Rollicking Baseball Book (Rating 5 of 5)
» Wayne A. Smith
I really enjoyed Cait Murphy's Crazy '08 about the baseball season that produced one of the games most memorable pennant races but also in the author's view saw the turning of baseball toward the modern era of the game.
Murphy's book reads like a long magazine article. It is breezy and filled with contemporary language and side observations like a long piece in Outside Magazine or Rolling Stone. This may make the book dated in coming years, but it serves to illuminate the caste of rogues and characters (and I mean character in the spirit of "what a character"), who dominated the game 100 years ago. She also gives side vignettes of what was going on in America at the time that give an interesting and useful portrait of the larger era in which baseball played.
Baseball was low entertainment at the turn of the last century - not the type of thing that some "proper" people would take well groomed kids to see on a weekend afternoon. Booze, gambling and cheating both on the field and among the fans gave it a pool hall feel and notoriety that is largely missing today. But it did generate loyal fans by the thousands when teams were winning and in the hunt for the pennant. America was taken with the sport and its popularity was on the rise.
Murphy basically tells the story of the three way race between the Cubs, New York Giants and Pittsburgh Pirates for the National League Pennant. The author details the performance of players like Christy Matthewson and Three Finger Brown as well as Ty Cobb and Honus Wagner and irrepressible manager John McGraw. The Tinkers-to-Evers-to-Chance combination performed for the Cubs and the Phillies built what was the first non-wooden stadium enjoyed by baseball players and fans. The cast are almost all deeply flawed (by modern standards) individuals who are just fun to read about in Murphy's care.
This is a good book for any fan of baseball history that will be thoroughly enjoyable
Best Book Ever on Baseball's "Golden Age" (Rating 5 of 5)
» Arnold Ziffle
Alas, poor Merkle! The Giants lost the 1908 NL pennant, as every baseball aficianado knows, on his ill-timed "boner:" actually a rather unjust, form-over-substance umpire's call that vaulted the Cubs over the Giants to, ultimately, the 1908 World Series championship -- Is it mere coincidence that it was their last, or does Merkle's vengance-minded ghost hover malevolently over Wrigley to this day? -- Ms. Murphy's wonderful book brings the whole crazy 1908 season into focus and places it squarely within the context of dawning the "American Century." A real delight!
For fans who love reading about the Deadball Era, this book is heaven. It's almost smack dab in the middle of it and offers a look at one of the greatest years in baseball history. Author Cait Murphy makes the case that it is baseball's best year, but things like that are all judgment calls.
All I know is that reading about poor Fred Merkle and some of the amazing players that don't often get a lot of attention, like Mordecai `Three Finger" Brown, was good stuff. Never pass up a book about this wild-and-crazy era of baseball.
Murphy also breaks up the exciting pennant race stories with tidbits about things that happened in society, bizarre things like the discovery of brutal woman serial killer Belle Gunness and what she did. The author has some very interesting history of a famous brothel in Chicago, as well as other strange-but-true tales. In some respects, it's those stories that are more memorable than the baseball!
Baseball's modern era begins here (Rating 4 of 5)
» Todd Stockslager
Murphy makes a good case in her 1908 baseball season history for its being the greatest season in baseball, and the beginning of the modern era of baseball. The pennant race was a classic, decided only after the post-season makeup of the "Merkle game".
Pittsburgh, Chicago (then and never since a NL powerhouse!), and the NY Giants finished in a rush, the Cubs winning easily over Detroit in the anti-climactic World Series.
But the players and the events of the regular season are handsomely displayed in Murphy's book
One Hundred Years Ago...Nothing Was Different! (Rating 5 of 5)
» Zachary Koenig
The obvious way to review this book would be to discuss how it chronicles the differences between 1908 and 2008 major league baseball, including the irony of the Chicago Cubs being considered the dominant, clutch team of the entire National League (!). It does that job quite admirably, as Cait Murphy's casual writing style makes you feel as if you are actually experiencing the events she is describing (pretty much covering the important events of the '08 season).
Yet, what I found to be the really interesting theme of this book (whether intended or not) was how LITTLE things have changed in the past 100 years in baseball! Like today, players still had contract disputes (Honus Wagner once sat out an entire season on his farm!), parity was non-existent (the same teams dominated the league nearly every year), and fans still turned out in droves to see a good pennant race. So many times, baseball historians look back on those "good 'ole days" with rose colored glasses, choosing to ignore all the scandals and incidents that make that period of time not so much different from our own.
The only negative thing I have to say about this text (and it can't be too bad, since it still draws a five-star rating from me!) is that the excerpts between some chapters, which detail the purveying news events of 1908 outside of baseball, were a bit long a too in-depth for my taste. I appreciated the history lesson, but I also found myself wanting to get them out of the way after a time to get back to baseball.
To conclude, if you considered yourself at all to be a fan of baseball history, this is a must-read. Not only will you learn how different the game was back then, but also how much the players/managers/owners were similar to today. Also, Cub fans will love the focus on their team
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