"Why Me?" Ralph Branca and the Lifelong Pain of Defeat

Ralph Branca, Brooklyn Dodgers, October 3, 1951

My father grew up in Jersey City during the 1930s and 1940s and developed an early attachment to the New York Giants Baseball Club, which played at the Polo Grounds, also known as Coogan’s Bluff, across the river in Manhattan. Back then, baseball fans in the New York area had three good teams from which to choose—the New York Yankees, Brooklyn Dodgers, and New York Giants. Once loyalties were attached to one of those teams, the others became intensely hated rivals. This was especially so with the Giants and Dodgers, cross-town opponents in the National League. Even more than today’s Yankees-Red Sox and Cardinals-Cubs rivalries, the enmity between the New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers was the most intense in the history of sports. If you were a Giants fan, you detested the Dodgers. If you were a Dodgers fan, you passionately hated the Giants.

In the fall of 1951, my dad and mom were living in Springfield, Ohio, where my dad was doing his graduate studies in theology. Dad remained a loyal and enthusiastic Giants fan. By early October, the Dodgers-Giants conflict had reached its peak. All attempts at diplomacy and reconciliation were futile. You see, the Giants had overcome a 13 ½ game deficit to tie the Dodgers for first place on the final day of the season, thus requiring a three-game playoff to determine the outcome of the National League pennant. After splitting the first two games, the entire season came down to one game, to be played at the Polo Grounds.

On October 3, 1951, Dad listened to the game on the radio while my mom, apparently less interested in this epic battle of life and death and existential struggle for the souls of man, had left to run errands. For Dad, things were going poorly, the Dodgers holding onto a 4-1 lead as the Giants came to bat in the bottom of the ninth. But Dodgers starting pitcher Don Newcombe, who until then was pitching a brilliant game, holding the Giants to one run over the first eight innings, began to show signs of fatigue. Three of the first four Giants batters hit safely in the ninth, driving in a run and putting runners on second and third with one out. The Dodgers had Carl Erskine and Ralph Branca throwing in the bullpen, but Erskine was spiking his curveball in the dirt during warmup tosses. So, when Dodgers manager Gil Hodges walked out to the mound and took the ball from the tiring Newcombe, he called for Branca to come in and get the final two outs.

Branca was a fine pitcher. Normally a starter, he was a three-time all-star who won thirteen games that season and, in 1947, was the second youngest pitcher in history to win twenty games (Christy Mathewson was the youngest). But Branca had given up a home run to Thompson in the first play-off game, so it was a choice that may have given Dodgers fans a dose of angina. At 3:58 pm, with the count 1-1 on Thompson, Branca threw a high inside fastball. Thompson swung and hit a low line drive that sailed over the left field wall to win the game. My dad listened intently as Russ Hodges of WMCA radio announced, “There’s a long drive… It’s gonna be, I believe?... The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!”

It was at this precise moment, based on Dad’s recollection, that my mom returned from the store, grocery bags in hand. As my dad jumped up and down like a madman, he grabbed my mom and twirled her around while yelling indecipherable nonsense of utter joy and delight. My mom, failing to fully appreciate the historic enormity of the occasion, was slightly annoyed and told him to settle down. Oh, the loneliness of being a fan.

Bobby Thomson home run, October 3, 1951

Thomson’s home run would be forever known as “The Shot Heard Round the World” and later dubbed by legendary sportswriter Red Smith as the “The Miracle at Coogan’s Bluff.” It is a memory that stuck with my dad for the rest of his life. When he died, the one memento of his of which I made sure to take possession was his framed photograph of Thomson hitting the home run and showing the trajectory of the ball from Thomson’s bat to the left field stands. Ralph Branca and Bobby Thomson signed the picture.

As a loyal and dedicated fan of the St. Louis Cardinals, I fully appreciate the elation and joy my dad felt that October afternoon three-quarters of a century ago. When David Freese hit a triple with two outs in the bottom of the ninth in game six of the World Series against the Texas Rangers in 2011, driving in two runs to tie the game, and then hit a home run to win it in the bottom of the eleventh, I nearly passed out from excessive exhilaration. The Cards winning the World Series in 1967, 1982, 2006, and 2011 are sources of blissful memories in my life that will forever stay with me.

But for every team, player, and fan who jumps for joy when victory is rescued from the jaws of defeat, there is another side to the story. In sports, for every win there is a loss. While Bobby Thomson was being mobbed on the field and elevated to the mythical status of Baseball Hero, Ralph Branca, who threw the pitch that led to the home run, threw the rosin bag on the ground in anger and despair, and held his head in shame. Just as Giants fans will forever remember the ecstasy experienced as Thomson blasted the home run that won the National League pennant, every Dodgers fan, especially those alive when it happened, continue to endure painful memories of that fateful day in October.

After the game, Branca was an emotional wreck, distraught and shaken by what had transpired from what he called “that goddamn pitch.” It haunted him for the rest of his life. Branca was a devout Catholic, a man of deep faith, and he could not help but ask, “Why me?” When he left the Polo Grounds following the game, he met with his priest to discuss the “tragic” event. He asked, “But why me, Father? I love this game so much. Why did it have to be me?” Father Rowley responded, “God chose you because [God] knew you’d be strong enough to bear this cross.”

Branca struggled the remainder of his life to come to grips with how a single pitch out of an otherwise good career that encompassed thousands of pitches could define for so many people their perception of his worth. It was a tough cross for Branca to bear. He was never the same pitcher after the 1951 season. “You know, if you kill somebody, they sentence you to life,” he often said. “You serve twenty years, and you get paroled. I’ve never been paroled.”

In Ralph Branca and the Meaning of Life (McFarland & Company, 2025), Bob Mitchell writes that “sometimes life can be a zero-sum game, with winners and losers canceling each other out and leaving nothing at all in between.” Like my dad, Mitchell was a lifelong Giants fan. He was seven years old when Thomson hit his legendary home run, and it was a moment he continues to recognize as one of the happiest moments of his life. He describes once meeting the legendary talk show host Larry King, a lifelong Dodgers fan. Although Mitchell had been invited onto the Larry King Show to discuss what was then a recently published memoir that reflected on how Mitchell’s 2015 heart transplant impacted his understanding of life and death, all King wanted to talk about was The Game and The Pitch. Just as that game and pitch positively changed the trajectory of Mitchell’s life as a young Giants fan, the same game and pitch nearly ruined King’s life as a seventeen-year-old boy who lived and died with the Dodgers. Here they were, 65 years later, still obsessing over “that goddamn pitch.”

As Mitchell explains, for himself and King, their different experiences of that game “formed our two different ways of looking at the world—then and for years to come: Hope vs. Cynicism, Certitude vs. Doubt, Ecstasy vs. Agony, Gratitude vs. Anger, Contentment vs. Envy—all evinced, simultaneously, by the very same spectacle, the very same single pitch.” King told Mitchell in the Green Room before the interview that the moment Thomson’s home run disappeared into the left field stands, “I felt as if I had just died. Damn near killed me, that Branca fastball.” Similarly, King’s good friend, the great sportswriter Dick Schapp, once said, “When Bobby Thomson hit that home run, my childhood ended.”

Why do sports fans care so much about the outcome of a game? Is it a flaw in our character? Or is it mostly an American thing? Americans, after all, are a competitive lot who take pride in winning and shame in losing. And yet, people learn so much more from losing than winning. Losing prepares us for life’s disappointments, and teaches us humility, perspective, justice, and dignity. It is failure, struggle, and conflict, not winning, that inspires great art and literature. But Americans tend to overlook, ignore, and hold in disdain those who fail to win. Yet everyone suffers the experience of failure.

