Crazy '08 - Cait Murphy http://www.crazy08.com/interview.

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Interview by Dave Studeman of The Hardball Times April 5

1908 was the greatest season in baseball history. With thrills on the
field and drama off the field, the players, the teams, the owners and the
times themselves all conspired to make 1908 epochal.

Consider: Both leagues had multi-team pennant races that lasted until
the last day of the season. Honus Wagner had perhaps the greatest
season ever. Christy Mathewson and Mordecai Brown locked horns in
fabulous pitching duels throughout the season. Ed Walsh struck out
15 batters in a crucial game early in October, only to lose to Addie
Joss's perfect game. Personalities abounded, from Mathewson and
John McGraw to Tinker to Evers to Chance. It was Cy Young's last
good year, Walter Johnson's first and Ty Cobb's second season.

It was the era of Ragtime. Take Me Out to the Ballgame was written.
The first Model T rolled off the assembly line, the first passenger
airplane flight soared. Mother's Day was celebrated for the first time
and the Boy Scouts were formed. And, back on the baseball field,
1908 was the year a young player named Fred Merkle made the most
famous mistake in baseball history. Truly, 1908 cannot be beat for
pure baseball drama.

Don't believe me? Then read Cait Murphy's engaging telling of the
1908 season: Crazy '08. Murphy's detailed research and easy-going
writing style make this book an entertaining synergy of detailed
research and flowing storyline. If you are a baseball researcher, you
might find something new in Murphy's copious notes. If you just like
a good baseball story, 1908 may be the best baseball story of all, and
Murphy tells it well.

Murphy centers her story around the passionate Cubs/Giants rivalry of

the time. Any rivalry that included John McGraw and Johnny Evers
was sure to be intense, but Murphy doesn't focus solely on the major
players. She includes stories about many of the colorful minor
players, such as Fred Tenney literally stealing first base (from second
base) and third base coach Dummy Taylor getting ejected from a game
for signing a curse word.

She also covers the stories off the field, such as the evolution of the
game (spitballs and stadiums, gloves and team names, etc.), crooked
ownership and crooked politics. And the noxious influence of
gambling on the sport, which would come to a head 10 years later, is
given full attention, just as future baseball historians will talk about
steroids in the 1990s. Murphy even throws in a few "Time Outs,"
stories that give you a feel for the times, such as Emma Goldman's
career, race riots in Springfield, Illinois and the first infamous female
serial killer, Belle Gunness.

But Murphy is smart enough to let the drama on the field drive her
story. Even though you know what's coming (spoiler alert: Fred
Merkle didn't touch second on a game-winning hit and the Giants
eventually lost the game and a pennant), you can't put the book down.

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And that's the ultimate compliment.

Cait Murphy was nice enough to sit down and exchange e-mails with
us last week. Here's the chat:

THT: Let's start our conversation with a "softball": What is your

background and what started your fascination with 1908?

Murphy: I work as an assistant managing editor at Fortune magazine

—think of it as general assignment editor. Prior to that, I was a social
policy and then energy correspondent at the Economist in London;
and then an editorial page editor at the Asian Wall Street Journal in
Hong Kong. But I have been a baseball fan longer than I have been a
business writer. I inherited a love of the game from my father, who
grew up a couple of long fly balls from Wrigley Field (Gabby Hartnett
was an upstairs neighbor). I grew up playing in our backyard and on
various local teams, including one year as one of the first girls to play
Little League. I also played in college—an energetic if not particularly
skilled second baseman. I am a Mets fan.

THT: Well, that must be one reason 1908 appeals to you so much. The
Chicago/New York axis is a key part of your book and the 1908
Cubs/Giants rivalry was probably as intense as any two-team rivalry in
baseball. I'm sure Red Sox/Yankees fans would disagree with that, but
do you see parallels between the present-day Yankees/Red Sox rivalry
and the Cubs/Giants rivalry of 1908? By the way, I live a little north
of Wrigley too, and I'm also a Mets' fan. Go figure.

Murphy: In some ways, the Giants-Cubs rivalry might have been more
intense. Remember, in 1908, players could not change teams so they
tended to stay with them longer. When Johnny Damon went from the
Red Sox to the Yankees, the reaction was basically a shrug. I cannot
imagine Johnny Evers voluntarily joining the Giants.

