The cousin who introduced me to baseball and the Giants had a few baseball books on his shelf, and one of them was called A Flag for San Francisco (The American Sports Library, 1963) by Charles Einstein. It was perhaps a little advanced for me as a ten year old, but I would look at it every time I went over to my cousin's house, and I wanted it in a general way. It never occurred to me to borrow the book, because my cousin was much older than me and way too intimidating, so things stayed that way for a time.

Well, in the mean time, the Giants did not win in 1967. They did not win in 1968. Late in the '68 season, that same cousin in disgust dumped the Giants like a sack of moldy potatoes and threw out everything he owned that was Giants-related. Somehow, in the purge, I ended up with the book. By then, having realized that the Giants were not going to win every year for the next ten years, I was much hungrier to read about a year in which they actually had accomplished something, and I was very excited to get it.

(By the way, I have seen this book in used bookstores many times since, so this review is not just an opportunity to talk about myself. Note, however, that this book is long out of print, probably for reasons that will soon become obvious.)

I opened up the book and started reading it literally the moment he gave it to me. First page, the old story about San Franciscans cheering Khrushchev and booing Willie Mays. I didn't know who Khrushchev was, but whatever. Page two, some implied slander at the circumstances surrounding the building of Candlestick, which I definitely did not understand then (but only too well do now). Then, on page three, a puzzling statement:

... it is the major purpose of this book not only to give insight into the day-to-day workings and human interrelationships of a big-league ballclub, but to examine those rumblings [stemming from the end of the honeymoon period between the city and the franchise - RB] -- and to do it by looking most closely at the 1961 season, the year the honeymoon ended.

The 1961 season!?

Now, at eleven, certainly one's mind is a little more flexible and a little more understanding than it becomes later in life. Thus, I did not immediately freak out at this seeming incongruity. Sure, I had always thought that the Giants had won the pennant in 1962, but maybe I was wrong. After all, here was a book clearly titled A Flag for San Francisco, and a flag meant a pennant, I was sure, and if it said it all happened in 1961, who was I to argue?

So I, in one of those purely innocent moments that you shake your head at later in life, actually went to my cousin's Encyclopedia Britannica Yearbook for 1961 and looked up the standings for that season. The Giants had finished third.

I looked in the 1962 Yearbook. First place.

Others might have been put off by this incomprehensible state of affairs (others probably were, in fact). I, on the other hand, rationalized that I was about to experience a rare treat. I had thought to get a history only of the 1962 season, but now it looked like I was going to get two seasons for the price of one: 1961 and 1962, the year of the "Flag." I started reading.

Charles Einstein was the Giants' beat writer for the San Francisco Examiner in their early days in San Francisco, and this book consists of extracts from his daily newspaper articles, along with some commentary and behind the scenes stories of clubhouse goings-on. In these post-Ball Four years, we understand that the "day-to-day workings and human interrelationships of a big-league ballclub" disclosed back then were a scrubbed version of reality, but for all that, it still feels like a contemporary, breezy baseball book today. For me back then (pre-Ball Four), it was fascinating.

But when I reached around page 80 (out of 186) and was still only in May of 1961, the growing discontent I had been feeling reached a peak. I flipped through the rest of the book. Only the last eight pages of the book had anything to do with 1962, and even to my untrained eye, it was obvious that they had been tacked on at the last moment. A Flag for San Francisco was a fraud. It was not about the Giants' pennant-winning season. It was about the year prior, and some marketing or editorial hack had slapped on a title that had absolutely nothing to do with the subject matter of the book in a brazen attempt to sell a few more copies. They had lied to me! About the Giants, no less!

Even now, thirty years later, I am still indignant. I have lived enough to know that some marketing hacks will cheerfully lie to sell a few more of anything, but I cannot believe anyone would try this stunt today (unless it were related to a New York team), and I still can't believe someone did it then. And it really harmed my enjoyment of this book.

