Crazy '08: How a Cast of Cranks, Rogues, Boneheads, and Magnates Created the Greatest Year in Baseball History by Cait N. Murphy
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Book Reviews of Crazy '08: How a Cast of Cranks, Rogues, Boneheads, and Magnates Created the Greatest Year in Baseball History
Book Review: Boneheads, Belle, Brothels & Baseball
Summary: 5 Stars
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!
Book Review: Baseball's modern era begins here
Summary: 4 Stars
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.
Book Review: One Hundred Years Ago...Nothing Was Different!
Summary: 5 Stars
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.
Book Review: Not Baseball in 1908, but America in 1908
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a marvelous effort. If the author focused only on the pennant races of a century ago this summer, it would be a good book, but probably little better than previous efforts on the subject. But she takes her work to another step. She places baseball within the context of the world of 1908. She reminds you that Christy Mathewson walked the same streets with Teddy Roosevelt, with the remaining minions of Tammany Hall, and with Arnold Rothstein long before 1919. Someday, a future generation may be treated to a history of the 2001 season against the backdrop of September 11. That future author will do well to emulate the style of Cait Murphy.
Against this quilt of early 20th century America, the personalities of John McGraw, Frank Chance, and others come alive in a way that others have failed to evoke. If your travel plans include a baseball pilgrimage, this book belongs in your valise.
Book Review: Writes like a girl
Summary: 3 Stars
The book jacket assures us that the author played Little League baseball as well as softball at Amherst College, and "does not throw like a girl."
Well, excuse me, but she writes like one. Quite a few author decisions in this book were mistakes. Much of the book is written in the present tense, to make us feel like were there. There are a series of "Time outs" brief examinations of topics outside of baseball, that were unnecessary digressions in my view, and could have been integrated into the narrative seamlessly by a more skilled writer. The decision to almost ignore the American League race strikes me as another mistake, especially with the gold mine of material provided by Ty Cobb, among others. The overall tone and style of the book is snarky, laden with puns and derivative.
David Halberstam has written better baseball books about, admittedly more recent baseball, Summer of 49, and October 1964; and Edmund Morris's biography of Theodore Roosevelt is a better evocation of the times.
So how does it get three stars? Well, it's about baseball, 20th century American history and the Cubs win.