion that would change their sport.
Contact Us
We welcome your questions and queries. Please see our Contact page for complete contact information.