Which is too bad, because A Flag for San Francisco, taken on its own merits, really is a very interesting and readable book, despite (or perhaps because of) some over-the-top journalism that permeates the article extracts. Einstein the beat writer combined a cheerful boosterism, a fine eye for detail, and a wry sense of humor in his newspaper articles, and Einstein the author managed to look at both his writing and the team with an ironic but good-natured eye. This is not a deep book or an juicy expose in the way that Ball Four so brilliantly was, but it is a diverting and reasonably behind-the-scenes look at the Giants franchise during a period which most Giant fans now consider "legendary."

It was clear that Einstein liked covering the team, and he was "in" enough with the team and its players to have garnered a lot of stories from the clubhouse. Those behind-the-scenes glimpses, to go along with the sampling of early '60s journalism, are the primary charm of the book. Einstein covers Willie Mays in his prime and Juan Marichal in his breakout year and fully explores the convolutions the Giants went through to get both Orlando Cepeda and Willie McCovey in the lineup, and he has interesting things to say about all of those players. For instance, he recounts how Cepeda started the season in right field in 1961, not so much because manager Alvin Dark thought he could play well there (it was every bit as treacherous then as it is now) but because, since it was a new position to him, Dark figured the fans wouldn't be so up at arms about his failings, thus reducing the pressure Dark would feel to reinstall him at first.

To Einstein, the hero and primary focus of the book was Alvin Dark, newly installed as the Giants manager after a disappointing fifth place finish in the 1960 season. Einstein presented Dark as having performed the same type of makeover that Roger Craig performed for the Giants 25 years later: relentlessly rooting out a complacent attitude towards losing, stopping all excuses about the horrifying Candlestick Park (which was subject of an August 1961 Harper's magazine article entitled "How Not to Build a Ballpark) and pulling enough double switches, pitching changes, hit-and-runs, and the like to convince the team that (a) he was involved and (b) he knew what he was doing. In fact, Einstein and the press corps labeled him "the Mad Scientist," which in turn resulted in some exotic prose, such as this lead from a May 1 article:

Shrieks of insane laughter, enough to curdle the blood of the most impious felon, pealed from the laboratory today. The monster had come out of the north woods and was descending on the panic stricken settlement.

Alvin Dark, the mad metaphysician brings our club into the cozy confines of Wrigley Field...

And this was after an off day. (Note the "our," by the way.)

Einstein was very taken by the various strategies Dark would employ to try to win. In so doing, he sometimes fell into the same type of trap that college basketball TV analysts do today by emphasizing the manager's contributions and minimizing the importance of the players' performance. Still, it works in this book because Dark was not afraid to do some outrageous things to fire up his team, and Einstein reported those things in great detail. Probably the most interesting such event was a stretch when Dark literally shut down his bullpen (allowing nobody to sit in it) and informed his starters that they were going to finish their games no matter what. As Einstein reported in the Examiner:

"I just got plain sick and tired of pitchers standing out there and looking for help," Dark said. "It may have been my fault. Maybe it was a state of mind that I helped build up. But with 60 games to go I was darned if I was going to have [Stu] Miller come in and pitch 30 of them."

Early yesterday, Dark said to a friend, "I'm going to get on the pitchers on my radio show tonight." The friend advised against it. Dark, taking the advice, simply responded to a question during his pre-game radio interview by saying, "Marichal will go all the way tonight." When asked who would be the number one man in relief, Dark said: "Nobody."

Later in the same article:

Dark was asked what he said to Marichal the one time he went to the mound when the pitcher was in trouble. Actually, Dark went out twice, but the first time it was because Marichal seemed to be hurt when he fell fielding a ground ball.

"All I said to him that second time," Dark said, "was 'Good luck.'"

He was asked what he said the first time when for a moment it looked as if Juan might even have broken a leg.

"Same thing," Dark said. "I told him 'Good luck.'"

All of this led to one of my favorite lead paragraphs in the book, written the next day:

They said Edison was crazy. They said Marconi was crazy, They said Einstein was crazy.

Einstein is crazy, from watching Alvin Dark once more abandon his starting pitcher like a foundling on a doorstep -- and seeing it pay off.