During my first year in high school, I played on the freshmen football team. Although I was a tall, lanky kid, I had capable hands and was an adept receiver. Indeed, I led the team in scoring that year (not a great accomplishment on this particularly mediocre team). But the only experience I remember about that year was what happened in one game about halfway into the season. We were playing Lawrence Township and, with the score tied and one play left in the first half, the coach called for me to run a deep route on a pass play. I made a good move on the defender and had him beat by several steps when the quarterback threw the ball my way. A perfect spiral, it came right at me. I stopped in my tracks and waited for the ball to reach me and, with visions of scoring a dramatic touchdown filtering through my thick skull, the ball went through my arms and landed like a deadened grenade on the opponent’s thirty-yard line. Although it happened over fifty years ago, to this day, I still can’t believe I dropped the damn ball! I joined the team during the coach’s halftime meeting in utter humiliation and defeat. I’ll never forget the disdainful look from the coach and the mean-spirited remarks from teammates. For the rest of the season, I lost my confidence. I never played football again.

In sports, as in all competitive endeavors, someone must always lose. It is as much a part of sports as it is a part of life. But winning and losing too frequently defines how we perceive ourselves and others, especially as Americans. Although we learn so much more about ourselves when we lose, about how we manage defeat and struggle, our resilience and ability to overcome adversity and disappointment, too often we hold our heads in shame and let the noise of critics define our worth as human beings. If the goal of sports is merely to win, we miss its ultimate value. Shouldn’t the goal of sports be to compete, to excel, and to bring out the best in the human spirit? Mitchell described it well in his 1997 collection of philosophical prose, The Tao of Sports (Frog Books, 1997):

I win, you lose: so this means I’m better than you? Winning and losing are imposters, posing as self-worth and inadequacy. . . . Do you think you’re better or worse as a person, depending upon the result? Fact is, you’re no better or worse than the fullness of your effort, than the focus and dedication and enthusiasm with which you play. . . . It is the Game, not winning the game, that will ultimately bring you satisfaction. And losing comes not from losing, but from missing out on the learning and the growth and the challenge.

I cannot really claim to have learned this lesson, though in quiet moments of reflection I know it to be true. Losing and failure remain incredibly painful. When my kids were younger, my daughter Hannah, in seeing me become upset over a Cardinals loss, would say, “Dad, don’t sweat the small stuff!” To which I responded, “I agree – but this is not small stuff!” Yes, I have much to learn indeed.

I am afraid I am more like Ralph Branca, who years after surrendering the home run to Bobby Thomson, said, “I still have nightmares about that goddamn pitch.” Well, I still have nightmares about that goddamn dropped pass. And yet, the internal punishment we inflict on ourselves is eased by the recognition that failure and losing are integral parts of life. Failure is often more interesting and inspiring than success. The suffering and despair of losing helps us better understand the shortcomings, conflicts, and struggles of the human condition, and is even necessary to give deeper meaning and context to winning and success. In life, what is felt deeply can bear fruit only through struggle and disappointment.

Ralph Branca never forgave himself for throwing “that goddamn pitch.” When it was discovered some years later that the Giants were stealing signs and that, possibly, Thomson knew a fastball was coming, Branca experienced relief and later bitterness, for perhaps he was cheated, and it was not all his fault. But if bitterness and anger replace agony and despair, one is no better off than before.

I am happy that my father and millions of Giants fans experienced the thrill and excitement of the Shot Heard Round the World. But I also know from experience that my dad kept it all in perspective. He understood that, for Ralph Branca and millions of Dodgers fans, the pain and suffering experienced from that same game, and the pitch that resulted in Thomson’s home run, were just as real.

As Confucius wrote, “A man is great not because he hasn’t failed; a man is great because failure hasn’t stopped him.” In the end, we can all learn from the example of Boris Becker, the star German tennis player who in 1987 lost a major tennis match during the peak of his career to a low-ranked player named Peter Doohan. When reporters asked Becker how he lost to a virtual nobody, Becker replied, “I lost a tennis match. It was not a war. Nobody died.” Well said, Boris. It is a perspective we should all take to heart, and one I believe Ralph Branca himself eventually understood. 

Abraham Joshua Heschel and a Life of Meaning

Abraham Joshua Heschel speaking at UCLA, May 25, 1963

I find it helpful in life to identify role models, people who inspire you to live with meaning and purpose, to act in ways worthy of praise and admiration, and who move you to be kinder, seek justice, and help in some small way to make the world a better place. Some of our role models are found close to home—a parent, a teacher, a coach, a minister or rabbi, a mentor. Others are less personal but equally important, people of history who opposed injustice, spoke out when others remained silent, and led exemplary lives filled with integrity and meaning. For me, one such person is Abraham Joshua Heschel.

Heschel was a rabbi, teacher, philosopher, writer, and social and political activist. He was a loving father and husband. And he was a man of spiritual faith, a Jewish theologian who wrote beautifully and convincingly, with eloquent and poetic ease, about humankind’s desperate need of purpose and connection, and of his belief in a living God who sought human partners to repair the world.

Born into a Polish Hasidic community in 1907, Heschel was an observant Jew who respected the mosaic of all faiths and lived experiences he encountered along the way. He was a seeker who asked, “How can I rationally find a way where ultimate meaning lies? Why am I here at all, and what is my purpose?” In the academy, many of his colleagues and professors found these questions unworthy of philosophical analysis. But to Heschel, these questions were essential to a life well lived.

Heschel combined his theological studies with a study of philosophy and poetry, literature and political theory, theater and music. As explained by the historian Julian E. Zelizer in Abraham Joshua Heschel: A Life of Radical Amazement (Yale University Press, 2021), Heschel was “fascinated with the nexus between the secular and the sacred” and, although for him a belief in God “was at the center of understanding all human ethical and religious activity,” he appreciated secular culture and respected the many secular writers and thinkers who shared his desire to better the world.

As a theologian, Heschel embraced a degree of intuitive thinking even as he accepted the scientific rationalism of modern society. His belief that all human beings were created in the image of God and that every person had the capacity for holiness deeply influenced his sense of justice. And yet, historic realities would challenge that belief. As a university student in Berlin in the 1930s, Heschel witnessed the disintegration of the Weimar Republic as the Nazi Party rose to power. He witnessed first-hand the rise of Hitler and Germany’s acquiescence to the brutality of Nazism. He saw Jewish-owned stores forced to place yellow stars on their doors as part of a national boycott on Jewish businesses and professions. He watched as an autocratic government brutally and systematically suppressed the freedom of fellow Jews.

On October 28, 1938, the Nazis detained Heschel and placed him in a detention camp as the Gestapo raided Jewish homes to deport thousands of Polish Jews then living in Germany. Less than two weeks later, on the night of November 9, violent mobs organized by the Nazi Party wreaked havoc on Jewish life in Germany. In what came to be known as Kristallnacht (“the night of the broken glass”), German authorities did nothing as violent mobs set hundreds of synagogues on fire and vandalized thousands of Jewish-owned businesses. Mobs of Nazi paramilitaries broke into homes, smashed furniture, and terrorized Jewish families. Following orders given by Nazi leaders, police forces and fire brigades did nothing to stop the destruction.

Although an invitation in 1939 to teach at the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio, allowed Heschel to emigrate to the United States and escape the Holocaust, Heschel’s mother and other family members who remained in Europe were not so fortunate. Their tragic deaths at the hands of the Nazis would profoundly influence Heschel’s life’s work and mission. The passive silence of most German Christians during the Holocaust deeply troubled Heschel and caused him to focus more intensely on how human detachment from God and morality can have tragic consequences. This would become the foundation of Heschel’s social and political activism.