One reason is John McGraw, who really was a lightning rod for
criticism and dislike—much of it deserved. Also, in this era, there was
a general rivalry between Chicago and New York. The latter—and this
has not changed much—saw itself as the center of everything
important in America. Chicagoans, with their acute sense of civic
pride—something that also has not changed much—were having none
of it.

In general terms, though, the rivalry is similar—two good teams

frequently in combat for the same prize.

THT: I've sat in Fenway Park and Yankee Stadium for Red
Sox/Yankees games, and the intensity is overwhelming. But one of
the things your book makes clear is that a fan might fear for his health
and even life if he went to a ballgame in the late 1800s and early
1900s. Between fights in the stands and fires in the park, ballgames
weren't the safest places to be.

Murphy: One of the reasons that I consider 1908 a turning point in

baseball is that this is the year ground was broken for Shibe Park in
Philadelphia—the first modern ballpark. and also the first fireproof
one, made of steel and concrete. This matters because in the late 1800s
and early 1900s, fire was a real problem. Sportsman's Park in St Louis
went up five times in the 1890s and in 1894, a fire at Boston's
Huntington Avenue Grounds (home of the Red Sox) got out of control
and consumed the better part of 12 blocks.

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The worst ballpark tragedy, though, was not a fire, but the result of
shabby construction. In 1903,a portion of the grandstand at Philly's
Baker Bowl collapsed, and 12 people died. As baseball grew, it needed
to do better than this—and beginning in 1908, it did. By 1915, almost
every team had a new, fireproof ballpark, and two of these—Wrigley
and Fenway—are still in use today.

Fans back in the day were just as passionate as now, and the stands
were not as tightly policed. Throwing glass pop bottles at players and
umps was common; in 1907, umpire Billy Evans suffered a fractured
skull from one and nearly died. But they could also be more engaged
in a highly entertaining manner - for example running out of the stands
to do handsprings after a great play.

As everything, the record is a mixed bag.

THT: Yes, one of the last things I ever wanted to be was an umpire in
those days. The abuse they took was terrible. But, as you point out in
your book, the umpiring profession remained relatively free of the
taint of gambling, even during the Black Sox scandal. Do you
attribute that to anything in particular?

Murphy: Umpires are the game's unsung heroes. In only one case,
back in 1882, has an umpire been found to be dishonest. This is
remarkable, given the temptations and the difficulties of their work.

In 1908, umpires were paid comparable rates to ballplayers—from

about $2,400 to $4,500—but they were not treated well. For example,
in the winter meetings before the season started, the NL President
suggests (but does not require) league owners to provide umps with a
shower/bath. One asks, "hot and cold?"

Umpire training was sketchy, and frankly a number of them were not
very good at their jobs. There was a rough weeding out process,
though, as bad ones would be abused from the benches so much they
tended to leave pretty quickly. Even Pulliam acknowledged that many
of them were not up to standard—but he was right to vouch for their
honesty.

Finally, umpiring could be very solitary. In 1908, more than half of all
games were presided over by a single ump—a situation that was
ludicrous. No one man could see everything all the time, and I think
the events of 1908 were a large factor in the leagues finally, belatedly
and grudgingly going to a two-ump system in 1910.

THT: Speaking of umpires, Hank O'Day had quite the year, didn't he?
He took a lot of heat for the Merkle game, but he seemed to handle it
as well as he could. Plus, as you point out in the book, the real story
occurred several weeks before, when he ruled on a similar play in a
game involving the Cubs.

Murphy: Hank O'Day was widely regarded as one of the best umps in
the game, and on Sept 23, he committed one of the great acts of
courage between the lines: calling Fred Merkle out for failing to touch
second as the winning run (apparently) scored. O'Day was comfortable
making the call because he was looking for it, and he was looking for
it because a similar situation had occurred on Sept 4.

In that game, between the Pirates and the Cubs, a Pirates rookie named
Warren Gill failed to touch second as a winning run scored, said

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Johnny Evers, and should therefore be called out. O'Day did not see
the play (he was working alone) and he refused to call what he did not
see. But the argument went all the way up to the league offices, and
was also covered in the baseball press. So when the exact same thing
happened on Sept 23, O'Day was ready to make the call.

And the rest is history.

THT: It was also a heads-up play by Evers, who presumably

remembered that O'Day was the umpire on the 4th. As a former
second baseman, did you have a particular affinity for Evers?

