Level Playing Fields: How the Groundskeeping Murphy Brothers Shaped Baseball (2007, University of Nebraska Press)

My 2007 book, Level Playing Fields: How the Groundskeeping Murphy Brothers Shaped Baseball, came about in a curious way.  Along with some colleagues on the SABR Biographical Committee, I was doing research on an obscure “missing” nineteenth century ballplayer named Patrick Lawrence Murphy.  Just when it looked as though the mystery was solved and everything was wrapped up neatly, I happened upon a puzzling note in an Indianapolis newspaper stating that Murphy was “one of five brothers being employed on the diamond.”  SAY WHAT!!??  Baffled and amazed, I started digging into the rest of the family and discovered that Patrick’s brothers Tom and John were two of baseball’s greatest groundskeepers. Tom had been the groundskeeper for the Baltimore Orioles’ dynasty of the 1890s, and had carefully crafted their home park to give the team a very unfair home field advantage.  His brother John became the maestro of the Polo Grounds, working tirelessly to turn a former mud flat into a picturesque setting for baseball (and then to rebuild it from scratch whenever a flood came along).  The two brothers were also intimately involved in the development of such baseball staples as the pitching mound, tarpaulins, permanent spring training homes, and so on.  And yet both were entirely forgotten.  So this book provided me with two challenges: first, to try to recreate their story and then to try to figure out why they had been left out of baseball’s history.  I’ve done my best to explain both of these mysteries and finally give these two extraordinary men their just due.

              (The Polo Grounds in 1904, shortly before John Murphy began his second stint as the Giants’ groundskeeper.
Yes, those are fans standing in the outfield and effectively forming a human fence.)

POSTSCRIPT

I found this note too late to include in the book, but anyone who has read the book will enjoy it, as it shows John Murphy’s deep pride in his Irish heritage:

The Washington Times of December 24, 1908, reported that the acquisition of Red Murray prompted John Murphy to exclaim, “Won’t I be swell with Murray, O’Hara and Mike Donlin?  When that outfield gets to going I am going to put a little patch of green in left field and call it Donegal; in center, I will put another patch and call it Clark; in right I will lay a third garden and call it Dublin.”

HOW TO PURCHASE

All of my books can be purchased from the publisher (in this case, University of Nebraska Press), or from on-line booksellers such as amazon.com, or from your local bookseller.  If they don’t have it in stock, they'll be glad to order it for you.

REVIEWS

“Few baseball authors chart new territory as often as Peter Morris. With Level Playing Fields, Morris has done it yet again. Morris unearths a rich, intriguing tale. This is a fascinating exploration of the roots of groundskeeping and the contributions of the feisty Murphy brothers. It’s another winner for Morris – and for all who savor early baseball history.” Baseball historian Tom Stanton

“Peter Morris’s short but masterly Level Playing Fields: How the Groundskeeping Murphy Brothers Shaped Baseball looks at the development of professional baseball and, indeed, at Americans’ changing image of their society, from a much-neglected angle, that of the material conditions of play. The careers of Tom and John Murphy were pivotal. . . .  This book is packed with insight and telling detail on both baseball and the American temper.” Katherine A. Powers, Boston Globe

“Peter Morris has accomplished a truly remarkable feat in that he has given us a fresh and invigorating way of understanding the evolution of baseball and the ballparks in which the game is played.  Level Playing Fields is a gem at every level – well-written, insightful, and meticulously researched – and, once again, reminds us that Peter Morris is an All-Star baseball historian.” Baseball historian Paul Dickson

“Peter Morris has done a wonderful thing here -- baseball history is more than hits, pitches, managers, franchises, and championships. It is supremely a game played on a pristine field, an intricate complex of dirt, grass, and lines, a design of fair and foul zones. ... That those who designed and preserved such testimonies have long worked as an invisible counterforce makes this a fine and valuable read. This is a heroic saga of engineering improvisation, a fierce understanding of the earth (the Murphy brothers were Irish potato farmers), and supremely an almost intuitive knack for how baseball ... represents a cooperation between players and nature.” Owen T. McCloskey, Aethlon: The Journal of Sport Literature

“[A]n absolutely engrossing story. . . . You have to hand it to Morris for making such a prosaic subject come alive into such a fascinating story, but that’s exactly what he accomplishes here.” Dan Danbom, Time Out for Entertainment 

“Level Playing Fields is a superb, richly layered and highly readable biographical study of two unsung, pioneering groundskeepers whose contributions forever transformed our National Pastime.  Peter Morris again justifies his reputation as a master baseball historian.” Baseball historian David Block

“Maverick baseball historian Morris here gets down to fundamentals that most histories overlook: the dirt and the grass. We learn how significant aspects of the game’s evolution can be traced far back to practical decisions made by Irish immigrants Tom and Jack Murphy. These men knew the likes of Connie Mack, Honus Wagner, and Ty Cobb, and their own contributions (which included pitching mounds and spring training camps) were just as influential. Morris’s research and insights rescue these pioneer men from obscurity.” Library Journal

“Level Playing Fields is a look at turn of the century baseball through the eyes and influence of a groundskeeper. It’s a different way to look at the game – showing how two brothers contributed to the development of the game through their knowledge and love of caring for a ballfield.  It successfully meshes baseball’s history with American history at key points - particularly, the understanding that the reader must have regarding the point in time when industry had allowed humans to manipulate the land to his liking. It wasn’t simple work to create a ballfield; most times you took the best plot of land you could find, that wasn’t being claimed for other purposes - either industrial or residential.  Likewise, baseball wasn’t as embraced in the late 1800s as it is today — in numerous cities, government frowned upon the sport and refused to grant teams permits to use fields to play baseball on.  I really appreciate the connections that Morris helped me to see while further developing the rich history of baseball, this time by adding the story of the groundskeeper to the mix.” Pat Lagreid, The Baseball Book Review