As Heschel learned more about the catastrophic destinies of European Jews, he became convinced that humankind’s silence in the face of evil made everyone complicit in the persecution and suffering of fellow human beings. In trying to understand a broken world, Heschel came to believe that humankind’s relationship with God had weakened and contributed to a spiritual crisis in modern society that revealed itself in the brutality of a world war, the Holocaust, and the development of weapons of mass destruction. Humanity became disconnected from morality and ethics.

As the reality of mass genocide and the Holocaust became widely known, it challenged deeply held beliefs and created an existential and spiritual crisis for many people of faith. How was it possible to believe in God after Auschwitz and Treblinka? Heschel never wavered in his belief in God, but these historic realities profoundly challenged his life’s work. How could Germany, which had been the center of scientific inquiry and cosmopolitan culture, so quickly transform from light into darkness? How could an otherwise enlightened civilization suddenly turn into such a morally depraved and brutal country? As Zelizer explains, “Heschel spent the rest of his life trying to make sense of this, wrestling with the question of whether and how Judaism—and all religion—could offer the key toward preventing this kind of mass injustice from rearing its head again.”

Heschel believed that societal indifference, more than anything, had allowed the evil of Hitler and Nazism to take root in German society. Advances in science, economics, and modern technology did not produce a peaceful world. Economic advancement and self-interest surpassed humanity’s need for lives filled with meaning and purpose. Heschel partly blamed religious leaders and institutions for the resulting spiritual crisis. In God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1955), Heschel wrote:

When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendor of the past; when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion—its message becomes meaningless.

God in Search of Man expanded upon Heschel’s thesis that God needed human partners to achieve a just world. But how are individuals and societies to deal with the problem of evil? The “essential predicament of man,” according to Heschel:

…has assumed a peculiar urgency in our time, living as we do in a civilization where factories were established in order to exterminate millions of men, women and children; where soap was made of human flesh. What have we done to make such crimes possible? What are we doing to make such crimes impossible?

To answer these questions, Heschel looked to the Hebrew Prophets, who embodied a relationship between God and humankind essential to a functioning moral universe, in which indifference to injustice was unacceptable. In The Prophets (Jewish Publication Society of America, 1962), Heschel argued that the Hebrew Prophets refused to be neutral when witnessing evil in the world. Societal indifference was the root of how something like the Holocaust could happen. To “remain neutral, impartial, and not easily moved by the wrongs done unto other people . . . is more insidious than evil itself; it is more universal, more contagious, more dangerous.”

The Prophets became one of Heschel’s most influential books and impacted the thinking of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., and fellow civil rights activists. It helped them to combine their theology with real-world activism. Heschel himself became more actively engaged in the affairs of humanity. In Selma in 1965, when Heschel locked arms with Ralph Bunche and the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth, with King close by and three thousand peaceful protestors behind them, they shared a feeling of interfaith solidarity. The progressive religious community was on the side of the protestors, leading a movement for justice and morality.

From left: John Lewis, unidentified nun, Ralph Abernathy, Martin Luther King, Jr.,
Ralph Bunche, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Fred Shuttlesworth

Heschel’s religious beliefs influenced his understanding of social justice and his pursuit of social justice helped shape his understanding of religion. It was what moved him into the world of protest and political activism. It was why he helped lead a progressive interfaith movement in support of civil rights and opposition to the Vietnam War, why he worked to free Soviet Jewry, and why he willingly engaged in a dialogue with the Pope during the Second Vatican Council to convince the Catholic Church to condemn antisemitism and recognize the “religious dignity of the Jews.”

Heschel believed the purpose of religion was not to seek God’s salvation but to offer human beings moral guidance in a perilous world. And it came with expectations. “What is expected of me? What is demanded of me?” he asked. Perhaps for world humanity this was too much to ask. But if collectively we ever choose to accept the task of making the world worthy of redemption, it is difficult to imagine a world in which obvious injustices go unaddressed, or millions of people acquiesce in mass murder and destruction.

It would be easy to dismiss Heschel’s thesis in an age when belief in God is ridiculed and organized religion has lost credibility in most liberal intellectual circles. But to do so is to miss what he was trying to say. In a talk he gave in April 1963, Heschel explained that the task of religion “is to cultivate distrust for violence and lies, sensitivity to other people’s suffering, the love of peace. God has a stake in the life of every man.” Philosophy and religion, to be relevant, must offer wisdom to live by. “There is no human being who is not moved by the question, Am I needed?”

As a rabbi and theologian, Heschel believed that an openness to God, a sense of awe and wonder for the universe, and the ability to “feel the hidden love and wisdom of all things” would help lead humanity to more and deeper understanding, kindness, justice, and peace. To our more modern ears, this may sound naïve and unrealistic. But when societies do not have healthy alternatives, when people lose a sense of principled morality and spiritual connectedness, whether through organized religion or not, people inevitably gravitate toward something that is more authoritarian by nature. This has been true throughout history. Even if we focus on developing a purely secular sense of meaning and purpose, of love for our neighbor and compassion for human suffering, the result is a better, more just world.

Heschel died in 1972. Were he alive today, he may have found himself on the margins of society. But to understand Heschel’s life and legacy, and to read his writings and speeches, is to peer into the heart of a genuine zaddik, a holy man. Just as he spoke prophetically for civil rights and opposition to the Vietnam War, Heschel could have offered much needed moral leadership today on the tragic conflict in Gaza, the authoritarian overreach of the Trump administration, the cruel and unlawful crackdown on immigrants, the abandonment of foreign aid, the disregard for the environment, and the dismissal of morality in the affairs of the nation.

Heschel saw politics in moral terms and addressed what he perceived as a spiritual crisis facing the modern world. He saw the violence and injustice all around us as a direct outgrowth of an emptiness in the human spirit. But amid anguish and despair, he taught that the human capacity for goodness and love can repair a broken world. The nation urgently needs Heschel’s moral guidance now more than ever. “The choice,” wrote Heschel, “is to love together or to perish together. Let the love of life have the final word.” 

A Tip of the Hat to the Milwaukee Brewers

It should come as no surprise to my faithful readers that I do not like the Milwaukee Brewers. Indeed, when it comes to baseball, I do not like any team not named the St. Louis Cardinals. I will not here rehash the psychological complexity of growing up in New Jersey as a Cardinals fan, nor attempt to explain why I have remained loyal to a midwestern team located in a city to which I have no personal or familial connection. But resolute and loyal I have remained for six decades of my life, including the past three seasons when the Cardinals have been, at best, mediocre, and more often deeply disappointing. The current version of the Cardinals does not resemble in any manner the Cardinals of my youth, the Cardinals of Gibson, Brock, and Cepeda in the 1960s, nor the speedy and scrappy Cardinals of the 1980s, and certainly not the teams that produced over two decades of mostly first-rate baseball starting in 2000.

My love of the Cardinals generally precludes me from praising another team. It is a defect in character, I know, but ask any passionate fan to look objectively at the opposition and you will get disgruntled mumbling in return. So, it is with trepidation that I tip my hat to the Milwaukee Brewers.

