What's your favourite baseball book?

[Rad_Hazard]

My top 3 in no particular order:

The Soul of Baseball
59 in 84
The Summer of Beer and Whiskey

[commishbob]

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

[michael3322]

For cards:
The Zappalas' collections are the best (Cracker Jacks, 1952 Topps, T206, etc)



For photos:
The Charles Conlon books are the best.



For reading, then Rushin' 34-ton bat is best.

[71buc]

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

[Exhibitman]

"Pound that Budweiser"

[Writehooks]

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)

[FrankWakefield]

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.)