Imagine how this act would play today. In 1961, at least according to Einstein, it played very well. Dark was constantly trying to fire his players up, and they generally seemed to appreciate his efforts. It didn't necessarily help them win, but they mostly seconded the actions he took.

Much is made today of Dark's purported antipathy towards black players and especially his negative attitude towards Orlando Cepeda, who has just been enshrined into the Hall of Fame. Einstein discussed the racial makeup of the team and some of the perceptions that the black players (especially McCovey) had to overcome, but there is no indication that Dark was giving them a harder time than the white ones (in fact, Mays is clearly comfortable with him throughout). In this book, Dark started out the year firmly in Cepeda's camp and he spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to make things work for him in the outfield. There is only this passage, from a team meeting in which Dark was lambasting his charges, that gives a clue to something more:

"Among other things," Dark stormed, "I'm getting sick and tired of people leading the league in home runs and runs batted in and not helping us any!"

Cepeda had 15 homers and 40 RBIs and was indeed leading the league in both departments.

A Flag for San Francisco does not delve as much into the players' accomplishments, but still there are some milestones and performances covered. Cepeda had a monster year. Stu Miller suffered through his infamous All-Star Game balk when he was blown off the mound. Mays hit his 300th home run, hit four home runs in a game against the Braves (the conversation between Mays and Einstein prior to that game adds much to that story) and made any number of great plays in center field that Einstein covered in detail. Still, it was this spring training conversation between Mays and Einstein, after Mays had told some New York writers that the Giants were going to win the pennant because "there's a feel in the air," that best presents the Willie Mays we all used to love as kids growing up in the '60s:

I saw Willie in the clubhouse afterwards. "Why did you give that guy that stuff about a feel in the air," I asked.

"Aw," Willie said, "He ain't gonna print it."

"The hell he ain't."

"Well, there is a feel in the air!"

"That's what you said last year."

"Was a feel in the air last year."

"And the year before."

"Feel in the air then, too."

"Matter of fact, you think this way every year around this time."

"I know it," Mays said happily.

"Well, why didn't you explain that to that poor writer?"

"He only asked about this year," Willie said.

To add the aura of the times, such luminaries as Henry Aaron, Stan Musial, Roberto Clemente, Ernie Banks, Warren Spahn (who no-hit the Giants early in the year), Sandy Koufax, Robin Roberts, Harvey Haddix, Frank Robinson, Duke Snider, and Gil Hodges appeared as opponents during the season. There was even an appearance by Dodger pitcher and future Giant manager Roger Craig.

Much was made in the book of the Giants' lack of "fight," and Dark's attempts to eradicate that deficiency. The 1961 team does not really seem as good as the names on the roster might lead you to believe, because several early season starters (such as McCovey and the rookies Tom Haller and Chuck Hiller, among others) had not yet come into their own and the pitching was pretty thin. However, over and over, the problem with the team was not presented as a lack of talent but as a lack of character. That led to this interesting exchange between Einstein and former ace Sam Jones.

"Trouble with respecting [Dark] and liking him at the same time," Sam said. "You wind up taking advantage of him."

"I sound like a cheerleader when I say this," I said, "but they [the Giants players] don't seem to have fight. Not all of them, but enough. People like [Harvey] Kuenn, [Jim] Davenport, yourself, it's different. But the ball club as a whole..."

Jones shifted the toothpick in his mouth and eyed me narrowly. "Know what I been thinking of doing?"

"What?"

"Starting a fight."

"With who?"

"Don't matter with who. Throw close at a man two times, then the next time you hit him with the ball. He comes after you, then the fight's on."

It was my turn to eye him narrowly. "Then what would happen?"

"I already say. The fight's on."

"Between you and the other team? It's a mismatch, Sam. There are 25 of them."

"Fella's come out of my dugout, too."

"Yes? Who?"

Sam lapsed into thoughtful silence.

Einstein was so caught up with this toughness theme that, later in the season, he actually semi-seriously urged Dark to punch a random player, just to see if the players as a group would respond (and he predicted that the player struck would probably start crying). And, in recapping the 1962 season (when he finally got to it), he gave marquee billing to two "glorious" fights that reflected the character of the transformed Giants' roster.