As I write, there are five days remaining in the 2025 season, and the Brewers have the best record in all of baseball. Yes, better than the Philadelphia Phillies and Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League, and far better than the Toronto Blue Jays, New York Yankees or any team trying to distinguish itself in the American League. The common denominator for each of those teams is a massive payroll. Those teams pay their players, especially a few select superstars, big-time money. The Brewers, on the other hand, have the 23^rd lowest payroll in the major leagues. The Brewers’ payroll is almost $200 million less than the New York Mets ($323 million), who are hanging by a very thin thread in the Wild Card pennant chase, holding a one game lead over the Reds and Diamondbacks with four games to play. Only seven teams have a lower payroll than the Brewers. Heck, the Brewers spend less money on their players than the Colorado Rockies, who have the worst record in the major leagues and will be lucky to win 45 games all season.

Outside of Milwaukee, most people – even earnest baseball fans – cannot name three players on the Brewers. Go ahead, try it. This is a team without superstars. The Dodgers have Ohtani, Freeman, and Betts. In fact, they have an entire roster of All-Star caliber players. The Phillies have Harper, Schwarber, and Turner. They play with bravado and confidence and bring a dangerous combination of sluggers and crafty pitchers that fill the opposition with anxiety and dread.

The Brewers? Their top players are guys with names like Turang (is that a soft drink?), Chourio (bless you), Frelick (who?), and Yelich (is he still playing?). I only know of William Contreras because his brother Willson plays for the Cardinals. Their third baseman is Caleb Durbin (enough said). One of their best starting pitchers is Quinn Priester, who I might have told you until a few weeks ago was most likely the name of a Catholic seminary student. I mean, this is an entire roster of “players to be named later.”

Since 2017, the Brewers have consistently finished at or near the top of their division. Only the Dodgers, Yankees, and Astros have won more games than the Brewers in that time. And yet, they are never mentioned by the professional baseball analysts and reporters as a team to watch during pre-season predictions. No one takes them seriously. This season was no different, with most analysts predicting the Cubs to win the NL Central. Yet here we are. The Brewers have won more games than any other team in baseball as the Cubs sit quietly in second place, 6.5 games back.

How do the Brewers do it? By playing solid, fundamental baseball. They do not swing at pitches outside the strike zone (only four teams have struck out fewer times than the Brewers) and they get on base (only five teams have more walks than the Brewers). They play superb defense, run the bases well, are almost always in the game and find a variety of ways to win. They make contact, steal bases, advance the runners, and play small ball while also hitting home runs. Although they will not outslug anyone (they rank 20^th in total home runs), they have one of the best-ranked offenses in the major leagues, as only two teams in baseball have scored more runs than the Brewers. At the same time, they have the second-lowest team earned run average in the major leagues.

As the manager of the Durham Bulls said in one of my all-time favorite movies, baseball “is a simple game. You throw the ball. You hit the ball. You catch the ball. You got it?” The Brewers score a lot of runs without giving up a lot of runs. That’s a pretty good combination. And they do it without much chest pumping and flamboyance.

Baseball is a wonderful game in part because it is so difficult. The more I watch baseball, the more I am convinced that hitting major league pitching is the most demanding thing to do in sports. As Willie Stargell said about hitting, "They give you a round bat, and they throw you a round ball, and then they tell you to hit it square." Hank Aaron, one of the greatest hitters of all time, said “it took me seventeen years to get 3,000 hits in baseball, and I did it in one afternoon on the golf course." The Brewers hit the ball well up and down their lineup. Sal Frelick (.291, 12 HRs), Brice Turang (.284, 18 HRs), Jackson Chourio (.270, 20 HRs), Christian Yelich (.266, 29 HRs, 102 RBIs), William Contreras (.262, 17 HRs), and Caleb Durbin (.262, 11 HRs) provide a steady drumbeat of offense without much fanfare. None of these guys knock your socks off but what the Brewers lack in superstars and MVP candidates, they make up for with their competent work ethic and blue-collar consistency. It is frustratingly impressive.

The Brewers do not sign expensive free agents. Shohei Ohtani and Juan Soto did not even talk with the Brewers when contemplating where to sign in the offseason. As certain as death and taxes, you can take it to the bank that upcoming free agents Kyle Schwarber and Kyle Tucker will not be signing with Milwaukee in the offseason. The Brewers not only have one of the lowest payrolls in baseball, but they also play in the smallest television market in North America. From a marketing perspective, Milwaukee is the opposite of New York and Los Angeles, and you can be certain the executives at Fox Sports and ESPN desperately do not want the Brewers to advance in the playoffs.

The Brewers succeed with a combination of home-grown, young talent from a first-rate farm system, quality minor league instruction and player development, and smart trades, often taking a chance on players that other teams have passed on. Turang and Frelick were first-round draft picks in 2018 and 2021, respectively. Starting pitcher Jacob Misiorowski (how do you spell that?), who routinely hits over 100 mph on his fastball and combines it with ridiculous breaking stuff, was a second-round pick in the Brewers 2022 draft. Contreras (C), Durbin (3B), Priester (RHP), and Chad Patrick (RHP) were each acquired through under-the-radar trades.

Taking an early lead against the Brewers does not mean much. The Brewers have come from behind to win thirty-eight times this season, including five times in the ninth inning. And once the Brewers grab a lead, they are difficult to score against. They have one of the best bullpens in the game and consistently shut down opponents in the late innings. And they have done it with pitchers named Trevor McGill (30 saves, 2.54 ERA), Abner Uribe (1.72), Jared Koenig (6-1, 2.95), and Aaron Ashby (2.24). See what I mean?

Their starting pitching is solid, too, but like everything else about this team, there is no one who causes opponents’ knees to shake. Freddy Peralta (17-6, 2.68) is their ace, but does anyone even mention his name when people talk about the most dominant starting pitchers in the game? The 24-year-old Quinn Priester (13-2, 3.25), who the Brewers acquired from the Red Sox in the offseason, is turning into one of the top pitching talents in the league. Their pitcher with the third most wins (11) is 36-year-old journeyman Jose Quintana, who played for seven other major league clubs before the Brewers acquired him at the start of the 2025 season. No one else has more than seven wins.

Pat Murphy, Manager of the Milwaukee Brewers

Pat Murphy, the Brewers’ likeable manager, spent the first 25 years of his coaching career at the college level, including seven years as head coach for the University of Notre Dame baseball team and fifteen years at Arizona State University. The Brewers took a chance on Murphy, promoting him from bench coach to manager after Craig Counsell, one of the best managers in baseball, left Milwaukee for the Chicago Cubs after the 2023 season. Murphy is a man who loves to joke around and tease his players. It is his way of showing he cares and helps keep the players relaxed in what can be a pressure-filled game. Entering the 2024 season, most baseball analysts predicted the Brewers to finish near the bottom of the NL Central due to Murphy’s lack of managerial experience and the loss of key players from the Brewers’ roster. Ho hum. The Brewers won 93 games in 2024, fourth-most in baseball, and Murphy won NL Manager of the Year honors. So much for predictions.

I do not know how the postseason will work out for the Brewers. Not surprisingly, most analysts predict they will not advance far and almost no one thinks they will win the World Series. It may be that most people still think of Milwaukee as the setting for Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley. Ever since millions of Americans watched friends and roommates Laverne DeFazio and Shirley Feeney work as bottle-cappers in the fictitious Shotz Brewery of the late 1950s, the city of Milwaukee is mostly an afterthought. It is after all, only the 40^th largest metropolitan area in the country, which means there are more than a dozen metropolitan areas larger than Milwaukee that do not have a major league team. But anyone who takes them for granted may come to regret it.

