My book

What is "my book"? It's called The Red Sox Fan Handbook (Everything you need to be a Red Sox fan … or to marry one) and I call it "my book" because I was one of the primary contributors to it.

In the fall of 2000, Leigh Grossman, a contributor to the alt.sports.baseball.bos-redsox newsgroup, sent out an e-mail to 15 or 20 regulars in that group with a proposal. Leigh, who was running a small publishing house in Connecticut, proposed a book for Red Sox fans by Red Sox fans, a book which addressed the history of the team, the notable players, the incidents and rumors and stories that long-time fans knew but wouldn't necessarily make an academic history of the team. Over the course of the next several months, people wrote and re-wrote submissions on individual players, famous Red Sox quotes, the ballpark, general baseball issues and the Fenway experience. Leigh wrote the history of the team. And in March of 2001, the book appeared on bookshelves everywhere. There were 15 contributors listed in the first book, with my name first. Alphabetically.

I wrote ~17% of the first edition. In December, as we'd gotten all of the "low-hanging fruit" and were starting to realize how much was left to be done, my mother-in-law had an auto accident. She wasn't seriously hurt, but she was banged up, and my wife went to Maine to spend a week helping out. So, while I was home with the kids, I wrote. That week enabled me to cover a lot of ground that needed covering but hadn't been done yet.

My contributions to the editing and additions on the 2nd edition were not as extensive, but I contributed some. Following the 2nd edition in the spring of 2002, Leigh had some difficulties that prevented a 3rd edition.

Until 2004. Following the 2004 season, Leigh sold the book to Rounder Books, and we produced a 3rd edition. It went on sale in March of 2005.