Baking the Cake: The Researching, Writing and Interviewing and an Agent Enters the Picture

The writing continued and stories such as the 1973 series between the A’s and the Mets took shape. An interview with the late Sal Bando not only gave them great context around the reported stories of the series but led to the disclosure that Charlie Finley had beaten his wife in a fit of rage after utility second baseman Mike Andrews made two key errors in extra innings of Game 2 costing the A’s the game. For those of you who have read the book and are scratching your heads right now you’re not losing your marbles – this nugget didn’t make it into the book! The story of the 1918 World Series, which was played in the middle of the global Spanish Flu pandemic (and World War I), was also coming together. Who would have guessed that the national pastime would play through a second global pandemic and that we would watch it unfold before our very eyes over 100 years later.

It’s amazing what the friends and family network can do for you when you least expect it. At around the twelve chapter mark reality set in. They didn’t have enough material to finish the book and weren’t sure where to turn. Being the baseball lovers they are they had been talking about the project to people in their orbit for months and were getting great feedback and continued encouragement. Friends were anxious to share contacts who might have stories to share or people who might agree to be interviewed. In one case it was just a brainstorming call with another baseball loving friend, John Messina that steered them in the right direction. Another conversation with a professor at Florida State led to the chapter on the 1942 Negro League World Series which for outright shenanigans might have been crazier than any other story in the book. They would get there after all.

While the research and story writing continued other things needed tending to. For instance, someone had to write the foreword right? What’s a good book without one? The guys had their man in Sal Bando, captain of the Swingin’ A’s of the 70s. They won three straight titles and were front and center in the chapter about the 1973 World Series featuring the drama between A’s owner Charlie Finley and reserve infielder Mike Andrews. Sal proved to be a great interview and friend to the guys and he also agreed to write the foreword but unfortunately fell victim to severe health issues in 2003 making it necessary to pivot in another direction. How lucky they were that former Yankee first basemen, 2009 series participant and borderline hall of famer Mark Teixeira volunteered to step in for Sal. His generosity can’t be overstated and his foreword captured the true spirit of the book so precisely that it appears as he originally wrote it without edits.

More interviews were needed and at some point quotes and/or endorsements had to be gathered for the book jacket but where to get them? Unfortunately you can’t just walk outside to the endorsement tree. It is sometimes surprising to realize that you’re less than six degrees from those who can contribute. Bob Klapisch is a well-known baseball writer in the New York area having covered the Mets and Yankees beats for over 35 years. He’s authored a number of great books including The Worst Team Money Could Buy and Inside the Empire but how could they get him to provide a review or endorsement? It turns out that Jeff was at Bob’s 35th birthday party at a club in Manhattan back in the day (don’t ask) and was able to contact him through a newspaper connection. The daughter of Jeff’s old secretary might be able to help get in touch with some old Yankee players but first he had to contact her father for her contact information. THAT led to a retelling of his days as a minor league player – did Jeff know that when he signed his contract with the Indians that Early Wynn took him and his parents out for dinner? No he didn’t! That when he took the mound to pitch his first game in the minors he looked out to find that Roger Maris was his right fielder? Again, a resounding no.

Dave lined up an interview with Tommie Herr who was incredibly candid when describing the morale on the ’85 Cards team after having the series victory snatched away from them at the end of Game 6 due to a blown call by umpire Don Denkinger. Mickey Rivers gave the guys two interviews that were wildly entertaining (hereafter known as The Mickey Chronicles) and hard to describe here. How about Rich Dubee, pitching coach for the 2009 Phillies, explaining that he wasn’t really sure he told manager Charlie Manuel that his Game 1 starter (Cliff Lee) was stuck in traffic and might not make it for the first pitch? When Tex told them that he had no idea that Cliff Lee had gone through so much to get to the stadium before that game he also said that he knew lots of pitchers who would not have been able to cope with being knocked out of their pre-game routine and would have imploded on the mound. About then Dave and Jeff really came to believe that they were on the right track!

The question was often asked “How did you find the research material, especially for events that took place so long ago that everyone involved is gone?” Persistence is probably the best single answer but it started with all of the baseball material the guys had accumulated since they began following baseball. Old magazines (that their mothers never threw out), World Series programs and books - lots of books. Being avid readers since their teens was now paying off and that meant that there were piles of old books to sort through that contained some original reporting which often led to additional original research materials.