I hope the Cardinals front office is taking notice. They are in a needed rebuild period with a new president of baseball operations (Chaim Bloom) taking over this offseason. They would do well to emulate the organizational strengths of the Milwaukee Brewers, their skillful style of play, efficient use of payroll, smart player and instructional development, and a belief that they can win against anyone and prevail in an uphill battle against the odds makers and fancy teams with the big money superstars. The descendants of Laverne and Shirley, Richie Cunningham, and the Fonz will be rooting for them, as will an enthusiastic fan base of a small market city with a rich history. So, here is a reluctant appreciation of the Milwaukee Baseball Club, a tip of the hat from a Cardinals fan wishing you well, even if I cannot cheer with any degree of enthusiasm. Take it while you can, because next season, and every season thereafter, I will be back to disliking you.

Discovering Appalachia Through Fiction

The wonder is that you could start life with nothing, end with nothing, and lose so much in between. – Barbara Kingolver, Demon Copperhead 

Kafka once wrote, “In man’s struggle against the world, bet on the world.” In most avenues of life, this is depressingly true, for there are so many things beyond our control. Our life trajectories are mostly determined by the circumstances of our birth, the places we live, and the people we encounter along the way. It is not surprising, then, that these experiences and the cultural influences around us also shape how we perceive people and cultures that are different from our own.

For each of the past 35 years, I have driven by car to visit my mom (and dad until he died in 2015), in western North Carolina. When my dad retired in the early 1990s, my parents relocated from the DC suburbs of northern Virginia to the towns of Etowah, and then Fletcher, in the heart of the Blue Ridge mountains, a part of the Appalachian mountain range. It is a region of majestic beauty, with mountains and trees all around that surround small towns and villages, each with their own quaint character. To get there from Pennsylvania, I drive south on I-81, through a small slice of West Virginia, the Maryland panhandle, and the entire length of Virginia, finally weaving through northeastern Tennessee until I cross over the border of western North Carolina.

Most of the drive is in Appalachia, and as I pass through southwestern Virginia and cross into Tennessee, I witness the rugged beauty of the physical landscape. Occasionally, I catch a glimpse of trailer parks, rundown farmhouses, and pockets of poverty nestled into the mountainsides and valleys below. The people here speak with a rural, southern accent, and there is no doubt that some folks I have interacted with at gas stations and mini-marts along the way have historically had the terms “hillbilly” and “hick” applied to them.

For years, this scenic drive provided a brief respite from my busy, more cosmopolitan life in Washington, DC, and Philadelphia, and I often looked wistfully and admiringly at what seemed like a simpler lifestyle in this part of the world. But, if truth be told, I have occasionally harbored pre-conceived and unflattering notions about the people of rural Appalachia, prejudices reflected in snide remarks by an “educated” friend or colleague (or myself) that painted southern rural culture as backwards, bigoted, and unsophisticated. Indeed, if you pay close attention, you will frequently hear such sentiments reflected throughout American higher culture.

Conversely, the educated elites of coastal America are frequently disdained and perceived as arrogant snobs by people from other social classes. It is a stone that flies both ways, a vicious cycle that feeds misunderstanding and America’s political and social divides. But the more you get to know people, spend time with them, and learn about their struggles and life challenges, the more you understand that these stereotypes and assumptions are often false and tell you nothing about the character of the individuals involved.

I have written previously about how an artfully crafted book can help us “experience life from someone else’s shoes. To understand where other people come from, to learn of their dreams and aspirations, their hopes and fears, [and] expose our common humanity.” (See “An Act of Quiet Contemplation: Why Reading Matters”). Concerning Appalachia, I can think of no better example than Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver (Harper Perennial, 2022).

The Pulitzer Prize winning novel, which is modeled after Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield, explores themes of child poverty in rural America, the scourge of opioid addiction fueled by the pharmaceutical companies in the 1990s and early 2000s, and the economic and social challenges faced by the people of Appalachia following the decline of the coal industry, tobacco farming, and the timber trade. Kingsolver tells the story brilliantly with great humor and heartbreak. It is one of the best novels I have ever read, and has opened my eyes to the struggles, resilience, and resourcefulness of the people of Appalachia.

Kingsolver’s novel dives deep into the heart of Lee County, in the far southwestern corner of Virginia, which along with parts of eastern Kentucky and Tennessee, make up a section of the country that many have derisively called “flyover country” where the uneducated, uncultured “hicks” of America congregate. Before becoming one of the “cultural elite” as a successful author of ten critically acclaimed novels, Kingsolver was herself born and raised in a small Appalachian town in eastern Kentucky. She understands viscerally the people and culture of the region and knows first-hand the wide-spread and subtle prejudices people from other parts of the country entertain about the people she grew up with (and currently live among).

The protagonist and narrator of Demon Copperhead is Damon Fields, born to a single, teenage mother in a trailer home. We learn quickly that Damon, who everyone calls “Demon,” began life way behind the starting gate, his mother struggling with opioid and alcohol addictions and his father having died by accidental drowning in a local watering hole months earlier. Kingsolver sets Demon’s trajectory early in the novel, describing how Demon was born, fighting his way from his mother’s womb as she lay passed out on the bathroom floor of her mobile home. Demon’s narration implies we should not be surprised how this story progresses:

…If a mother is lying in her own piss and pill bottles while they’re slapping the kid she’s shunted out, telling him to look alive: likely the bastard is doomed. Kid born to the junkie is a junkie. He’ll grow up to be everything you don’t want to know, the rotten teeth and dead-zone eyes, the nuisance of locking up your tools in the garage so they don’t walk off, the rent-by-the-week motel squatting well back from the scenic highway. This kid, if he wanted a shot at the finer things, should have got himself delivered to some rich or smart or Christian, non-using type of mother. Anybody will tell you the born of this world are marked from the get-out, win or lose.

In his early years, Demon spends time with the Peggots, the kind family next door who take Demon in and provide him with stability until his mother recovers sobriety. Later, when Demon is back with his mom, she has married Stoner, a mentally and physically abusive trucker who makes Demon’s life miserable until Demon’s mother dies of an oxycontin overdose. The rest of Demon’s childhood is a tale of survival and neglect; of an overburdened child protection agency that places him in exploitative and abusive foster homes, his case assigned and re-assigned to social service workers who are underpaid and overworked and who lose files and don’t conduct proper follow-up. “I thought my life couldn’t get any worse,” he says at the age of ten. “Here’s some advice: Don’t ever think that.”

Demon’s first placement is at Creaky Farm, owned by a cranky and neglectful tobacco farmer who takes in foster kids for the $500 monthly payments from the state, which he uses to pay his debts while barely feeding the kids and making them work for free (and miss school) tending to his small tobacco farm, a dangerous and backbreaking form of hard labor that I knew nothing about until reading this book. A year later, the state places Demon with the McCobbs, a neglectful family that has Demon sleep in the dog’s room in the basement. Mr. McCobb insists that Demon must help with expenses (he is eleven), and he finds work for Demon at a local gas station, whose owner lets Demon snack on the junk food and hot dogs in the station mini-mart. But Demon’s labor is needed for the garbage disposal business run behind the station. Demon’s job is to dig through the dirty, filthy trash bags in the dumpsters to salvage anything that could be useful or valuable for the operators of a suspected meth lab next door. When Demon later discovers that his foster parents have been keeping all of Demon’s money earned at the gas station, he steals the money back and runs away.

Although much of the story is dark and depressing (made more so because you really care about and root for Demon), it contains doses of wry humor. In an implicit nod to David Coppefield, Demon references Charles Dickens, an author he discovered in school. Dickens, he says, is “one seriously old guy, dead and a foreigner, but Christ Jesus did he get the picture on kids and orphans getting screwed over and nobody giving a rat’s ass. You’d think he was from around here.”

