Good/Bad

The bad news is: Our pub date has been delayed a little. We're looking at early October now.

The good news is: If you buy the book, we'll throw in the last chapter for free.

All About the Amalies

Amalie Benjamin of the Boston Globe figures into the plot of our book. But only now did I find out this about her, from the Extra Bases blog:

Benjamin grew up in Newton and has been following the Red Sox since ... well, before she was born. Her mother was in labor and ready to leave for the hospital but her father wondered if he would be OK to wait until Yaz batted in the next inning before they left.

Nice!

Light Tower Power

The light towers have become our "mascot," so here are some shots I took recently at Fenway. Above, the tower from atop the Green Monster. Click to enlarge.

Below, me atop the Monster with tower above. (Don't look at this one too long, you'll start thinking about the un-even-ness of nostrils, and you don't wanna do that....)


And finally, a Fenway hawk landing on a tower.

New Review

A new review is in from the great NYC Sox-blogger, Mighty Quinn. Check it out.

All of our online reviews so far are in the column over to the right.... --->

Actual Dirty Water

Naturally, I've been doing a lot of web searches on "dirty water" to see when and where our book is getting mentioned. And I have to say, I'm learning a lot about dirty water! (The stuff, not the book/song...)

Did you know that in Baghdad, two-thirds of the raw sewage produced flows untreated into rivers and waterways?

Or that Doheny State Beach in California exceeded maximum allowable levels of indicator bacteria in 55 percent of the samples taken in the past year?

Let's clean the earth's water, people. You can start by ordering TWO copies of Dirty Water, the book--one to read and one to display in your window to warn everyone of the dangers of unclean water supplies...

By the way, thanks to everyone who's pre-ordered already. It amazes me how many we're selling considering it's not even out yet! And even more thanks to people who have promoted it already on your websites.

Events

We are already planning readings, signings, etc. One very special event will be at a Red Sox bar in New York City. Stay tuned for all the details...

M Words

The Amazon and B&N pages for our book now feature a cover image. While it's not the final version, it's close.....

And to continue on the topic of the last post, another part of the '07 season is history, as Manny has been traded. Despite that my mom and I are huge Manny fans, his part in our book wasn't too big. But, again, our book takes place during the '07 season, not "today." So it's okay. At least that's what I keep telling myself....

Ch-ch-ch-changes

It's so weird how things keep happening that go against what we've written in our book, OR that we in effect predicted in our book--but since they happened before the book actually hit shelves, may appear as if we were influenced by them. Does that make sense? I just really want the baseball side of our book to feel authentic. So every time something in the Red Sox world changes, I feel like it takes away from the authenticity. I just have to keep telling myself: Our book is based on (a mythical version of) the 2007 season. But I just fear that people will see something in 2008, having just read our book, and say, "That book was wrong!"

I wish I'd been keeping a list of things that have changed or that happened after we "made" them happen. But here are a few examples:

1. In our book, we had Papi shooting a commercial in Portland. In real life, since then, Papi has both shot a commercial (which was a bit controversial at the time, as people felt he shouldn't have been doing that and that it somehow caused his early-season slump--people are stupid) AND gone to Portland, in this case to play for the minor league team as part of his rehab.

2. In our book, we mention the Red Sox' alternate red jerseys--the "Sunday" jerseys. This season, they have broken them out on a Saturday.

3. Okay, here's one for the book jacket--we have a blurb from Jeff Goldberg of the Hartford Courant. Jeff, along with almost everybody else at the Courant, was forced to leave the paper the other day. So when our book hits shelves, it'll show Jeff working for the Courant, when in reality he'll be somewhere else.

4. We have Papelbon's wife rocking a baby in our book, thinking about being a mom. Now, she's pregnant.

5. There's one big one. It has to do with the plot, so I can't say what it is. Let's just say something at Fenway that's been constant since I was born has changed, months before our book comes out describing things in what's now the "old" way.

There are a lot more. It seems like every day something changes or something happens and I say, "We thought of that first!" It's like how my mom, in one of her books, gave the president a dog named Buddy. And then Bill Clinton came along with his dog--named Buddy. (Something like that.)

The key is, our book is about the '07 championship Red Sox. So everything will always be accurate to that season--though we moved the schedule around a little to fit the plot. Hey, if you're gonna complain about that, complain about the fact that there never really was a baby found in the clubhouse--again, it's a "mythical" 2007. Players are naturally gonna come and go. The only way we could've kept the players current for all-time would've been to not refer to them by name: "The shortstop said to the right fielder...." And you can see how dumb that would've been...

Reviews

We're already starting to see reviews posted online--check out the new section at right.

Update

Book available for pre-order at Barnes & Noble. Click here.

Also, we supposedly got "great reviews" from two major publications. More on those when they're released.

Quote From Stewart O'Nan

"Dirty Water takes us inside the Sox clubhouse and out into the neighborhood around baseball's little green chapel. Having spent far too many hours pacing that pavement, I can verify that Mary-Ann Tirone Smith and Jere Smith know the territory. This one's fun for mystery fans and Sox fans, and even more so if you're both."

--Stewart O'Nan, Faithful: Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season (written in collaboration with Stephen King)

Thanks, Stewart!