Murphy: Well, Evers was widely known to be nervous, humorless and

extremely unpleasant to umpires. So I hope there is not too much
affinity!

Both during and after his career, though, Evers wrote (or put his name
to) a number of articles on baseball, and one excellent book, Touching
Second (a reference, of course, to the Merkle game). This is an
excellent book; it was recently reprinted. It gives great insight into the
thinking behind the "inside game" and also tells some great stories. So
perhaps as fellow hacks, we do have something in common.

THT: You did so much research for your book; by my count, there are
60 pages of sources and footnotes. How long did it take you to write
the book? What were some of your favorite findings during the
research?

Murphy: From conception to publication, it was more than four

years—although I didn't work on it full-time for any of that period.

Most of the book is based on looking at newspapers and magazines of

the era, which is how I came across things like McGraw getting a
"souvenir" of a piece of rope used in a lynching and Joe Cantillon of
the Senators being given a wolf by the fans. You can't make this stuff
up.

That said, the journalism of the period is not as illuminating as it could

have been. For one thing, it was rare for sportswriters to interview
players or managers after a game; most accounts have no remarks
from the participants. And second, lots of things we would be
interested in just didn't get covered; when Frank Smith abruptly leaves
the White Sox in June, for example, I would have liked to see stories
about why and some remarks from his teammates, etc. This just
doesn't happen. Sportswriters are pretty much agents of the ball club
they cover, and they don't challenge it much.

THT: Yes, Frank "Piano Mover" Smith (great nickname). Though you
did manage to find out that some of teammates also called him
"Deserter." Nice work. It seems like you found some wild stories
about Rube Waddell, too. Was he just a totally crazy man?

Murphy: I actually wonder if there wasn't something off in Rube

Waddell. I write that he has the sociopathic charm of a toddler, and I
think that's about right. He appears to have no impulse control and no
awareness of how his actions affect other people. Not showing up at
games; wrestling alligators; chasing fire engines—none of this really
bespeaks a mature man—and I suspect his ex-wives might have put it
more strongly.

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THT: Speaking of wives, that is one thing you brought to the book: a
real female perspective. I noticed that you included sidebars on both
Emma Goldman and Belle Gunness (great stuff) and you also wrote of
the leagues' need to pull more women to games. Was that actively
talked about at the time?

Murphy: Well, in the early 1900s, there was something called "Ladies
Days"—women got in for free; Cincinnati even had a section of stands
exclusively for women. After the 1908 season, though, Ladies Days
were ended—the owners clearly felt that the game had become
popular enough that they didn't need freebies any more.
(Subsequently, some teams revived the practice.)

When you look at pictures of baseball in this era, the fans are clearly,
overwhelmingly male. But there are always a few women and by 1908
baseball had cleaned up its act so that going to a game with sister,
girlfriend or wife was totally respectable. It was in 1908 that baseball's
anthem, "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" was published, and the verses
to this song are all about a young woman, Katie Casey, who had
baseball fever; when her beau asks her to go to a show, she says, "take
me out..." Even at the time, no one thought it odd that one Katie Casey
would feel that way; it was perfectly acceptable and relatively
common for a woman to be a fan.

THT: I noticed that you chose to tell your story in the present tense,
which is rare for a historical book. What drove your decision, and are
you happy with the result?

Murphy: I chose the present tense, because I wanted to give the season
a sense of immediacy, a "you were there" feel. And yes, I am happy
with the result. Because the book does touch on incidents and issues
before 1908, as well—for example in the sections on race, anarchism
and the city of Chicago—it helps to keep the season distinct. At least
that's the idea.

THT: Last question: Off the top of your head, what is your favorite
story or character from 1908?

Murphy: My favorite incident is in mid-July; Giants versus Cubs at

the Polo Grounds. The Giants appear to be cruising, ahead 4-1 in the
top of the ninth. So Christy Mathewson decides he'll just leave the
bench a little early to get his shower in (there are only a couple for the
whole team). But the Cubs begin to threaten and John McGraw calls
for his ace, Matty. Who of course is long gone. His teammates literally
fish him out of the shower; he throws on some bits of uniform (but not
his spikes—he is so frazzled he cannot get them on) jogs out. And of
course saves the day.

THT: Thank you, Cait. I hope your book is a big bestseller.

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