And there are moments of hope and uplift when Demon is finally getting his life on track. When he runs away from the McCobbs, he makes it (after being robbed along the way) to Murder Valley, Tennessee, the birthplace of his father,  whom he never met and knew little about. There, we meet Demon’s paternal grandmother, Betsy Woodall, a hardy, no-nonsense woman who lives with her disabled brother Dick, a kind and wise man who bonds with Demon. Betsy passionately believes in education and, upon learning of Demon’s circumstances, contacts the football coach of the Lee High Generals, who agrees to take Demon in and look after him. So, back to Lee County Demon goes. Although Coach is a flawed man and struggles with alcoholism, he has a nice house with a housekeeper and recognizes Demon’s potential as a football player.

High school football, as anyone who knows anything about America, is all the rage in southwestern Virginia (and throughout the south and Midwest), and for a brief couple of years, Demon becomes the star tight end for the high school football team. He is no longer society’s loser. He becomes popular and, for once in his life, is someone who counts. But when Demon severely injures his knee playing football during his sophomore year, the team doctor puts him on oxycontin to help with the pain. “What’s an oxy,” Demon asked the doctor. Back then, Big Pharma was marketing oxy as a shiny new miracle drug.

OxyContin, God’s gift for the laid-off deep-hole man with his back and neck bones grinding like bags of gravel. For the bent-over lady pulling double shifts at Dollar General with her shot knees and ADHD grandkids to raise by herself. For every football player with some of this or that torn up, and the whole world riding on his getting back in the game. This was our deliverance. The tree was shaken and yes, we did eat of the apple.

Before long, Demon becomes addicted to pain killers, an addiction not at all helped by his girlfriend, Dori, whom he met while working at her father’s farm store. What starts out as a sweet high school romance soon develops into a darker story of mutual addiction, as Dori’s own abuse of fentanyl and other drugs propels Demon in an even worse direction, until they are both hard core drug addicts. For me, this was where I had to put down the book occasionally, as Kingsolver credibly describes the sickness and suffering an addict goes through, and the resulting desperation to do what is necessary (i.e., finding a new supply of pills) to alleviate the sickness and pain. The drug high becomes irrelevant and leads eventually to tragic consequences.

Somehow, Demon survives against the odds, for buried within his soul was a hint of optimism: “I got up every day thinking the sun was out there shining, and it could just as well shine on me as any other human person.” And that may be the most inspiring aspect of the novel, a tale of resilience, resourcefulness, and survival. Demon, who could have given up and drowned in the ocean of neglect, abuse, addiction, and self-inflicted wounds, somehow stays afloat, reaches shore, and lives to talk about it.

Throughout the story, Demon’s biggest obstacle in life is his lack of self-esteem. “You get to a point of not giving a damn over people thinking you’re worthless,” he says at one point in the novel. “Mainly by getting there first yourself.” He considered himself a “low life” in part because he had heard messages all his life telling him that he and others like him were society’s losers. When people call you a “hick” and “redneck” and laugh at you enough times, you begin to believe it. “You get used to it, not in the good way,” says Demon, as the world oftentimes feels “like a place where you weren’t invited.” But Demon offers a word of advice: “This is what I would say if I could, to all the smart people of the world with their dumb hillbilly jokes. …We can actually hear you.” 

Although Demon correctly perceives America’s condescending derision, he is wrong about his own worth. Fortunately, there are people at various points in Demon’s life who see his full potential as a human being and try, with differing degrees of success and failure along the way, to help him. The novel introduces us to terrific characters that show the rich diversity of Appalachia. Demon gains the notice of two teachers, Lewis and Annie Armstrong, an interracial couple who take a liking to him. Lewis Armstrong is a highly educated Black man from Chicago who teaches middle school English. He first came to Appalachia as part of the Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA) program, where he met Annie, a “hippie” high school art teacher who recognizes Demon’s exceptional talents as a comic sketch artist. Ironically, Mr. Armstrong attempts to teach the middle school kids about the history of the region (one tidbit I did not know: Lee County fought for the Union during the Civil War) to help them counteract the stereotypes and ridicule that are societally apportioned to Appalachia’s mostly poor, white students. Annie, meanwhile, nurtures and develops Demon’s gifts as an artist, and recognizes his potential for greatness.

We also get to know the coach’s daughter, Angus, a wise soul who avoids all the bad temptations and influences of the high school while taking her education seriously, and she offers Demon positive encouragement and support, becoming his most trusted friend. There is also Tommy Waddell, a fellow orphan who Demon first meets at Creaky Farm, a kind and gentle boy who reads books and shows Demon what resilience and self-reliance are all about, eventually becoming a copy editor at the local newspaper. Finally, the conscience of the novel is the Peggots’ daughter, June Peggot, an intelligent and resolute nurse who resists the irresponsibility and criminality of the pharmaceutical industry’s drug pushing and the medical establishment’s complicity. June has witnessed far too many overdoses, suicides, and fatal accidents as an emergency nurse in Lee County and repeatedly warns, mostly to deaf ears, about the dangers of opioids.

Kingsolver writes credibly about the horrific struggles of opioid addiction and the troubled state of child protection services, with overworked and underpaid case workers. The system’s failures result in thousands of children in need overlooked and forgotten, and nobody seems to care. These are real problems that continue to persist today. She explains how Purdue Pharma targeted and exploited Appalachia to push OxyContin and fentanyl, intentionally taking advantage of a region where people were frequently injured and in pain due to work-related injuries from mining coal, farming tobacco, and other back breaking labor.

But Kingsolver also helps us better understand a region that values community, resourcefulness, and neighbors who look after each other. When someone dies, neighbors chip in, make meals, and give shelter to those in need. Women get together and make quilts for girls who are pregnant. Everyone knows everyone else, and for all its bad connotations, they know when someone is hurting.

In David Copperfield, Dickens’ protagonist had asked “whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life.” In Demon Copperhead, Kingsolver suggests that, when you are a child born into a life without choices, being a hero consists simply of surviving against all odds. In the end, Demon Copperhead is a hopeful story, best summed up by Demon’s resilience:

I've tried in this telling, time and time again, to pinpoint the moment where everything starts to fall apart. Everything, meaning me. But there's also the opposite, where some little nut cracks open inside you and a tree starts to grow. Even harder to nail. Because that thing's going to be growing a long time before you notice. Years maybe. Then one day you say, Huh, that little crack between my ears has turned into this whole damn tree of wonderful.

It would be difficult to imagine anyone coming away from this book without a heightened sense of empathy and compassion for those born without the advantages that many of us take for granted. Although a piece of fiction, Demon Copperhead allowed me to feel more connected to the common humanity all of us share. The need for empathy to better understand and relate to the people of Appalachia applies equally to the struggling poor of our inner cities, to the undocumented immigrants trying to survive in a version of America hostile to their existence, and to the many broken communities throughout the United States that have lost their way, victimized by globalization, the loss of manufacturing, rising inequality, and all of the things that leave some people behind while the rest of us go on with our lives. Before we judge others too harshly, we should strive first to understand from where they come, the challenges they face, and the struggles they have overcome.

The Age of Optimism: Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society

Lyndon Johnson at the University of Michigan, May 22, 1964

For most of my life, I have been optimistic about America. Born at the end of the Eisenhower administration, I grew up in the prosperous 1960s, when American abundance seemed unlimited. American ingenuity and achievement since the end of World War II had made us the world’s most successful economy and superpower, and from my privileged, middle class vantage point it seemed there was nothing we could not do in science, medicine, education, engineering, and technology if we set our minds to it. I watched Americans walk on the moon in 1969 and shared the confidence of most Americans in our ability to solve whatever problems lay before us.

