Crazy '08: How a Cast of Cranks, Rogues, Boneheads, and Magnates Created the Greatest Year in Baseball History | 
 enlarge | Author: Cait N. Murphy
Publisher: Collins
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  55 reviews
Sales Rank: 8150
Media: Paperback
Edition: Reprint
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 400
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5 x 1.3
ISBN: 0060889381
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.3570973
EAN: 9780060889388
ASIN: 0060889381
Publication Date: March 1, 2008
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Product Description
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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 highly recommended for students of true history June 12, 2008
I'm writing a book set largely in 1908, in Colorado, far removed from the ball fields of the east, but for getting the flavor of the everyday America of the time, this book is the best.
 More Murphy May 22, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Wow! This may be the best baseball book I have ever read (and it seems that I have read them all). I can say for sure that it is the best researched baseball book I have read. I know that the next sentence will not sound right, but here it goes anyhow - I can't believe it was written by a woman (see I told you). I hope Ms. Murphy continues in the baseball mode for a few more books.
Crazy 08 May 11, 2008
This was one of the best books I have ever read. It's amazing how things were the same, yet different in baseball. For instance, the American league had not yet instituted the rule that all meaningful games must be played. The National league had. Therefore Detroit, Chicaggo and Philadelphia all had the same amount of wins but Detroit had fewer losses so they won. There wa only one umpire so the players would do all sorts of things that he couldn't see. Try that with todays instant replay cameras.
Crouching catchers, hidden baseballs May 9, 2008
Cait Murphy's witty, sometimes snarky, thoroughly researched and footnoted, but always entertaining review of the 1908 baseball season--which she argues was the greatest ever--charms as it informs. The National League contenders, to whom the author devotes the majority of the book (the AL race is confined to a single chapter) were the New York Giants, managed by John McGraw and with Christy Matthewson as their pitching ace; the Pittsburgh Pirates, who featured Honus Wagner at short; and the Chicago Cubs, of Tinker to Evers to Chance fame.
It's like a trip back in time--to wooden grandstands, flannel uniforms with no numbers on the players' backs, let alone names; bats that might weigh 48 oz; catchers who crouched but did not squat; dirty baseballs; and fields without lights (games would be stopped when it got too dark to play). And--if the game were important enough--two umpires, count 'em two, would be assigned to the game. (On the staff was the now-legendary Bill Klem, then in his fourth year--he would remain on the job for 32 more.)
The book's dual centerpieces revolve around a Giant rookie utility man named Fred Merkle. The first "Merkle game" ended in a tie (darkness, darkness) on a technicality when Merkle neglected to touch second base on a play that should have given his team a walkoff win. As a result of the mistake, the poor guy would forever after be known as Bonehead Merkle (the author includes two images of him, one in his rookie season and one from the following decade--the contrast is telling).
The replay of the game occurred after the official end of the season, when the Giants and Cubs tied for first place. The game, played at New York City's long-gone Polo Grounds, featured overflow crowds (they stood behind ropes in the outfield), the tossing of bottles at the Cubs' catcher when he tried to catch a foul popup, and an attempt to bribe umpire Klem.
Throughout, the author gives brief sketches of the major players, owners, baseball execs, and managers; and she sprinkles in "time outs," which give the reader a glimpse of the goings-on in the wider world. The impatient may wish to skip these. I didn't wish.
Baseball fans can and will argue about whether 1908 was in fact baseball's best year (it certainly was for Cubs' fans) but Ms. Murphy has made a convincing case for the year that, as she notes in the epilogue, was the year that turned the corner into what would be the modern game. She calls it, in homage to Churchill, "the end of the beginning."
Notes and asides: In what I very much suspect was a global search and replace gone wrong, plural possessives have somehow been rendered thus: Cubs's. This is annoying more than somewhat. The late-20th-century Philadelphia ballyard was Veteran's Stadium, not Veteran's Park. There is an interview with the author in the back that's worth a read.
Lovin it April 23, 2008
This a sensationally researched and interesting book on a team and a city with a fascinating history. Almost every paragraph has something that makes you kinda go 'wow'. One could argue that its data overload but its well worth it. There is a load of eccentric gems in here - the Ty Cobb stuff in particular is way out there. I have a small baseball book collection (maybe 20 classics) and this is well up there. Ok, its not Halberstam but it aint a million miles away. I am totally enjoying it and hope she goes again.
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