One Hundred Years Ago...Nothing Was Different!

books:


	• Crazy '08: How a Cast of Cranks, Rogues, Boneheads, and Magnates Created the Greatest Year in Baseball History Cait N. Murphy Collins, 2008 - 400 pages average customer review:based on 60 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Not Baseball in 1908, but America in 1908

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.

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Writes like a girl

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.

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One Hundred Years Ago...Nothing Was Different!

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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Baseball's modern era begins here

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.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

From the perspective of 2007, the unintentional irony of Chance's boast is manifest?these days, the question is when will the Cubs ever win a game they have to have. In October 1908, though, no one would have laughed: 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.

Crazy '08, however, is not just the exciting story of a great season. It is also about the forces that created modern baseball, and the America that produced it. In 1908, crooked pols run Chicago's First Ward, and gambling magnates control the Yankees. Fans regularly invade the field to do handstands or argue with the umps; others shoot guns from rickety grandstands prone to burning. There are anarchists on the loose and racial killings in the town that made Lincoln. On the flimsiest of pretexts, General Abner Doubleday becomes a symbol of Americanism, and baseball's own anthem, "Take Me Out to the Ballgame," is a hit.

Picaresque and dramatic, 1908 is a season in which so many weird and wonderful things happen that it is somehow unsurprising that a hairpiece, a swarm of gnats, a sudden bout of lumbago, and a disaster down in the mines all play a role in its outcome. And sometimes the events are not so wonderful at all. There are several deaths by baseball, and the shadow of corruption creeps closer to the heart of baseball?the honesty of the game itself. Simply put, 1908 is the year that baseball grew up.

Oh, and it was the last time the Cubs won the World Series.

Destined to be as memorable as the season it documents, Crazy '08 sets a new standard for what a book about baseball can be.

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