Suds Series: Baseball, Beer Wars, and the Summer of '82

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Suds Series takes readers back forty years, treating them to a story that is part baseball history, part urban history, and part U.S. cultural history. The narrative weaves together the development of the heavily German-influenced Midwest cities of St. Louis and Milwaukee through their engagement with beer and baseball, beginning with the nineteenth-century American Association, better known as the “Beer and Whisky League.” By the 1890s, Augustus Busch owned the St. Louis Cardinals, while in Milwaukee, not only was the team that had moved there from Seattle in 1970 now named the “Brewers,” but the Miller Brewing Company was one of their major sponsors.   Even nominal baseball fans will enjoy reading about legendary players, teams, and personalities that emerged in the 1982 season, the year Ricky Henderson stole 130 bases to set a new Major League record; Reggie Jackson led the league in homeruns; Fernando Valenzuela stood as a cultural icon for Mexican American fans; and Cal Ripken Jr. began his legendary playing streak. Those readers who lived through the 1980s will enjoy the many cultural references and recollections from the summer of ‘82, including the Pac-Man craze, SNL and Late Night, a chart-topping album by Rush, and the “Light Beer Wars” waged by Anheuser-Bush and Miller Brewing through a series of TV commercials, which featured popular sports figures.