During the 1970s and 1980s, as I became more interested in politics and American history, attended college and law school, and pursued a career as a young prosecutor in Washington, D.C., I was inspired by the idealism of John F. Kennedy and the New Frontier. In high school and college, I read and re-read Robert Kennedy and His Times (Ballantine Books, 1978), Arthur Schlesinger’s brilliant biography of JFK’s younger brother who fought organized crime and corrupt union bosses as Attorney General and became a passionate advocate for the poor and disenfranchised during the final years of his life. To me, the Kennedys represented public service at its best, full of lofty ideals and an aspirational vision of America. Back then, I paid little tribute to Lyndon Johnson, who was less eloquent, more brash than intellect, and responsible for expanding America’s unforgiveable incursion into Vietnam in a war I believed then (and continue to believe) was immoral and wrong.

As I have grown older and had the opportunity to study, read, and reflect more deeply on twentieth century American history, I have come to appreciate the extent to which Johnson’s presidency contributed to my deeply engrained optimism in the American spirit. His foreign policy blunders notwithstanding, LBJ transformed American society for the better.

For as long as I can remember, I have believed in government as a force for good. It was a view reinforced by my father’s social justice leanings as a Lutheran pastor in New Jersey, and from reading about Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the New Deal. At a low point in American history, when the world was in a Great Depression and one in four Americans were out of work, the newspapers filled with stories about bread lines and bank failures, FDR and his administration provided jobs and public support to millions of Americans who had lost hope. From public works programs that put people to work building roads, bridges, schools, and parks throughout the United States, to Social Security Insurance that provided economic security to elderly Americans, the New Deal showed that American society was not at heart cruel and compassionless.

The federal government under Roosevelt established disability and unemployment insurance, the minimum wage and 40-hour work week, the federal school lunch program, fair employment practices, improved child labor laws, labor union rights, soil conservation programs, rural electrification, and the Tennessee Valley Authority, which alleviated economic hardship and poverty in the rural south. The New Deal brought integrity to Wall Street through the Securities and Exchange Commission and eliminated the risk of another great depression and more bank failures through the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. When I was born, all these things were firmly entrenched in American life.

Lyndon Baines Johnson was an acolyte of FDR, a fervent believer in the New Deal and the power of the federal government to aid ordinary citizens in ways that strengthened the American economy and served the good of the people. But Johnson understood that, although the New Deal benefitted huge segments of American society, it did not address the injustices of Jim Crow or the racism and discrimination that deprived millions of Black Americans and other minorities equal rights under the law, the right to vote, and the opportunity to pursue work and education, buy or rent a home, or to participate in most aspects of American life free from discrimination. Although hardly a champion of civil rights as a senator from Texas, soon after becoming president in November 1963, Johnson sought to extend the New Deal to include all segments of American society.

Johnson as president did what the more erudite and sophisticated John F. Kennedy from Massachusetts failed to do – pass the two greatest civil rights laws in American history. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed discrimination in hotels, restaurants, theaters, and other public accommodations, authorized the Justice Department to file lawsuits to enforce desegregation of public schools, prohibited state and local governments from denying access to public facilities on account of someone’s race, and outlawed employment discrimination on account of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 outlawed literacy tests and other measures designed to prevent racial minorities from voting, and it instituted strong enforcement measures and extensive federal oversight to ensure that all Americans could exercise their constitutional right to vote.

Although there was much work to be done, these two laws overnight made the United States a more democratic and racially just society. As a matter of law, the foundations of Southern apartheid were abolished, along with legal segregation, Jim Crow, and America’s shameful legacy of legalized bigotry and prejudice. I have previously written about Johnson’s political skills in getting those bills through Congress (see “Lyndon Johnson and the American Promise”), but it also took many dedicated and intelligent public servants, lawyers, and judges to leverage the authority of the federal government to successfully desegregate public accommodations and institutions and overcome resistance to voting rights throughout the American south.

Equally remarkable was Johnson’s success in enacting all the other components of the Great Society and War on Poverty—Medicare and Medicaid, federal aid to elementary and secondary education, college work study programs, highway beautification and wilderness preservation, environmental measures to protect air and water quality, the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities, Head Start, community health centers, legal services for the poor, fair housing legislation, food security for tens of millions of impoverished children and adults, special education for children with disabilities, federally-funded medical research, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, to name only a few programs.

As noted by former Johnson speechwriter Richard Goodwin in Remembering America: A Voice from the Sixties (Harper & Row, 1988), Johnson’s legislative achievements attested “to the possibility of devising a practical, tangible response to the most intractable difficulties of our society, when the turbulent energies of a whole nation seemed bursting with possibilities – conquer poverty, walk on the moon, build a Great Society.” Within a period of five years, Johnson’s Great Society, of which the War on Poverty was only a small part, transformed the federal government’s relationship to ordinary citizens on a scale that matched or exceeded Roosevelt and the New Deal.

I recently finished reading two books focused on Johnson’s achievements during the Great Society, both of which reinforced the authenticity and genuineness of Johnson’s commitment to expanding civil rights and improving the quality of life for all Americans. In Building the Great Society: Inside Lyndon Johnson’s White House (Viking, 2018), writer and historian Joshua Zeitz provides a well-balanced account of LBJ’s inner circle, which included Bill Moyers, Jack Valenti, Joseph Califano, Harry McPherson, Horace Busby, and many other talented policymakers who designed laws and programs that applied practical solutions to long-neglected problems in American society. And in Prisoners of Hope: Lyndon B. Johnson, the Great Society, and the Limits of Liberalism (Basic Books, 2016), Randall B. Woods, Professor of History at the University of Arkansas, provides a comprehensive history of the Great Society, including a nuanced examination of its breathtaking achievements and visionary politics, as well as its social and political limitations.  

Woods notes that Johnson’s brain trust included “a collection of men whose pragmatic liberalism was tinged with the theological realism of Reinhold Niebuhr,” a theologian who “attacked the materialism, complacency, and conformity that seemed to permeate postwar America.” Niebuhr believed that human beings were called to love the world and assume responsibility for its problems. Some of Johnson’s closest advisors were contemporaries of Niebuhr and “very much aware of the pervasive influence of evil in the world—racial prejudice, economic exploitation, political oppression, hunger, disease.”

They also were men influenced by the Social Gospel movement, which sought to apply liberal Christian ethics to issues of social justice, especially poverty and inequality, environmental degradation, inadequate housing, poor schools, and other injustices. Bill Moyers, who developed a father-son bond with Johnson until he departed the administration in 1966, had as a young man attended the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, where he studied under the liberal theologian Thomas Buford Matson, a Yale scholar, disciple of Reinhold Niebuhr, and “outspoken advocate of racial justice and a champion of labor unions.” Johnson’s long-time aide Horace Busby shared a commitment to reform and believed that government should be “committed to the welfare of the common man rather than special interests.” LBJ’s close confidant and friend, Walter Jenkins, a devout Catholic, believed “that to whom much was given, much was expected” and that it was “incumbent upon America, a land blessed with genius and abundance, to help those who could not help themselves and to provide for the average hard-working person a degree of physical comfort and security and the means to provide food, shelter, health care, and education for his or her child.” And Johnson’s press secretary, George Reedy, combined social gospel influences with political reality.

