Baseball and Crazy 08. How did I come to write...

In October 1908 the Cubs were, without doubt, baseball's greatest team—the first dynasty of the 20th century. Crazy '08 recounts the 1908 season—the year when Peerless Leader Frank Chance's men went toe to toe to toe with John McGraw and Christy Mathewson's New York Giants and Honus Wagner's Pittsburgh Pirates in the greatest pennant race the National League has ever seen. The American League has its own three-cornered pennant fight, and players like Cy Young, Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, and the egregiously crooked Hal Chase ensured that the junior circuit had its moments. But it was the National League's—and the Cubs'—year.

I suspect most book lovers have a book or two (or 20) that they read over and over again. For me, one of these is "The Glory of Their Times," an oral history of the deadball era, published in 1966. I first read this in the early 1970s, and returned to it time and again.

I mention this because in about 2002, I decided I wanted to write a book; I had been a journalist for almost 20 years and thought it would be interesting to take up the challenge of something seriously long-form. I considered a variety of topics, from the history of ice to an important women's tennis match in 1928. Nothing clicked. Then my father suggested, "Why not look at the 1908 season? I think it was pretty interesting."

I looked into the subject and realized that was quite an understatement. Moreover, considering every bit of the baseball field seems to have been thoroughly dug into, I was pleased to note that there were only two other books on the subject – "The Unforgettable Season" and "More than Merkle." Both had their points, but neither struck me as being definitive enough to prevent me from weighing in. I am—no surprise—a serious baseball fan, and my affinity for "The Glory of Their Times" suggested that taking a whack at he deadball era was meant to be.

Of course, deciding to write a book, and actually seeing it in the bookstore are two separate things. I quickly sold the idea in principle to an agent, but in a singularly frustrating (but ultimately productive) exercise, he kept requiring me to rewrite the proposal. I stopped counting how many; I am guessing about 9 or 10. At any rate, I would do a proposal and Rafe (the agent) would suggest another try. Unable to face the damn thing again, I would retreat to the library, plowing through newspapers, magazines and various books. The result is that when Rafe sold the book to HarperCollins, I had an enormous amount of research done, absorbed, indexed and ready to roll—allowing me to write the book in about nine months.

As I have noted, it was my father who suggested the topic; he also introduced meto baseball. I inherited my Mets affliction from him. Sadly, Dad did not live to see publication, but he was immensely pleased I was pursuing the idea. I am happy that an illustration he did of Tinker, Evers and Chance for Sport magazine in 1950 is included in the book.

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