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What's your favourite baseball book?
I got a number of great books for Christmas this year, but unfortunately I've already finished them. I'm looking to find another great baseball book to read. Give me your best recommendations
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Crazy '08
Cait Murphy Focused on the 1908 season. |
Loved that one. Right up my alley as a pre-war collector.
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I just finished The Card by O”Keefe and Thompson. It was excellent. Also, Satchel by Larry Tye.
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The Boys of Summer by Roger Kahn.
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glory of their times by Lawrence Ritter
Sent from my SM-S908U using Tapatalk |
The Glory of Their Times would likely win most polls on this topic.
The Celebrant, though fiction, is very well done. Shoeless Joe (the book behind Field of Dreams) is outstanding IMO |
Books
Glory of their times was hands down the best baseball book I’ve read
Really enjoyed the celebrant as well for a unique flavor on what baseball would have been like in the 1900’s Looking forward to getting some additional suggestions here as well! |
Woah
Jinx Peter… wow that is good timing!
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Book recommendation
The Black Prince of Baseball- Donald Dewey and Nicholas Acocella
The Boys of Summer- as mentioned, can't miss 59 in '84: Old Hoss Radbourn, Barehanded Baseball, and the Greatest Season a Pitcher Ever Had - Edward Achorn All excellent! Trent King |
More about baseball cards.
Never Cheaper By The Dozen by fellow member Brian Powell Unfortunately it is not available in actual book form. I know you can get a CD or a Kindle edition. I highly recommend it. |
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My top 5: 1) The Glory of their Times 2) Mint Condition: How Baseball Cards Became an American Obsession 3) The Card 4) K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches 5) The Baseball 100 (by Joe Posnanski) Honorable Mention: Hank Greenberg The Story of my Life |
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The Glory of Their Times
Men at Work Dollar Sign on the Muscle 9 innings: The anatomy of a baseball game Any of the three fireside books |
So many great books about baseball.
Yes, Glory of Their Times is one of the better books for serious reading. After that I think "Ball Four" was one of the more fun reads for me. Really difficult to say there's a favorite. |
Another card book is: Sportscard Counterfeit Detector by Bob Lemke.
It is OK but not great if you use it for one of the single cards listed in it. It is absolutely amazing if you read the entire book. It shows you how to spot many different counterfeiting techniques. Another card book I highly recommend. |
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Big Hair and Plastic Grass-A Funny Ride Through Baseball and America in the Swinging '70's
By Dan Epstein The Machine-A Hot Team, A Legendary Season, and Heart-Stopping World Series. The Story of the 1975 Reds. Joe Posnanski |
My favorite baseball books
Moneyball
Fastpitch - The Untold History of Softball and the Women Who Made the Game Ty Cobb - A Terrible Beauty One Shot at Forever - A Small Town, an Unlikely Coach, and a Magical Baseball Season Doc Ball Four Lefty - An American Odyssey |
Baseball book: The Boys of Summer.
Baseball card book: Card Sharks: How Upper Deck Turned a Child's Hobby into a High-Stakes, Billion-Dollar Business by Pete Williams. Takes a deep dive into the seamy, dirty filth of modern cards, at the height of the junk wax era. Ironically, the thieving, scamming and money-grubbing he reports at Upper Deck pales in comparison to what goes on today. |
The best baseball cards book is The Great American Baseball Card Flipping Trading and Bubble Gum Book.
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Like many have said "The Glory of Their Times" is the bast baseball book of all time. I just want to say if you have not listened to the audio version you are missing out! After listening to the actual voices of the old timers I fell in love with some of them. Chief Meyers, Hans Lobert, Sam Crawford etc. Jimmy Austen! What a sweet funny guy. Always chuckling. Well, I have to quit and go listen to it again.
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My top 3 in no particular order:
The Soul of Baseball 59 in 84 The Summer of Beer and Whiskey |
A False Spring, by Pat Jordan is my favorite. Certainly is not an uplifting story but terrific writing.
