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The Amazon Store at MillionDollarPetPix.com ( In association with Amazon.com )Crazy '08: How a Cast of Cranks, Rogues, Boneheads, and Magnates Created the Greatest Year in Baseball Historyby: Cait N. Murphy  List Price: $14.95 Amazon.com's Price: $10.17 You Save: $4.78 (32%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Binding: PaperbackDewey Decimal Number: 796.3570973 EAN: 9780060889388 ISBN: 0060889381 Label: Collins Manufacturer: Collins Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 400 Publication Date: March 01, 2008 Publisher: Collins Release Date: February 19, 2008 Studio: Collins Related Items:
Browse for similar items by category: Click to Display Editorial Review: 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. Average Rating:
 Rating:  - Rollicking Baseball BookI really enjoyed Cait Murphy's Crazy '08 about the baseball season that produced one of the games most memorable pennant races but also in the author's view saw the turning of baseball toward the modern era of the game. Murphy's book reads like a long magazine article. It is breezy and filled with contemporary language and side observations like a long piece in Outside Magazine or Rolling Stone. This may make the book dated in coming years, but it serves to illuminate the caste of ... Read More Rating: - Best Book Ever on Baseball's "Golden Age"Alas, poor Merkle! The Giants lost the 1908 NL pennant, as every baseball aficianado knows, on his ill-timed "boner:" actually a rather unjust, form-over-substance umpire's call that vaulted the Cubs over the Giants to, ultimately, the 1908 World Series championship -- Is it mere coincidence that it was their last, or does Merkle's vengance-minded ghost hover malevolently over Wrigley to this day? -- Ms. Murphy's wonderful book brings the whole crazy 1908 season into focus and places it squarely ... Read More Rating: - Boneheads, Belle, Brothels & BaseballFor 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 ... Read More Rating:  - Baseball's modern era begins hereMurphy 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 ... Read More Rating: - 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 ... Read More 
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