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by Doug Thews.
Original Post: What Am I Reading?
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I've taken a detour from mostly technical books this month, and added some interesting titles to my current reading list:
Wyatt Earp - The Life Behind the Legend
Moneyball - The Art of Winning an Unfair Game
Microsoft .NET Compact Framework
I picked up the Wyatt Earp book based on interest from watching both "Tombstone" and "Wyatt Earp" recently. Both differed in their storytelling of various parts of Wyatt Earp's life. I decided to get what's considered the autorative source on Wyatt Earp.
I'm only half-way through the book, but so far here are so interesting tidbits of information that I'm sure most people don't know:
Both Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday spent 2 months in jail after the showdown at the O.K. Corral, undergoing a trial for murder of those killed in the gunfight. If it weren't for Ike Clanton's blatant perjury on the stand, Earp & Holliday might have been found guilty. Public perception was that they were guilty, and the case was going against them. Ironically, if Clanton had stayed off the stand, they might have been found guilty and hanged.
In both movies, the shooting of Virgil Earp and the murder of Morgan Earp apparently came a short time after the gunfight (in fact, the trial aspect was pretty much left out in both movies). In reality, many months would pass between these events. The trial lasted about 4 months, and the retributions started about a month after that.
It was Virgil Earp, and not Wyatt, who was the leading peacemaker in Tombstone. While Wyatt was made a deputy US marshall later, Virgil was the town marshall of Tombstone at the time of the gunfight. For those (like myself), who need a refresher course on levels of law at the time. First, there's a town marshall - elected by the town and governing everything related to the town. Then, there's the county sherriff. Many people think that the sherriff is a town position, but it's an appointed county position. At the time, county sherrif was mainly a tax collector type position. Then, there's the US Marshall's service who employs deputy marshalls. Their jurisdiction was supposed to be to enforce laws broken at the federal level. Unfortunately, all 3 levels of the law overlapped and there was never any clear jurisdiction in Tombstone. Hence, the problems with Johnny Behan (the county sherriff) trying to arrest Wyatt Earp (a deputy US marshall), who was working on town law enforcement with his brother Virgil (the town marshall).
For those who saw both movies, Big Nose Kate (the female companion of Doc Holliday), actually moved out of Tombstone and stayed with relatives before the gunfight. She event periodically lived with Johnny Ringo, who had an ongoing feud with Doc Holliday.
Although the Cowboys (the term used to describe rustlers like the Clantons & McLaurys) were technically outlaws, the citizens of Tombstone were actually glad to have them reside in and around Tombstone becuase they were the only force that would successfully fight off the Apaches. One of the Cowboys main sources of income was to raid Mexican cattle ranches, steal cattle, and sell them in the US. The citizens of Tombstone did not pay much attention to this, since they weren't immediately impacted.
I'm anxious to get started on Moneyball, which is the book about how Billy Beane builds the successfull A's franchise.
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