Peter Morris, Baseball Historian
Baseball Fever A Game of Inches Level Playing Fields But Didn’t We Have Fun? My Other Research About Me Contact Me
MY BOOKS

Book Signings
Baseball Fever
A Game of Inches
   Table of Contents
   Updates, chapter 1
   Updates, chapter 2
   Updates, chapter 3
   Updates, chapters 4, 5
   Updates, chapters 6-8
   Updates, chapter 9
   Updates, chap. 10-12
   Updates, chapter 13
   Updates, chapter 14
   Updates, chap. 15-17
   Updates, chapter 18
   Updates, chap. 19-21
   Updates, chap. 22-26
   Who Cares?
Level Playing Fields
But Didn’t We Have Fun?
Catcher (due out in 2009)
 

OTHER RESEARCH

Biographies
William Edward White
Research Sources
    Online Newspapers
    Multi-state Collections
    Archives and Libraries
    Baseball Websites
Other Published Work
Pioneer Project
  Independent of Mansfield
  Forest City of Cleveland
  Chemung of Stoughton
  Lightfoot /N. Brookfield
  Excelsior of Chicago(p.1)
  Excelsior of Chicago(p.2)
  Forest City of Rockford
  Pastime of Brooklyn
  Clifton of Buffalo
  Niagara of Buffalo (p.1)
  Niagara of Buffalo (p.2)
  Pecatonicas
  Mutual of Janesville, Wis.
  Excelsior of Albany, NY
  Ontario of Oswego
  Hudson River, Newburgh
  Mountain of Altoona
  Early Riser of Detroit
  Detroit Base Ball Club
  Franklin of Detroit
  First National, Hancock
  Daybreak of Jackson
  Kent of Grand Rapids
  Allegheny Club
  Syracuse Base Ball Club
  Central City of Syracuse
  Haymakers of Troy
  Gate City of Atlanta
  Clubs and Authors
  Missing Pioneers
 

MISSING PLAYERS

Hot Cold Cases
On the Brink
Colder Cases
Longest Careers
Ed Clark
Success Stories
    Peter Morris
    Harvey Watkins
    John Fogarty
    Alfred Nichols
    Ed Ford
    Joe Gannon
Other Stuff We Look for
    Fred Beebe
    Satchel Paige

FUN STUFF

Inquisitive Fans
All-Time Canadian Team

ABOUT ME

My Favorite Things

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.

 

 

 


 

 

Copyright © 2007-2008 by Peter Morris. All rights reserved.