Another Quote

Melinda Boroson, author, 86 Years: The Legend of the Boston Red Sox on Dirty Water:

"These authors know Boston, they know baseball, and they definitely know the Red Sox. Real-life Red Sox players walk out of the clubhouse and right onto the pages of this murder mystery--along with bloggers, bad guys, and Boston's finest. An essential addition to any true fan's bookshelf."

Cover Photo

Our "people" are hard at work working on the cover photo. See the pic above in the banner? I took that a few weeks ago. The purple camera on the map below is where I was standing...


View Larger Map

A lot of our book takes place in this area, plus it made for a great picture, we thought, showing the light tower with the reeds in front of it.

Quotes

Check out the praise we've gotten so far. Thanks Karen, Allan, and Jeff....


“DIRTY WATER is like a David Ortiz at-bat with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth. The Smiths provide a unique take on the 2007 championship season, weaving mystery around the mystique of Fenway Park. Score this one a hit.”
Jeff Goldberg, Red Sox beat reporter
The Hartford Courant

"DIRTY WATER is a solid intricately plotted mystery speckled with the 2007 World Championship Red Sox and a backdrop of Fenway Park. What more could you want?”
Karen E. Olson
The Annie Seymour mysteries

“DIRTY WATER features murder, blackmail, a blog and baseball, and expands to include the seamy underside of recruiting foreign ballplayers. The narrative coalesces in a finale as intense and satisfying as a Red Sox-Yankees September showdown.”
Allan Wood
“The Joy of Sox” blog

On Amazon

Seeing your name on Amazon.com is pretty cool. My mom's been on there for years, but now I get to see my own name there. Weird. Here's the Amazon page for our book.

There's no cover image yet, and at first the title was listed without the subtitle. And when you click my name, two books come up. Dirty Water, and a Yoga book. Apparently, someone with my name contributed to a book about doing Yoga while driving. Surely, some people will think I'm the same guy. Kind of like how there's another Jere Smith in Seattle who does artwork--I'm guessing at least one person who knew me in the past has written to this guy thinking it was me.

It will also be fun to check the sales rank. When it first appeared, we were in the millions. One pre-sale we knew about kicked it up to around 150,000, before it slowly fell all the way back. Of course, we haven't even started promoting, and the book doesn't come out until August, so I'm not too worried about the ranking at this point. But if one sale put it that high, imagine what even ten sales will do. That's the thing about their ranking system--it's very "what have you done for me lately."

Of course, we encourage everybody to buy the book at their local bookstore! I'll post some of those and their site addresses as they get the book in....

Book Update/Mitchell Report

We have galleys! Also known as advance reading copies of our book, Dirty Water: A Red Sox Mystery (by me, Jere Smith, and my mom, "real" writer Mary-Ann Tirone Smith). We'll be sending out copies to some of your more famous types hoping to get some good quotes. My mom has some great connections what with her being a legit author for the last few decades. So we know we'll get some good ones--in fact, we already have gotten some that appear on the galley itself, from Allan Wood (Joy of Sox), Jeff Goldberg (Hartford Courant), and Karen Olson (mystery writer). As well as a couple quotes hyping my blog from Michael Leggett (Random Fandom) and John Quinn (Quinn Media Machine). Thanks to all of those people, and we'll see who else we'll end up with... (Amazing Larry called it a real snoozer...and no that's not the "real" cover in the pic, obviously.) The book will be available in August despite the "official" pub. date of September. Lots more news to come.

Last night, the Institute for International Sport (whose publishing arm is Hall of Fame Press, the publisher of our book) held the launch party for the '08 US Scholar-Athlete Games in Providence. I went down and met my mom there (she was honored as "author of the year"), and we got to meet your favorite ex-senator and mine, George Mitchell, who delivered the keynote address. He was really nice, accepted our galley, and told me he'd gone to a couple of Sox games this past weekend. It was weird to be one minute shaking hands with "the senator" while a cameraman filmed away, and then next wiping your mouth with your tenth napkin over at Johnny Rocket's. (They have an awesome veggie burger now).

Anyway, George is a pretty funny guy. During his speech he talked about growing up the younger brother of super-athletes who were local legends. As he grew up he realized he couldn't play like his siblings, and quickly became known as "Johnny Mitchell's little brother, the one who's no good." So now he's quite proud to be elected into the Scholar-Athlete Hall of Fame--he finally has something he can rub in their faces, sports-wise. (But come on, how many pages is the Johnny Mitchell Report?)

Welcome

Hi. Welcome to our blog. My mother and I have co-authored a book, Dirty Water: A Red Sox Mystery. The book will be in stores August 2008, and is the story of how a Boston detective tries to solve the puzzle of a baby found in the clubhouse at Fenway Park, with the help of an anonymous Red Sox blogger.

My mom is Mary-Ann Tirone Smith, author of eight novels and most recently a memoir, Girls of Tender Age.

I am Jere Smith, writer of the real-life blog, A Red Sox Fan From Pinstripe Territory, for more than four years.

Our publisher is Hall of Fame Press, which is the imprint of Dan Doyle's Institute for International Sport.

Review copies are available now. E-mail Jere at Two2067 at aol dot com, or Mary-Ann at tironesmith at aol dot com to get yours or with any other questions. We are also available for interviews, appearances, or anything else.

Watch this blog for updates, and we hope you enjoy the book. Thanks for reading!