Joe DiMaggio . . . Ted Williams . . . Joe Louis . . . Billy Conn . . . Whirlaway

Against the backdrop of a war that threatened to consume the world, these athletes transformed 1941 into one of the most thrilling years in sports history.

In the summer of 1941, America paid attention to sports with an intensity that had never been seen before. World War II was raging in Europe and headlines grew worse by the day; even the most optimistic people began to accept the inevitability of the United States being drawn into the conflict. In sports pages and arenas at home, however, an athletic perfect storm provided unexpected—and uplifting—relief. Four phenomenal sporting events were underway, each destined to become legend.

In 1941—The Greatest Year in Sports, acclaimed sportswriter Mike Vaccaro chronicles this astounding moment in history. Fueled by a somber mania for sports—a desire for good news to drown out the bad—Americans by the millions fervently watched, listened, and read as Joe DiMaggio dazzled the country by hitting in a record-setting fifty-six consecutive games; Ted Williams powered through an unprecedented .406 season; Joe Louis and Billy Conn (the heavyweight and light-heavyweight champions) battled in unheard-of fashion for boxing’s ultimate championship; and the phenomenal (some say deranged) thoroughbred, Whirlaway, raced to three heart-stopping victories that won the coveted Triple Crown of horse racing. As Phil Rizzuto perfectly expressed, “You read the sports section a lot because you were afraid of what you’d see in other parts of the paper.”

Gripping and nostalgic, 1941—The Greatest Year in Sports focuses on these four seminal events and brings to life the national excitement and remarkable achievement (many of these records still stand today), as well as the vibrant lives of the athletes who captivated the nation. With vast insight, Vaccaro pulls back the veil on DiMaggio’s anxieties and the building pressure of “The Streak,” and chronicles the brash, young confidence Williams displayed as he hammered his way through the baseball season largely in DiMaggio’s shadow. He takes readers inside the head of Billy Conn, a kid who traded in his light-heavyweight belt for a shot at the very decent and very powerful Joe Louis, and tells the story of the fire-breathing racehorse, Whirlaway, who was known either for setting track records or tearing off in the wrong direction.

Rich in historical detail and edge-of-your-seat reporting, Mike Vaccaro has crafted a lasting, important book that captures a portrait of one of America’s most trying, and extraordinary, eras.

“Plenty for baseball fans, boxing fans, horse racing fans, and World War II history buffs alike . . . expertly researched, neatly written . . . a nifty Father’s Day present.” —The Star-Ledger

“This was simply a genius idea . . . It is of little surprise the New York Post’s Vaccaro, the best sports columnist in that city, delivered an exceptionally written and researched book that fascinates even the many of us born long after the year in question.” –Yahoo! Sports

Gripping and nostalgic, Vaccaro focuses on the most remarkable events in the world of sports in 1941 and captures an entire era in American life.

In 1941--THE GREATEST YEAR IN SPORTS, Mike Vaccaro re-creates the most remarkable season in the history of sports--the summer that saw the true measure of baseball superstars Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams, the fierce battle between Joe Louis and Billy Conn for boxing's heavyweight championship, and the heart-stopping feats of the phenomenal (and, some say, psychotic) thoroughbred Whirlaway, who won the coveted Triple Crown of horse racing. Played out as the daily war news from Europe worsened, these dramas turned millions of Americans into obsessive sports fans. Phil Rizzuto summed it up perfectly: You read the sports section a lot because you were afraid of what you'd see in other parts of the paper.

Vaccaro describes DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak, Ted Williams's season-long pursuit of the elusive .400 mark, the Joe Louis-Billy Conn confrontation, and the races that made Whirlaway one of a handful of horses in the last sixty-five years to become a Triple Crown winner. As the sporting events unfold, Vaccaro integrates dispatches from the political and social arenas, evoking the escapism sports provided in counterpoint to the rising dread that engulfed pre-war America--particularly as it became ever clearer that the U.S. would be drawn into the catastrophe raging in Europe.

Gripping and nostalgic, 1941--THE GREATEST YEAR IN SPORTS focuses on seminal events in the world of sports and captures an entire era in American life. Like The Boys of Summer, Seabiscuit, and The Summer of '49, it has an appeal that goes far beyond the sports audience.

is a lead sports columnist for the New York Post and is the author of Emperors and Idiots He has won more than fifty major journalism awards since 1989 and has been cited for distinguished writing by the Associated Press Sports Editors, the New York State Publishers Association, and the Poynter Institute. He lives in New Jersey.