Crazy '08: How a Cast of Cranks, Rogues, Boneheads, and Magnates Created the Greatest Year in Baseball History

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.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member ksmyth

This is a great book-both a great baseball book and a social history. I've read many baseball books, including David Anderson's "More Than Merkle," also about the '08 season. None are able share the excitement of a dramatic baseball season interwoven with the themes and interesting details of a

social context. I would compare Crazy '08 with Laura Hillenbrand's "Seabiscuit." As a historian, I was also incredibly impressed with Murphy's careful footnoting, and massive bibliography, which I consider a guide to future reading. Strongly recommended.

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LibraryThing member CarolO

This is not just the story of baseball in 1908, it is a story of the United State in 1908.

Probably best appreciated by a true baseball fan; I never did keep up with who was on what team since I am not a baseball fan – true or otherwise. But the evolution of the game was interesting, and what was

happening in American society was fascinating.

I heard strange echoes of the future as I was reading it. I heard “drill, baby, drill” as I was reading the chant “run, baby, run”. Before google became a verb, Fred Merkle failed to touch 2nd base and thereafter “to merkle” gained the meaning of “to not arrive”.

I honestly don’t know if 1908 was the greatest year in baseball as the author claims but it certainly had more then its fair share of characters, legends, and controversy.

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LibraryThing member coachtim30

"Crazy '08..." is a well-researched, fascinating look at the 1908 baseball season - or as author Cait Murphy described it, "one of the greatest seasons in baseball's history". The book spends a majority of its time going over the trials and tribulations of the Cubs, Giants, and the Pirates as they

fight their way, both figuratively and literally, through the long season. These three squads kept baseball fans in suspense until the very last day of the season - and even beyond due to the tie-breaking game that was needed to determine the pennant winner.

Many of the baseball's greatest get their due by Murphy as the reader progresses through the book. Those greats highlighted in detail are: Cubs - Frank Chance, Johnny Evers, and Joe Tinker (the famous Tinker to Evers to Chance), and their outstanding pitcher, Three-Finger Brown; Giants - manager John McGraw, pitcher extraordinaire Christy Mathewson, and the unfortunate Fred Merkle; and the Pirate's peerless shortstop, Honus Wagner. There are other greats mentioned throughout the book, but Murphy really concentrates on these players.

I've read a number of outstanding baseball histories over the years, but none have had the combination of pathos, humor, and intelligence that this book did. Fans of baseball history who enjoyed Lawrence Ritter's fabulous "Glory of Their Times" and anything written by baseball writers Donald Honig or John Thorn, will love "Crazy '08".

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LibraryThing member nmele

This book is a history of the pennant races in major league baseball in 1908. Lots of interesting stuff, and a cast of characters that includes Mordecai Three-finger Brown, Christy Mathewson, Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner and, of course, Tinker, Evers and Chance. Still, I found reading it somewhat tedious

despite the baseball color and the author's efforts to tie what baseball history to the social history of the turn of the century. I'm not sure why it was a slog, as the writing is pretty good--maybe just too much jumping around as the author follows each of the six teams involved in the National and American League pennant races. So it only gets three stars from me.

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LibraryThing member jerry-book

Not sure it was baseball's best pennant race but is was a fascinating study of early baseball. Hard to believe it was the last time the Cubs won the World Series.

LibraryThing member reader1009

Non-fiction; Sports history. Well researched and very interesting--which, coming from a baseball non-fan, actually says quite a bit.

LibraryThing member datrappert

This is a solidly written and extensively researched account of the 1908 baseball season, particularly the National League pennant chase between the Chicago Cubs, the New York Giants, and the Pittsburgh Pirates, which went down to the last day of the season. Along the way, we meet a cast of larger

than life personalities and get to enjoy some hilarious stories, some of which may even be true. Murphy also digresses into other events of the times, which provides a feel for how baseball fit into the America of its times. Very well done. I'd take 1908 baseball over the current travesty any day.

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LibraryThing member Capybara_99

An interesting history of baseball at the time of the epic pennant races of 1908, which some diversions into some other relevant bits of history. Murphy writes with a perfect light touch. Picks up pieces of the lingo used by the ballplayers or sportswriters of the time, but doesn't go overboard.

She writes with a sense of irony but doesn't let it override the interest of her story. Many of the greatest players of the era just pre-Ruth are playing at this time and Murphy does them justice.

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LibraryThing member rocketjk

This is a history of the dual pennant races of the 1908 season, a year that saw both the decades-old National League and the essentially brand new American League enjoy seasons in which three teams in each league were still in contention right up through the final week. Author Cait Murphy, though,

focuses mostly on the National League race between the Pittsburgh Pirate, the Chicago Cubs and the New York Giants.

Not only were the pennant races exciting, but this particular season offers an excellent view of the game as it was evolving away from its earlier, extremely rowdy days, when professional baseball was often essentially a barroom brawl on grass, into something somewhat approximating the game we know today. Although, to be sure, subtle and not-so-subtle cheating, like elbowing a baserunner to slow his progress, or even tugging on his belt loop, vicious umpire baiting, fistfights and other forms of mayhem had certainly not disappeared. Some of the most famous players of early baseball history took part in the action that season, including Honus Wagner, Nap Lajoie, Ty Cobb, Christy Mathewson, Joe McCarthy, Mordecai "Three Fingers" Brown, and the Cubs' famous double-play combination, Joe Tinker, Johnny Evers and Frank Chance. And then of course there was poor New York Giant Fred Merkle, whose base running gaff late in the season proved extremely costly to the Giants, so much so that the incident has lived in baseball lore for these 116 years as "Merkle's Boner."

The books seems extremely well researched, and Murphy's writing style is clear and appealingly breezy, even if she does occasionally slip into the over-indulgent metaphor. If you are at all interested in baseball history, this is a very fun book.

I should add that the author makes relatively quick reference to the fact that what we generally think of as Major League Baseball was entirely and emphatically segregated at this time. She does provide, about halfway through a brief history of (several pages long) of the history of this segregation and the major figures who worked to ensure that status would remain quo for so many decades. Murphy also briefly places that within the larger context of Jim Crow America as a whole.

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