The Soul of Baseball, by Joe Posnaski is the best book I read last year. These are books I read (or re-read) in the last couple of years and enjoyed. Why Time Begins on Opening Day, by Thomas Boswell Dock Ellis in the Country of Baseball, by Donald Hall You Gotta Have Wa, by Robert Whiting The Long Season, by Jim Brosnan Ball Four, by Jim Bouton The Boys of Summer, by Roger Kahn Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy, by Jane Leavy Crazy '08, by Cait Murphy The Baseball 100, by Joe Posnaski and a highly recommended fiction entry: Man on Spikes, by Eliot Asinof |
For cards:
The Zappalas' collections are the best (Cracker Jacks, 1952 Topps, T206, etc) https://tomzappalamedia.com/wp-conte...kPlayers-1.png For photos: The Charles Conlon books are the best. https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/...4,203,200_.jpg For reading, then Rushin' 34-ton bat is best. https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/..._QL40_ML2_.jpg |
Bullpen Gospels
https://www.goodreads.com/search?q=B...qid=5CsWfP9hQQ A False Spring https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/bi...9780803276260/ Miracle Ball https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/miracl...dition=5932578 Away Games https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1935444.Away_Games And of course…Ball Four by Jim Bouton |
"Pound that Budweiser"
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Urban Schocker: Silent hero of baseball's Golden Age, by Steve Steinberg (University of Nebraska Press, 2017)
Spartan Seasons: How baseball survived the Second World War, by Richard Goldstein (MacMillan, 1980) Roger Maris: Baseball's reluctant hero, by Tom Glavin and Danny Perry (Touchstone Press, 2010) Catfish: My life in baseball, by Jim (Catfish) Hunter (McGraw-Hill, 1988) |
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Harvey Haddix: “the reluctantly self-deprecating smile of the perennially dumped-on, the wry smile of the universal victim, the man who expects very little of his peers and knows secretly that he’s going to have to settle for quite a good deal less.” Reno Bertoia: "The back of Reno's card is interesting. It says that his average last year was .162 and that, although he did not get to play in too many ballgames, he gained valuable information about American League hurlers that would help him in the future. I suspect that the information he gathered was that every pitcher in the American League could get him out, and that perhaps he should try another line of work." Hector Lopez: "the worst fielding third baseman in the history of baseball. Everyone knows that. It is more or less a matter of public record. But I do feel called upon somehow to try to indicate, if only for the historical archivists among us, the sheer depths of his innovative barbarousness. Hector Lopez was a butcher. Pure and Simple. A butcher. His range was about one step to either side, his hands seemed to be made of concrete and his defensive attitude was so cavalier and arbitrary as to hardly constitute an attitude at all. Hector did not simply field a groundball, he attacked it. Like a farmer trying to kill a snake with a stick. And his mishandling of routine infield flies was the sort of which legends are made. Hector Lopez was not just a bad fielder for a third baseman. In fact, Hector Lopez was not just a bad fielder for a baseball player. Hector Lopez was, when every factor has been taken into consideration, a bad fielder for a human being. The stands are full of obnoxious leather-lunged cretins who insist they can play better than most major leaguers. Well, in Hector's case they could have been right. I would like to go on record right here and now as declaring Hector Lopez the all-time worst fielding major league ballplayer. That's quite a responsibility there, Hector, but I have every confidence you'll be able to live up to it." Ted Williams: "In 1955, there were 77,263,127 male American human beings. And every one of them in his heart of hearts would have given two arms, a leg and his collection of Davy Crockett iron-ons to be Teddy Ballgame." Satchel Paige: "could have been the greatest pitcher in major league history, if he'd been given the chance. Don't look back, America, something might be gaining on you." |
Non-Fiction