Maybe the single biggest difference between baseball in 1961 and baseball today was the cozy relationship that existed between the beat writers and the team's personnel. Articles were always full of "we" and "our" and "us" and the like. Further, Einstein and Bob Stevens, the San Francisco Chronicle beat writer, didn't just cover events, they participated in them. Besides suggesting that Dark punch one of his players, Einstein (and occasionally Stevens):

• regularly went to dinner with Dark and his wife (in fact, one of the cute recurring themes was Einstein's gentle effort to get Dark, a strict Southern Baptist, to drink something stronger than a Pepsi)

• had completely unguarded discussions with the players, including one where Einstein offered to intercede with Dark on Sam Jones' behalf after a stretch in which Jones had been struggling (amazingly, Jones agreed to let him do so, and he was helped by the intercession)

• made up songs and poems about the team in the press box

• actually covered up the reason for Mays missing a game due to a sore arm, both in his game article and in subsequent lies to his editor and the opposing manager, and then justified his actions by saying it helped the team

• gave Dark batting order suggestions (which Dark used)

• told Dark that no manager ever became a great manager until he had given up on his players, and urged Dark to leave some of them alone (this, mind you, just a week or so before suggesting that Dark punch one of them out)

• taunted the Reds in an article by writing "How now, Red Leg?" then suffered a barrage of criticism from Reds fans, including one letter writer who began " 'In my opinion, you, sir are a compleat [sic] Idiot.' "

Most amazingly, during one spring training episode in which Jim Davenport, Bob Schmidt, and Harvey Kuenn were thrown in jail for fighting and public drunkenness, Einstein and Stevens, after being summoned by club secretary Eddie Brannick (who actually said "I wanted to make sure all the press were notified"), called a lawyer on behalf of the befuddled Giants management milling around in the hotel lobby, accompanied Dark and the lawyer to the jail and helped get the players sprung before the local newspaper's photographers could get there. Imagine that happening today.

Every good season, even an ultimately unsuccessful one, has that one moment when the team is on a roll and its fans get really fired up. Einstein covered that moment in 1961 well, recounting how telegrams flooded the press box in Cincinnati during a winning streak that brought the Giants within a few games of the lead late in the season. The build-up and coverage of that stretch gave a nice insight into a period when the citizens of San Francisco cared much more about the team than they generally do today. Of course, Einstein also humorously covered the subsequent frustrating slump that knocked the team out of the race, noting the receipt of one telegram that stated "'Disregard previous wire.'"

The recap of the 1962 season takes all of eight pages and has little of the charm of the rest of the book. In fact, it is pretty obvious that it was written as a late addition to the book, and the belabored justification that 1961 somehow made 1962 possible rings pretty hollow. In fact, if the whole last chapter dedicated to the 1962 season were completely ignored, the resultant concluding paragraphs of the book would probably be a more satisfactory ending. There is nothing wrong with Einstein having covered 1961 in his book, only that the book did not own up to that being the case.

Even though A Flag for San Francisco does not give anywhere near adequate coverage to the actual pennant-winning season, it is still a nice window back to the starting point of the last clearly successful decade for the Giants' franchise. In a light but enjoyable way, Einstein left us with a clear, if probably abridged, image of what things were like back when baseball was a pleasure without the distraction of labor strife, media idiocy, player buffoonery and other blights on modern sports. To the extent that those things existed (and they surely did), fans were allowed to ignore them and just concentrate on the games, and it seemed to work. At the same time, Einstein doesn't go overboard in his hero worship. Everyone, including Dark and even Einstein, are presented as people, warts and all. Einstein's sense of humor made sure of that.

But in the end, A Flag for San Francisco in its own way embodies the enduring irony of the Giant fan's existence: in a book supposedly all about the team winning a pennant, the best the Giants could do was finish third.

E-mail Richard at rboorooj@earthlink.net

Gregg Pearlman, gregg@EEEEEEgp.com

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