Last week, Paul Keck contacted me regarding his new book “The Greatest Comeback Ever: A fan’s diary of the 1978 New York Yankees championship season.” As a result, we did a quick Q&A about the book that I wanted to share here. It follows below. My thanks to Paul for bringing his book to my attention and for his time during this Q&A.

WW: What can you tell us about your new book, The Greatest Comeback Ever: A fan’s diary of the 1978 Yankees Championship Season?

Keck: The Greatest Comeback Ever is a daily diary I wrote as a 16 year old Yankees fan in 1978, and captured the amazing Yankees comeback season against the Boston Red Sox. It has just been published this December, and is available on Amazon.com. The Yankees went on to win the World Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers that year. It is a unique book on a unique season, the only one ever written by a young fan, live-time on an historically important sports season.

WW: Has the book been published exactly as you wrote your diary in 1978? Or, has it been edited in any way between how it was then and how it is now?

Keck: All the “hits, runs and errors” of the original diary have been maintained, with only a handful of exceptions for clarity. For example, there was a case where a player’s name was misspelled and might have been confused with another players name, so the correction was made in the book.

WW: What brought cause for you to do the diary in 1978? Was this something that you did every season when you were young? Or, was there something else behind it?

Keck: I say it was divine providence to pick one year in my life to write a diary and manage to spontaneously capture an amazing baseball season. It actually started as an autobiographical journal of what was going on in my life at the time, but I lost interest in that and tore out the dozen or so entries I had made on that topic and began writing the Yankees journal. I had always enjoyed writing and the Yankees, my favorite team, so these two went together well. 1978 was the only year I have ever written such a journal.

WW: What’s the one thing, above all, that you would want the readers of your book to take away from it?

Keck: That even even against seemingly impossible odds great comebacks can be made in any arena of life, on both the personal and organizational level. With the 1978 Yankees team this happened on the baseball field, and required a change in leadership (Bob Lemon replacing Billy Martin as manager) which led to a change in team chemistry-namely peace and unity which allowed the ballplayers to refocus on the game.

WW: There was a newspaper strike in New York for most of the 1978 season. Did you use some other sources for the information in your diary that year? Or, is everything in there an eye-witness account?

Keck: As an avid fan, I took in every source I could while following the Yankees season. This included watching the games on TV and listening to radio, reading most of the NY newspapers prior to the strike, and daily discussions with friends.

WW: Looking back back at what you wrote in 1978, now thirty years later, was there anything that you noted back then that surprised you today? What was it?

Keck: Interesting question, and I can say no. The theme of the fight for first has been around since the first ballgames were played, and remarkably I find much in the game the same as when it started-that includes 1978 vs. 2009. The baseball is still white with red stitches, the grass is still green, new ballparks are being built and fans still love the game-both the modern day and historical aspects as well. The greater sums of money that are involved in the business of the game today have certainly changed, but the love of the game by the fans continues to persist. And that’s just great!

WW: Of course, that begs the question “So, what do you think of the 2009 Yankees?”

Keck: I’m excited about the new Stadium and look forward to seeing the Yankees at play in 2009. With the recent additions of some excellent players, I have to think the organization’s goal is to form a new 1927 powerhouse team, one of the best of all time. I applaud the Yankees for their work to put the absolute best team on the field every year-and this will be one of the best ever. See you on opening day!