The Glory of Their Times Baseball When the Grass was Real The Fix is In October 1964 - David Halberstam July 2, 1903, The Mysterious Death of Hall of Famer Big Ed Delehanty - Sowell The Unforgetable Season - Gordon Fleming (best book about the 1908 Cubs, and the truth about the Merkle play) The Dizziest Season - Gordon Fleming (the 1934 path for the Tigers and Cardinals to meet in that 1934 World Series) Baseball in '41 - Robert Creamer Stengel, His Life and Times - Robert Creamer Babe: The Legend Comes to Life - Robert Creamer Walter Johnson: Baseball's Big Train - Henry Thomas Fiction The Celebrant (without a doubt, anyone collecting old cards who's read this would agree, it's THE BEST) I've read almost everything read in this thread so far... these I've mentioned I stand behind. Sowell's book July 2, 1903 is about so MUCH MORE than Delehanty... it covers the contract jumping between the leargues and the Genises of the current 2 league system we have today; the book gives the reader a foundation for baseball as it was just before the days of the T206 cards. If you think Rose and Jackson belong in the Hall and you're close-minded certain about that, then don't bother with The Fix is In. It is only for truth seekers who want to understand what happened; about the early day efforts to rid the sport of gamblers, and segments about most of the various gambling scandals of the sport. (Although for a quick fix on understanding why Jackson stays out, read Bill Lamb's article on Jackson, see SABR's Baseball Research Journal, 2019, Vol 48, #1.) |
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Bang the Drum Slowly
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Since it wasn't already mentioned: The Last Hero: A Life of Henry Aaron by Howard Bryant.
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The Summer of '49 and The Teammates.
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"Baseball when the grass was real" by Donald Honig. It is like the second version of "Glory of their Times"
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33rd inning has not been mentioned yet.
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"The Bronx Zoo" by Sparky Lyle.
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The Fireside Book of Baseball, edited by Charles Einstein. A collection of first person accounts, newspaper game accounts, articles and essays on Baseball. There were three volumes and a fourth which is a summary of the first three. First came out in the 1950's. Nothing else comes close.
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I’ve thoroughly enjoyed Edward Achorn’s writing. I see his one on Old Hoss Radbourne has already been mentioned so I’d add “The Summer of Beer and Whiskey” about the rise of the American Association and Chris Von der Ache’s wild St Louis Browns.
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Books
Who's Who in Major League Baseball by Harold (Speed) Johnson
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Haven't seen this one mentioned yet. I found it fascinating and filled with a lot of behind the scenes anecdotes that I was totally unfamiliar with.
Lords Of the Realm: The Real History Of Baseball, by Lawrence Helyar. |
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I don't read much....my favorite baseball book.
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I liked
"If I never get back" by Daryl Brock (fiction) |
I like any book by Bill James, but I've read "The Politics of Glory" (reissued as "Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame?") at least eight times.
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Another vote for Glory Of Their Times. And was happy to see Summer of '49 mentioned, what a great book the truly puts you inside the great pennant race between The Yankees & Red Sox.
A few I recommend but haven't seen mentioned yet are: I Had a Hammer by Hank Aaron Closer by Mariano Rivera Lefty by Verona Gomez and Lawrence Goldstone |
I always add
The Universal Baseball Association Inc., J. Henry Waugh Prop. by Robert Coover to these threads. Dice driven board games have been largely overcome by video games, so the appeal of of this book written in 1968 is waning with younger readers. APBAlcoholics can relate better to the foundation of Waugh’s obsession, but it is more than just another baseball book. I reread it every twenty years;). |
"Fear Strikes Out" by Jimmy Piersall.
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Walter Johnson "Baseball's Big Train" by Henry Thomas. I'm currently reading a Ted Williams book titled "Hitter" by Ed Linn.
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Everything mentioned in the posts above.
I would add the "Who's Who In The Major Leagues" annual series. These are like opening up a time warp into 1930s/40s baseball...pictures and bios, useful but not overwhelming stats, and excellent editorials...and dog-eared copies cost next to nothing. |
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I am surprised that no one has yet mentioned "56: Joe DiMaggio and the Last Magic Number in Sports," which is an outstanding read! |
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