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Rating: 
Summary: A Good Book, But Certainly Not A Classic
Review: Another book written on a particular year. As the title suggests, there was more to the 1908 baseball season than the Merkle incident. The book reviews each major league team, the umpires, managers, and what fans were like during this Dead Ball era year. The author makes the case for the custom of not touching 2nd base on a game winning hit due to getting off the field as soon as possible before being mobbed by the fans on the field. Also, he questions why Manager McGraw of the Giants didn't warn his players about the necessity of touching 2nd base on a game winning hit since a similar incident happened prior to the Merkle game between the Cubs and Pirates. The introduction begins with a quote from Cubs' shortstop Joe Tinker who the author identifies as "second base, Chicago Cubs." Also, on the last page of the book the author spells the name of Tigers' pitcher Denny McLain as Denny "McClain." Errors such as this bother me and make me question other details I may not be aware of.
Rating:
Summary: A Good Book, But Certainly Not A Classic
Review: Another book written on a particular year. As the title suggests, there was more to the 1908 baseball season than the Merkle incident. The book reviews each major league team, the umpires, managers, and what fans were like during this Dead Ball era year. The author makes the case for the custom of not touching 2nd base on a game winning hit due to getting off the field as soon as possible before being mobbed by the fans on the field. Also, he questions why Manager McGraw of the Giants didn't warn his players about the necessity of touching 2nd base on a game winning hit since a similar incident happened prior to the Merkle game between the Cubs and Pirates. The introduction begins with a quote from Cubs' shortstop Joe Tinker who the author identifies as "second base, Chicago Cubs." Also, on the last page of the book the author spells the name of Tigers' pitcher Denny McLain as Denny "McClain." Errors such as this bother me and make me question other details I may not be aware of.
Rating:
Summary: Another Look at Baseball's Most Storied Season
Review: Baseball fans remember the 1908 season for two reasons: It featured the famous "Merkle game", in which a New York Giants player's failure to touch second base cost his team the National League pennant, and it marks the last time the Chicago Cubs won the World Series.David Anderson's book attempts to restore the Merkle game to its proper context, as the centerpiece of a season which featured two of the most exciting pennant races in baseball history. The neglected 1908 American League race saw three teams battle into the season's final week, with the Detroit Tigers nosing out the Chicago White Sox on the final day. The Chisox bid--anchored by pitcher Ed Walsh, the last 40-game winner in major league history--marks the closest Chicago has come to an all-Chicago World Series since 1906. Dead-ball era baseball presents problems for writers and historians. The players involved are all dead, and only a few left behind recollections via ghostwritten memoirs of questionable accuracy. Sportswriters in this era seldom quoted players in game accounts. As a result, Anderson's writing lacks the "insider feel" we associate with sports reporting today. "More than Merkle" nevertheless provides an interesting story and sheds new light on early 1900's baseball in general and the Merkle incident in particular. His discussions of umpiring and gambling scandals during the 1908 season break new ground. Baseball buffs will enjoy this book.
Rating: 
Summary: 1908 baseball season loses sparkle - mundane and repetitive
Review: Despite the extraordinary excitement of dual pennant races and enough controversy to last decades, the pivotal baseball season of 1908 emerges as a washed down, mundane experience in David Anderson's uninspiring "More than Merkle." Overwhelmed with esoterica and dragged down by prosaic writing, this history will appeal to lovers of trivia, but cannot stand the test of appealing to a larger audience. Anderson commits the cardinal error of minimizing narriatve flow; instead, he trudges us through a month-by-month description (which borders on pitch-by-pitch, of every team) of the pennant chase. Lost are the tension and violence of the era; the reader never is invited to understand the physical toll "dead ball" exacted from its participants. What the reader receives is little more and little better than a Sporting News summary. Facts abound and statistics flow, yet "More than Merkle" is stragely wooden, stilted. Even the title character, Fred Merkle, whose baserunning blunder stands as one of the true milestones of the emerging national pasttime, hardly receives sufficient biographical treatment. Reverence for numbers cannot substitute for making players come alive. Dry, badly in need of editing and affectless, "More than Merkle" does contribute to our understanding of the role umpires played in pivotal contests, but does little else. The proclaimed "most exciting season in human history" will have fans leaving in the middle of the seventh inning.
Rating:
Summary: BORING
Review: he gives plenty of stats and fine details but forgets that he's talking about people. it becomes very boring and lifeless, too much emphasis on details and not enough on the players behind the numbers. i recommend " baseball in 41' " by robert creamer, a fine book something that "more than merkle..." should've had more of.
Rating: 
Summary: A Lurking Disappointment
Review: Interested in the men who played the national game in 1908, I eagerly plunged into "More Than Merkle." What I found was a book filled with syntax errors, either of the author's creation or of the publisher, the University of Nebraska Press. While most of these errors were minor, many served as great distractions from the reading of the text. The biographies of the men involved in baseball at the turn of the century really turned into nothing more than a verbal recapitulation of the statistics found in the "Baseball Encyclopedia" or "Total Baseball." Finally, the author seemed intent in finding a new villain or a new victim, or maybe even a new mystery to the ending of the 1908 National League season. Much of his argument proves to be superficial, often trivial, and sometimes just plain nonsense. On the positive side, the book does also examine the American League race of 1908, something that is often lost in the wake of the Merkle incident.
Rating: 
Summary: A story that needed to be told
Review: The authors have brought to life the excitement of this great season, when three teams went to the wire in both leagues. There are fine synopses of all 16 teams in the league, backgrounds on play at the time, and bios of the umpires, whom the authors contend had much to do with league outcomes- and not just in the Merkle game. A marvelous reliving of this great summer, told with accuracy. The only thing missing from the book is the mention of the strange situation on the last day of the American League race. Cleveland was eliminated from contention, despite its 90-64 record, by teams with fewer wins. Detroit (89-63) was about to play Chicago (88-63), and whoever would win would have a better percentage than unlucky Cleveland. But the excitement definitely comes through. What a year! If you love this book, Scott Longert's "Addie Joss" covers the Cleveland angle, Charles Alexander and Ty Cobb himself cover Detroit's, Christy Mathewson's book, as well as bios of John McGraw, take the Giant's view of the NL race, and the De Valeria's "Honus Wagner" covers Pittsburgh's side. Why oh why, in a city of journalists, has no one written anything from the White Sox or Cubs view?
Rating: 
Summary: Time Machine
Review: This incredible season is relived with amazing detail and insight that makes the modern fan wonder. Just imagine what media hype would follow if these events occured today! If you really follow the game, the history of the game, and the pure love of the game --- this is for you.
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