Customer Reviews

The Unforgettable Season

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Read about the 1908 season from the perspective of a newpaper reader in the early 20th century. A facinating book, of interest to the historian as well as the baseball fan. The newspaper accounts of Merkle's disasterous decision that cost the NY Giants the pennent are priceless.

Could there have been such a time? The Chicago Cubs were the defending National League and World Champions of Baseball and were fighting to win their third straight pennant in 1908. The Cubs faced determined opposition from both the New York Giants and the Pittsburgh Pirates in a horse race that was going to be decided at the wire. What makes this account fascinating is that G. H. Fleming carefully edited actual newspaper accounts from a variety of contemporary sources to give the reader a feeling of what it was like to follow baseball in 1908. The grandstands were wooden, if you could not afford a ticket, you could climb a tree or find a knothole in the fence from which to watch. Ham sandwiches were as likely to be sold at games as hot dogs. The Cubs played their games on the West Side of Chicago and their uniforms and baggage were delivered to train stations by horse drawn wagons. The marquee players on all of the teams in the book have been immortalized in the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, with the sole exception of Turkey Mike Donlin and Harry Steinfeldt. This story has more than its share of excitement, including near riots on the playing field and a suicide of a top baseball official. It has been a full century since the Chicago Cubs celebrated a World Series Championship. Read this book and you will be transported back to the time of their last title.

If you've ever started anticipating the opening of the baseball season in mid-January, gone to a high school game because it was the only available venue, still remember the voice of the play-by-play announcer from your youth and, yes, had your mother/wife/girlfriend throw away your 'useless' baseball card collection, then this is the book for you! Absolutely the best baseball book ever written. A meticulously pieced together collection of newspaper articles chronicling the 1908 season and it's dramatic finish. Remarkably contemporary in its coverage of issues and scandals not too far afield from those still troubling the sport today. A great read.

writting styles have definitely changed over the course of a hundred years. the book is a fascinating collection of newsclippings from various papers (mostly from New York) detailing the 1908 National League pennant race. the author adds clarifications of references made by the scribes that may be unknown to today's reader and occasional footnotes but otherwise lets the articles speak for themselves. if you're a nostaglia buff, avid basball fan or interested in popular styles of writting from long ago you will enjoy this book. I wish that pictures from the era would have been included to compliment the writtings that brings the characters of that day to life.