In the past three years I’ve put together roughly 25 championship sports books, we’ve printed 13, sold hundreds of thousands of copies and wasted a hell of a lot of time and effort along the way. Okay, wasted is not the proper word, but if you do the math, we’ve written a dozen books that never saw the light of day. I mean 144 pages, millions of words, thousands of photos, all for naught. How about that Indianapolis Colts Super Bowl Championship book in 2010. Or the Boston Celtics championship book in 2010. Philadelphia Flyers 2010 Stanley Cup Championship. Butler Bulldogs Final Four Championship Book in 2010, and 2011. And the Steelers this past January. All written, but never published. That’s the nature of this business. The only way to do what we do, which is produce the best, most visually stunning, and memorable collector’s item book on the biggest championships in sports, (Super Bowl, World Series, Final Four, BCS Championship, Stanley Cup) and get them in stores within HOURS of the clinching moment, well, we have to produce two books at a time.
Usually we have to produce two. One exception was what went down the last couple weeks leading up to that awesome World Series between the St. Louis Cardinals and Texas Rangers. We thought we had distribution deals in place in both Dallas and St. Louis, but at the last moment the Rangers book was a no go. Not sure why, but we were only going to write and produce a St. Louis book. So let me tell you this—I became the biggest damn Cardinals fan West of the Mississippi and south of the St. Louis arch! (My wife is a St. Louis native, so it wasn’t tough)
Hell, I felt like an out-of-control gambling junkie who bet the rent on the 7th race at Pimlico. (I’m not a horse racing fan, or a gambler, I don’t even know if that last sentence makes sense)
Essentially, it came down to this. I wasn’t going to start on the book for the Cardinals until they won 2 games in the series, which happened quickly. So I laid out the game plan for the book, all the sections, the chapters, the story lines and started sifting through the hundreds of thousands of photos on AP Images. But after those three games in Texas, I thought there was no damn way the Cardinals were going to be able to pull it out. If the Rangers got one of the final two games in St. Louis, no book! A lot of wasted time and effort with no financial reward. But if the Cards could pull it out, well, flip the script.
I was coming back from Minneapolis and in the car heading home when Game 6 was in the later innings. The driver turned up the volume and I heard it all slipping away. Rangers were starting to pull away. I told him to turn the radio off, and I was ticked off. I knew a book on the Cardinals would be huge—these are the best sports fans in baseball, without question more knowledgeable and sane and less grating and obnoxious than their over-rated counterparts in Boston. When I got home, I would turn on the game just to check the score. Rangers up one. Than two. It was over. I couldn’t even watch the ninth inning when all the magic happened and the miraculous comeback went down. My wife and I did watch the 10th inning. And the 11th. I can’t believe the heart of this Cardinals team. It was equal parts, fate, destiny, divine intervention, talent and strategy. Oh, and luck. But after they won game 6, there was no doubt they’d wrap it up the next night and they did.
So—Friday afternoon about 3 O’clock Pacific we came up with the name. Comeback Cards! We jammed on that book all day long.
It was still no guarantee though that we’d do the book— we needed the Cards to actually win Game 7, and, as we all know they did. After the final out, we shifted it into over-drive and wrapped it all up at 4 AM. It was done. Off to the printer, and get this:
In Stores in St. Louis by Sunday! Less than two days later.
So that’s the story on my latest book. It turned out great, and I love the action shot on the cover with hometown hero David Freese.
With this book selling, it’s time to get back to promoting my Jack Youngblood bio!