Tim O’Shea: Given how much you know about the history of baseball, what long dormant rules that used to exist do you think could be re-introduced in the modern era to help revitalize the game?

Peter Morris: What today’s baseball fans rarely realize is that baseball was originally a sport with fast-paced, non-stop action. Catchers snapped the ball back to the pitcher and if the batter stepped out of the box or even looked like he wasn’t paying attention, the pitcher would try to sneak a pitch past him. While every sport has timeouts, only baseball has unlimited timeouts and I think some limit should be put on them. There’s no good reason that a batter should be allowed to step out and take as long as he wants after every pitch. Then you could put and enforce similar restrictions on the pitcher, as well as limiting the number of pickoff throws per at bat.

O’Shea: Can you point to an era in baseball history that counts as your favorite?

Morris: I’m most fond of the early years of the game, because from the 1860s to the 1880s the game’s rules and customs were in constant flux. That meant that every baseball enthusiast felt like they were shaping the game and would try proposing their ideas for how to make the game better. Instead of new ideas coming exclusively from the game’s “owners” – as happens today – everyone looked at themselves as stakeholders.

O’Shea: Your 2008 book, But Didn’t We Have Fun?, features many rare photographs and drawings–how did you gain access to them for use in the book?

Morris: Most of them are from the private collection of Tom Shieber, who is a senior curator at the Baseball Hall of Fame, as well as a close friend and an extraordinary researcher and historian.

O’Shea: In April, you released Catcher: How the Man Behind the Plate Became an American Folk Hero. How long were you at work on the book?

Morris: There was about a year and a half of steady work on the book, but I also made extensive use of the research I’ve been doing on baseball for the past fifteen years.

O’Shea: How are your books edited and reviewed, given that your area of knowledge is rather unique. Do you fact-check yourself or does your publisher have another pair of eyes vet it for you?

Morris: I’ve been blessed to have great editors – Ivan R. Dee at Ivan R. Dee, Inc., Kelly Sippell at the University of Michigan Press, and Rob Taylor at the University of Nebraska Press. I’ve also had several friends who have generously read drafts and offered valuable suggestions and/or pointed out errors. But you are right – the responsibility for fact-checking books on such arcane subjects is ultimately the author’s.

O’Shea: Speaking of Catcher, it captures a time in the 1870s when “it began to seem that a good catcher could single-handedly make the difference between winning and losing.” From your perspective, what were some of the fortune-changing catchers of that era–the good and the bad?

Morris: The good catchers of the 1870s were few: Deacon White was far and away the best, because he alone was a standout in the field and at the bat. John Clapp was second best, and was so valuable that he literally auctioned his services off one year. By the end of the decade, new stars like Silver Flint and Charlie Bennett were emerging. By contrast, the bad catchers were many, and they never lasted long. In fact, they couldn’t because any catcher with poor technique before the use of equipment was sure to be injured almost immediately. Nonetheless, even catchers like “Alamazoo” Jennings and Fred Gunkle whose careers lasted only one game were remembered long afterward because of the magnitude of their incompetence.

O’Shea: Was there anything that surprised you while doing the research for Catcher?

Morris: It was a constant learning experience, but I think the most surprising thing to me was the extent to which most of the major rule changes were designed with the catcher in mind. And, in particular, that in many other instances, there was resentment that the catcher’s role was so much more important than that of other players and that an effort was being made to change that.

O’Shea: At your website, you have a page devoted to unsung heroes in baseball history. Do you ever intend to do future books on any of these subjects?

Morris: Most of those figures don’t warrant a book in my opinion, though I think their stories are important enough that I’d like to collect some of them into a book at some point. One forgotten figure who I do think warrants a book is a man named William Buckner – an African-American who served as trainer of the White Sox for about two decades when the game still had no African-American players. He was a forgotten trailblazer and I’d like to restore his contributions to prominence.

O’Shea: Currently the MLB Network is showing Ken Burns’ baseball work on Sunday nights. If the opportunity presented itself, would you ever consider doing a documentary version of one of your books to run on MLB or elsewhere?

Morris: I would love to do that, as long as the other people involved shared my vision of the project.

O’Shea: Do you think the average modern day baseball fan has the proper appreciation of the game’s history?

Morris: Baseball fans typically have a great love of the history of the game, but it tends to focus on a few aspects of the game at the expense of others. One of the things I strive to do in my books is to expand that range.