Johnson’s personal religious sensibilities, Woods notes, were influenced by his mother, Rebecca Baines Johnson, a Christian social activist who believed that if everyone acted and lived as God intended, “it would be impossible for millions to walk the streets in search of food and for thousands of children to die each year from lack of adequate health care.” As a young congressman, Johnson was deeply moved by John Steinbeck’s 1937 novel, The Grapes of Wrath, about a poor, industrious Dust Bowl family overwhelmed by environmental and socioeconomic forces beyond their control. In a speech before the Southern Baptist Leadership Seminar in 1964, Johnson said, “I am not a theologian. But in more than three decades of public life, I have seen first-hand how basic spiritual beliefs and deeds can shatter barriers of politics and bigotry. Great questions of war and peace, of civil rights and education, the elimination of poverty at home and abroad, are the concern of millions who see no difference in this regard between their beliefs and social obligations.” In a later speech, Johnson said that what “really makes a great nation is compassion. We are going to have strength and solvency and compassion, love for thy neighbor, compassion and understanding for those who are less fortunate.”

It was based in part on Johnson's appreciation of liberal Christian ethics and social justice, and his belief that Americans were fundamentally decent, that he would declare an “unconditional war on poverty.” Johnson believed that his anti-poverty programs were the key to social justice, to quelling urban unrest, and to proving to the world that capitalism was superior to communism. He established Aid to Families with Dependent Children, the Neighborhood Youth Corps, Volunteers in Service to America, the Community Action Program, the Job Corps, a series of after-school programs and extracurricular activities, and the Office of Economic Opportunity, which provided job training and adult education, among other programs.

Another important item on Johnson’s agenda was fair housing. In 1966, when posthumously awarding the Medal of Honor to Private First Class Milton Olive II, the first Black Medal of Honor winner to have served in Vietnam, Johnson pleaded: “If Negroes can give their lives for their country, surely a grateful nation will accord them opportunity to live in any neighborhood they can afford, and to send their children to any school of their choice to be educated and developed to their fullest capacity.” Although by the end of his presidency he was facing growing resistance to his agenda and white backlash to civil rights and affirmative action programs, Johnson finally succeeded in passing the Fair Housing Act of 1968, which outlawed racial discrimination in the sale, rental, or financing of housing and remains a crucial law that ensures equal housing opportunities across the United States.

The Great Society was the most comprehensive effort in history by the federal government to permanently improve the social and economic landscape of the United States. It sought to make kindergarten-through-college education available to all, eradicate poverty in urban ghettos and rural Appalachia, clean the environment, provide medical care for the nation’s elderly, outlaw discrimination in employment, housing, and the nation’s immigration system, expand opportunities for all Americans, and publicly support the nation’s arts and humanities. In the richest and most affluent country on earth, Johnson envisioned the federal government caring for those who could not care for themselves, providing education and training opportunities for the disadvantaged, and ensuring social justice for everyone without taking from one group of citizens and giving to another.

At a time when it was still possible, Johnson was a consensus builder, a politician who sought (and mostly achieved) bipartisan support. He exploited a strong economy and a spirit of American optimism, believing we could grow a larger pie for everyone without redistributing any of it. And he mostly succeeded.

Medicare and Medicaid radically improved the lives of American families. The elderly no longer had to go without health care and middle-class families no longer had to choose between providing medical care for their grandparents and sending their children to college. In the first three years of Johnson’s presidency, the unemployment rate dropped from 5.7 percent to 3.7 percent, industrial production rose 25 percent, Gross National Product increased by 17 percent, and the average American’s real income rose by 14 percent. As explained by Woods, “While four million Americans moved above the poverty line, both profits and wages had increased. Medicare had helped three million elderly Americans to obtain access to health care, eight million new workers were covered by the minimum wage law, and Jim Crow was on the run in the South.”

But any credit Johnson deserved or received, and whatever bipartisan consensus he had pieced together, were short lived, ripped apart by liberal dissent on the Vietnam War and white backlash caused by racial resentments and urban rioting. The New Deal coalition that had held together the Democratic Party—labor unions, urban ethnics, liberal intellectuals, farmers, and the South—became a relic of the past. Long-standing conservative opposition to both the New Deal and Great Society grew stronger as the Republican Party began shifting in a radically rightward direction.

Johnson’s Great Society programs were challenged by the American ethic of individualism and self-reliance that tended to blame the poor for their problems and attacked government largesse as counterproductive and “creeping socialism.” On the left, the civil rights coalition fell into disarray with the rise of the Black Power movement and a crop of young militant activists. Stokely Carmichael, H. Rap Brown, and others became the voices of the dispossessed. They rejected the non-violence of Martin Luther King and the traditional civil rights establishment, questioned the value of integration, and condemned Johnson for not doing enough to address systemic racism and inequality. Following the Watts riots of 1965, King began focusing on the entrenched poverty, joblessness, family disintegration, and hopelessness within the ghettoes and slums of America’s major cities and began a more radical critique of American society, focused on economic justice and inequality.

As Joshua Zeitz explained in Building the Great Society, Johnson was concerned with “poverty and quality of life, not economic inequality.” The Great Society did not attempt to redistribute income but “sought to equip Americans with skills and resources to lift themselves above a certain income level—the poverty line—and enjoy the blessings of an affluent society.” The criticism Johnson and the Great Society faced from both the Right and the Left grossly understated “the central role that the Great Society programs have played—and continue to play—in reducing poverty, alleviating the suffering of those who live in it, diminishing systemic racial discrimination, enriching the nation’s cultural life, and enshrining consumer and environmental protections in the law.” While Great Society programs did not eradicate poverty in America, they sharply reduced it:

Food stamps, school breakfasts and lunches, and Head Start programs minimize food insecurity for millions of poor children and their parents each day. Medicaid and Medicare amount to the difference between life and death for 119 million Americans—or roughly 37 percent of the country’s population. . . . [T]oday, most people cannot fathom a world in which African Americans are denied service at hotels, restaurants, and hospitals, explicitly excluded from the workplace or the housing market, or barred from voting or holding office strictly on the basis of their race. It is equally difficult to envision a country without laws governing clean air and water, consumer labeling standards, federal aid to public schools, or public television and radio.

Zeitz’s book was published in 2018, so he can be excused for not fully anticipating what is happening in 2025. With Trump in the White House for a second time, Republicans are finally making good on their long-stated desire to undo the Great Society (and much of the New Deal) and denigrate the progress America has made over the past sixty years. Led by Russell Vought and his disciples within the Heritage Foundation, the administration is working to sharply restrict Medicaid, privatize Medicare, reverse advances in civil rights and voting rights, gut environmental and consumer protections, abolish federal aid for the arts, humanities, and public broadcasting, and eliminate food stamps and anti-poverty assistance. Trump and his team are intent on repealing any laws and programs founded on concepts of social justice and expanded opportunities for all.

The Great Society did not achieve all it set out to do. No government programs are perfect, and sometimes programs need to be revised and reformed. But to ignore the successes of the Great Society is to reject the idealism and optimism that enabled America to come close to achieving its promise that all men and women are created equal. Johnson’s War on Poverty sought not to console the poor but to give them the means—through job training, educational opportunities, and civil rights protections—to lift themselves out of poverty and enjoy the blessings of America to which all of us are entitled. The genius of the Great Society was that it put in place the tools to achieve a more just and equitable society. Whether we have the will and the wisdom to sustain that vision is up to us.

The Great Society sought to create a country in which all could share in the abundance of America. It was a time of hope and optimism when the government promised everyone not success or wealth or material goods, but the opportunity to achieve the limits of one’s potential. George Washington stated that the fate of democracy and liberty were “staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.” Today, we confront a turning point in the American experiment. For America to overcome the stormy present may depend on whether we can restore the spirit of optimism that has defined America for nearly 250 years, whether we can reawaken the strength of imagination and hope that was the Great Society, and whether we care enough, and truly believe in, the promise of justice and liberty for all.