Some books come out of the womb with a rush. Way back when I got to chat with author John Updike about his wonderful New Yorker story “Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu” about Ted Williams’ parting shot home run, I was on the way home when the idea for a book about the final games of MLB legends hit me.
Once I was home — this was before cellphones — I called a guy I’d just met at the Baseball Hall of Fame, the former Pittsburgh Pirates’ PR guy, Bill Guilfoile, and asked him if it was a good idea for a book. He loved it.
“I get 200 calls a year, pitching books. Nobody’s done that,” he said. “Call Jill Langford in Indiana, she works for Rowman and Littlefield. She’ll get you a book deal.”
I called her, told her the idea and she loved it. “Who do you want to do?” she said. Getting a book deal was that easy.
For my friend and former colleague Brian Marshall, the author of “Goose On The Loose, Ex-Big Leaguer Gosger Dishes on Colorful Career” it didn’t go quite so easily.
Brian and I worked together at the Port Huron Times Herald in the early 90’s and we had fun covering high school sports, Brian did the Lions and some Red Wings’ games as I remember. I did Michigan and Michigan State and the Tigers and Pistons. It was a lot of fun and we won a bunch of awards, really livened up the town.
We’ve kept in touch since I moved on and a while back, Brian had the idea of doing a book on a guy we both knew and liked, former major-leaguer Jim Gosger, a Port Huron native. Everybody in town knew Jim, who’d officiated high school sports and worked for the city once he was done with baseball.
Gosger was bitter about baseball for a long time after he retired and I’m happy to say, I talked him into going to a Tigers’ game with me. Once inside Tiger Stadium, Tom Seaver spotted him, they started chatting and it was like he never left.
He’d had a colorful career, was part of “Ball Four,” played for Charlie Finley, had some stories to tell. I encouraged Brian to go for it. He’d never written a book.
Well, things got complicated and after a rip-snortin’ start, some interviews and preliminary stuff, life got a little difficult for Brian and he had to drop it. Felt bad.
Somehow — Gosger is BIG on Facebook — word got out the book fell through and some guy from Kansas City reached out, told Jim he’d do the book. (He’d never written one either.) Jim gave him pictures, taped a bunch of interviews, sent him clippings. And for the longest time, nothing.
To help out, I even called the guy in KC, offered to help. Jim really wanted a book. Couldn’t budge him. Then the guy up and dies. His daughter sends all the stuff back to Gosger.
In the meantime, I’m winding up my own baseball book, “Diamond Duels” and knew Jim had been through some difficult times (Had lost his wife, had health problems, etc.) so I thought maybe doing the last chapter of “Duels” with him would be a great way to wrap up the book and give him a boost. So we did it. It was great.
Then I had a thought. Maybe I need to nudge Brian to pick up that story again. He’d done a bunch of research, he knew the guy, he just had to start again. He was afraid Gosger would be angry about him dropping the ball. He wasn’t.
So, Brian started in on “Goose On The Loose” and before long, he was done. He pitched it to a few publishers, struck out and decided to self-publish. “I’ll pay for the damn thing,” Gosger said. And he did. Brian wrote it, found a self-publisher, sent it in. “You’ll have the book in (so many) weeks,” they said. Everything seemed great. Then it wasn’t.
There were delays, the self-publisher insisted that they needed to buy so many books, different to what they’d agreed on. There were phone calls and missed calls and hassles and aggravations and delays and Gosger, who had funded all this, blew up. “I’m getting ripped off,” he wrote on Facebook and the hundreds of Facebook friends took up for him. Unfortunately, some even went after Brian, like it was his fault the book was delayed.
Finally, thank the Lord, the book arrived. Gosger was thrilled, delighted, ecstatic. He apologized to Brian, Facebook was alight, folks were sending checks galore and Gosger, as he’d promised, donated all the money he earned to St. Jude Hospital, something he’d done, charging for autographs all those years.
Then came the final move; when would it be posted on Amazon so the world could see it, buy it, read it. When it hit, here was the description:
Obviously, that had nothing to do with “Goose On The Loose.” More calls, emails, aggravations, delays.
Finally, we think, everything is OK. Though the book is available on Amazon now, Gosger has gotten so many requests from his Facebook family, he’s handled a lot of the requests himself. He messaged me last night.
“We ordered 100 more copies I’m getting very nice comments. Brian did a great job I’m so happy and it’s helping the children at St. Jude Hospital.”
A former baseball player wants to share his life story, donate the money raised to St. Jude Hospital. A former sportswriter tries to do an old friend a favor and put together a nice little book, no small feat. And look at the hurdles each one had to clear. But, happily, they made it. And are still friends. Which I hope I am, too, sharing their saga. Birthing a book, you see, ain’t that easy, is it?