The internet, of course, was a key. The massive indexing of information allowed them to find old articles from long defunct newspapers and books no longer in circulation. Surprisingly, or not, YouTube was also a source that allowed them to “verify” written accounts and old box scores sometimes with surprising results. The video of Game 2 of the 1973 World Series clearly shows that the second of the two errors attributed to Mike Andrews in the twelfth inning was not an error at all but a blown call by the first base umpire. Doubtful that anyone other than Mr. Andrews cares that much about the distinction but if you’re interested in getting the facts right sometimes the evidence is there. In-game video was found to go back as far as the ’44 series and some limited clips went back even further.

For the baseball geeks out there other valuable sources might be more familiar; Baseball Reference.com, MLB.com and SABR all were tapped on a regular basis to find information or verify data from other sources. Digging down into the game by game player records on Baseball Reference.com, for instance, directly contradicted and account by a Stanford researcher who claimed that Babe Ruth had missed a big chunk of the 1918 season between the middle of May and Labor Day because of the Spanish Flu. It was more like 10 days or so and there was no record that he was ever diagnosed with or treated for the Spanish Flu. The number of visits to these sites on a monthly basis is truly staggering with MLB.com sometimes getting over 100 million visitors in a month, Baseball Reference.com getting over 15 million in a month and SABR getting hundreds of thousands of visitors in some months. These factoids, which pointed towards a potential audience for Shadows of Glory, were eagerly shared with prospective publishers who, likely, ignored them just as eagerly! 

There were many chapters to finish and though the research and the story telling was great fun it was also time to find a publisher for this thing. Talk about walking and chewing gum at the same time! After exhausting Dave’s contacts from previous publishing efforts they now had to consider whether self-publishing was an option but there was another possibility. How about getting an agent on board to get this book into its rightful home? Though Dave had once worked with an agent this was not part of the grand design. Let’s be honest, if you had told them back in the Gettysburg College years that one day they would have literary representation for a joint book project they would have searched your pockets for the pot you were smoking. However, after some creative research, Dave found Tim Hays a New York veteran with a sports background to take up the challenge.

Fast forward to the Spring of 2023 when the good news came that Lyons Press would publish Shadows of Glory and would release it in April of 2024! Not only that, veteran editor Ken Samelson was going to take the lead on this project for Lyons. Ken was just what was needed; an experienced jack of all trades who hit the ground running. He immediately agreed to proof read and fact check the manuscript saving the guys from a minor embarrassment or two and quickly became the acknowledged godfather of the book. Under his stewardship and with the assistance of production editor Jenna Dutton the book entered into its final stages. The story of the book cannot be told without also acknowledging the contributions of Debby Smith who, prior to the book deal, served as the book’s copywriter and de-facto day to day manager. She brought order where it was missing, standards where they were needed and helped the guys remain focused on the little details upon which the success down the road would depend. The last endorsements were gathered, interviews were completed and photos were secured.

In the end Shadows of Glory settled in at eighteen chapters. There were twenty one teams and nine different decades represented. Though the theme of the book was a constant throughout, the chapters themselves didn’t adhere to a single pattern. Some were character based; some were driven by very specific events while others were largely the result of circumstances that were bigger than the games themselves. Interviewers have sometimes asked if there were ever fights or arguments over which chapters should be included. The answer is “no” though there were some debates along the way. If the publisher told them that a chapter had to be dropped due to space constraints which one should or could go? It will be left to the good readers of the book to figure out if there was one true answer to that question but in the end that bridge was never crossed. 

The decision was also made to sequence the chapters along the lines of the sub-themes that began to crop up during the writing phase rather than in chronological order. Hence, “Who Are These Guys?”, “Meanwhile….Off The Field”, “Owners, Umpires and Commissioners – Oh My!” and “Heartbreak and Triumph”. Each chapter stands on its own and the early appeal was that someone could read a chapter, put the book down and then pick it up again without missing a beat or feeling that the chapters should be read in any particular order all at the reader’s discretion.