Hard Promises :: The Mid-Majority

(actual cover may vary)

The last Mid-Majority book (Sports Bubble Blues, Bally's Dream and One Beautiful Season being the others) will be a collection of road stories from the seven years of our mid-major travels. Organized by Other-25 conference, it will have new material and old travelogues, and hundreds of pictures. Many of those will have Bally in them. It will be a final accounting of TMM's wild and rambling road years, and one last attempt to figure out what all of this meant before things become more local than national again.

You'd think something like this would have a mass audience lining up waiting on pins and needles for it, but you'd be wrong! When the book goes to press this autumn before Season 8 begins on November 1, it will be a short-run, self-published deal. It will also only be available to Season 8 members. No Kindle, no iPad, no Amazon. It's not a book for all of us or each of us, just some of us. Any questions?

Why Hard Promises?

Hard Promises was Tom Petty's fourth album, the one with "The Waiting" on it. The album was an early indication of Tom's defiance, stubbornness, and damn-The-Man attitude; he was going to call it Eight Ninety Eight when his record company threatened to add a dollar to the retail price and make it cost ten bucks. Instead, MCA relented and Tom used part of a line from "Insider" instead. This is the fourth TMM book, and anyone who's been on board all these years would certainly enjoy the reminder of our No. 1 musical hero.

Why now?

Because before we know it, everyone's going to be consumed with March Madness, and then off for the summer.

Finally, how?

If you want to help the project and make the book as awesome as possible (we can have color pictures, even, perhaps), Season 8 Membership is now available. In addition to Hard Promises, you'll get 12 months of Basketball State access, a 2012 calendar/As-You-Go Bracket sheet, a Team Ballz of your choice,and the third annual Bally Club card when those get printed. The Season 8 package is $70.

Once again, thanks for supporting what we do, as well as what we try to do.