The Writing in Time Mysteries feature modern-day amateur detective Tracy Shaw looking into unsolved crimes from the past. I started the Writing in Time Mysteries because of a desire to record the times I grew up in. I might have called them Writing in My Time Mysteries. Maybe I should have. I wanted to set them in the city I grew up in and to tell the story against the backdrop of events—good or bad—that are part of Philadelphia’s social history. Picking the first topic wasn’t hard. Few events united the city like the saga of the 1964 Phillies.
I hoped to create a parallel between the story and the event. If the Phillies had a swoon, the characters needed to experience a swoon as well. Swoon ’64 is not a baseball novel but the action takes place during the fall of 1964, the end of the baseball season, the time of a record-breaking September swoon of the Philadelphia Phillies.
Why swoon and not slump?
From what I can gather, sports teams recover from a slump. But a swoon is
terminal. The tournament, the competition, the season is coming to an end and there
is no time for recovery. Such was the situation for the 1964 Phillies. Thus, it
had to be the same for the characters.
No need for details but at the end of the season with twelve games to play, the Phillies needed one win to clinch the National League Pennant. (There were no playoffs back then.) They lost ten in a row and tied for second place.
Why did I pick this background event?
I grew up in a family that loved baseball in
a city that loved the Phillies. Or,
maybe Philadelphians loved to hate them. I don’t really know. I was too young
to understand the intricacies of the relationship between a city and its team
that, for several years in the late 1950s, had a lock on the basement spot in
the National League. And, not only did they clinch last place for four years in
a row, they did so in a spectacular fashion. In 1961 their record was 47-107-1
and, yes, that is the right order. Win-Loss-Tie.
The memory of the excitement of 1950’s Whiz Kids’ first-place finish was just that, a memory. The hope of revenge for their 4-0 World
Series loss to the New York Yankees was fading.
So, I imagine that expectations started to rise when in
1962, after four straight years of finishing 8th in an eight-team
league, they climbed into seventh position—in the expanded ten-team league. Their
win percentage climbed over 500. Okay, it was 503 but for the first time since
1953, the team posted more results in the win column than in the loss column. I
can’t imagine that hope wasn’t high when in 1963, they finished the year in
fourth place. For two years in a row their win percentage was over 500 and trending
in the right direction.
And then came 1964. A year when it all went wrong. After a season of high hopes, sadness fell over the city. In Swoon ’64, the heartbreak of losing a pennant pales in comparison to the pain felt by the four local families affected by the murder of a twelve-year-old boy on the night of Game 10. The arc is the same for the characters and the Phillies. Swoon ’64 is a murder mystery.
I like to write traditional mysteries with a puzzle to solve. The answer in this novel is found in the characters who have made critical mistakes, not on the ball-field but in life, and found themselves in a swoon.
Who might like to read Swoon '64? Fans of traditional mysteries anywhere. Philadelphians who like to read books set in their city. Folks from all over who might like to read about the town. Readers interested in life in the mid-1960s. People who like characters who add a little humor to a story. A narrator can entertain without ever forgetting the underlying tragedy.
Who won't want to read Swoon '64? Anyone looking for blood and guts and violence.
If you think you’d like to read Swoon ’64, it is available
on Amazon both in paperback and ebook format. Here is a shortcut: www.tinyurl.com/Swoon64
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