I’ve had several people tell me that I did a fantastic job writing The 1988 Dodgers: Reliving the Championship Season. They tell me I should be proud of myself.

And I should be.

There were a lot of odds against me, but I persevered and “hit a home run,” just to use a baseball expression.

First of all, I am based in Vancouver, Canada, and I had full-time commitments to my teaching jobs. I conducted just one interview in person, and that was only because the ex-player (Franklin Stubbs) just happened to be in town as a coach for a series against Vancouver’s Single-A baseball team.

Second, there were so many negative people around me. I succeeded in blocking them out. With people whom I know, I tend to be friendly with them. Yet, quite a few get hostile if they disagree with the direction I’m taking in my own life. That’s life, I suppose. But having so much negativity around you can suck the energy out of you. I chose to block them out. Believe me, it’s hard. There were some who said “So what?” (ie. who the hell cares?) when I explained that I was writing this book because it was the 30th anniversary of the last Dodgers championship. There were others who scoffed, saying in a condescending manner, “How much money can you make from this?” All sorts of negativity…

Third, there’s also timing. With my full-time teaching life – and no vacation at all during that time – I had very little time to commit to writing. But I made it work. I also had a short time frame because I wanted to have this book published by 2018 – meaning I had to scramble for potential publishers, write up proposals to be sent out, and make sure that ultimately the finished product would be done by October 2017 just to have it ready to be published by 2018! There was also scrambling to get photos for the book, and so on.

Overall, I’m proud to have this book out. I hope that members of the 1988 Dodgers are proud too.