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Welcome to my home page! I’m so excited about your visit that I almost added
four exclamation points, but then I remembered a rule that one of my (wonderful)
copyeditors enforces while editing my books: five exclamation points per author,
per lifetime. So I practiced some restraint, but don’t let that fool you into
thinking that I’m not very glad you’re here. If you were looking for
www.petermorriscooks.com,
unfortunately that website is on hold because the market research firm I hired
found that most people in the all-important 25-44 year-old demographic group
already know how to make jello and hard-boiled eggs. Similarly, if you were
looking for www.petermorrishooks.com,
I’m afraid that that website has also been indefinitely delayed because the dumb videocam kept running out of tape before one of my Kareem-esque skyhooks went
in. But if you’re hoping to learn more about my books, you’ve come to the right
place! (Uh oh, only three exclamation points left.) You can follow the links
above to find out more about any of them, including the one that will be coming
out next spring. So come on in, wander around and make yourself at home.
There’s often not much to eat and it may be a little hard to find a chair
sometimes, but as the Anthony Powell novel title puts it, “Books do furnish a
room.” And I’ve got plenty of those to tell you about (hope you like
baseball). You’ll also find discoveries that I made while doing research
sprinkled throughout the site. I hope you enjoy your stay and return frequently (pause to think
about punctuation, oh what the heck, you only live once)!!!
FORTHCOMING BOOK -- SPRING 2009!
CATCHER: HOW THE MAN BEHIND THE PLATE BECAME AN AMERICAN FOLK HERO (due
out in the spring of 2009 from Ivan R. Dee, Inc.)
My next book is now finished
and will be released very soon. It tells the history of the catcher
from the early days of baseball up until 1920, focusing on how he achieved the
status of folk hero in the tradition of frontiersmen and cowboys, only to lose
it in the 1880s and '90s when he donned equipment and became perceived as less
manly and courageous. It was a fascinating book to write and research and
I did my best to do justice to a very important story that has largely escaped
notice.
I LOVE A GOOD MYSTERY
 Meet John
Roach, who pitched one game for the New York Giants on May 14, 1887, losing
17-2. Not surprisingly he was released shortly thereafter and his
dismal performance was quickly forgotten. Not by me, however. I’m a member
of the Biographical Committee of the Society for
American Baseball Research, the small group of people who worry about what ever happened
to obscure players like Roach. A few years ago, we found that Roach died
in Peoria in 1934 and that answered the most pressing question. But since
then, we keep finding intriguing new details about this enigmatic player.
Roach, for example, had a brother Mike who also played in the major leagues.
Five years before his birth, his parents were getting their mail at a
Pennsylvania post office called “Youngwomanstown.” Unfortunately it
changed its name before John was born -- wouldn’t that have been a cool place of birth?
But the most intriguing question was what hand Roach used to
pitch. On August 8, 1936, the New York Times published a letter by
a man who claimed to have witnessed John Roach pitching with both hands for the
Giants in his only major league game. And the writer correctly recollected that
the Giants lost the game by the score of 17-2. There is no contemporary documentation of
Roach using both hands during that game, and thus no way to be certain, which
means that another unsolved mystery swirls around John Roach.
Judging from his tantalizing pose on this baseball card, perhaps he liked it
that way.
Admittedly, it’s not exactly CSI. But if you enjoy reading about the efforts to solve real-life mysteries like these,
check out some of my other research.
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