What's the best Baseball Book Fiction and Non you have read?

[clydepepper]

I am currently being very disappointed by 'Wicked Curve' - bio of Grover Cleveland Alexander.

Best Non-Fiction: The Glory of Their Times

Best Fiction: The Curious Case of Sidd Finch

[Peter_Spaeth]

The Celebrant is really good -- about Mathewson but fiction.

[ALR-bishop]

....even comes with a baseball card



King, a huge Red Sox fan, also has a book on the 2004 Red Sox Season, Faithful. As a Cardinal's fan I can not bring myself to read that.

One of his other books, not really a sports book, is The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon

[Paul S]

Fiction -- try The Dixie Association, by Donald Hays.

[Howe’s Hunter]

Uecker at his best.

[Den*nis O*Brien]

Calico Joe, by John Grisham, is fiction revolving around a baseball incident. Grisham also wrote a non fiction book, The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice In A Small Town, about a minor league player, in the Yankees system, that wound up on Oklahoma's death row.

[toppcat]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

The Celebrant is really good -- about Mathewson but fiction.

Yes, that was a good one and probably my fiction choice as well. Boys of Summer for Non Fiction, hands down.

[GregMitch34]

"Joy in Mudville" by some hack named Greg Mitchell.

[MooseDog]

Non Fiction - The Glory of Their Times and Boys of Summer are head and shoulders above.

Fiction - I'm not much of a fiction reader but I did enjoy The Art of Fielding.

[mattsey9]

Non-Fiction: John Helyar's Lords of the Realm is one I keep turning back to. Keith Hernandez has a book that I can't remember the title of that documents his thought processes for one MLB game. Great stuff.

Rob Ruck's Raceball and anything by Adrian Burgos also fit the bill for the historian in me.

[gracecollector]

Fiction: The Art of Fielding, by Chad Harbach

Non-Fiction: Since Glory of Their Times was already nominated, I'll go with The Boys of Summer by Roger Kahn

Best Illustrated Book: We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball by Kadir Nelson (my god this book is gorgeous to look at!)

[Bicem]

Originally Posted by clydepepper

Best Non-Fiction: The Glory of Their Times

Should be required reading for dead-ball era collectors.

Probably my favorite book of any genre.

[slipk1068]

The Fireside Book of Baseball. Any volume is awesome.

[ErikV]

My favorite book was "Luckiest Man" by Jonathan Eig.
Amazing story of a true American hero, and it was wonderfully written.
Really is a must read for any Gehrig fan, or baseball fan for that matter.

http://www.amazon.com/Luckiest-Man-L...rds=lou+Gehrig

[Andy Baran]

If I Never Get Back by Darrell Brock

[Bored5000]

Originally Posted by clydepepper

I am currently being very disappointed by 'Wicked Curve' - bio of Grover Cleveland Alexander.

Really? Not liking "Wicked Curve?" I am a lifelong Phillies fan, so I enjoyed the information on the 1915 pennant winning team and some of the details on obscure players from that team. Perhaps the book does rely too heavily on game-by-game overviews, but I found the section of the book on Alexander's post-baseball life fascinating.

[clydepepper]

Originally Posted by Bored5000

Really? Not liking "Wicked Curve?" I am a lifelong Phillies fan, so I enjoyed the information on the 1915 pennant winning team and some of the details on obscure players from that team. Perhaps the book does rely too heavily on game-by-game overviews, but I found the section of the book on Alexander's post-baseball life fascinating.

I'm on page 46 and have already been told that he wore his uniform loose and his cap tight three times. ..but I am looking forward to the post-baseball period.

I do tend to give up on supposedly factual bios once I find the first big error - like the Rube Waddell biography, when, in the preface, I was informed that Radbourn won 60 games in 1870??

[clydepepper]

...a close second place in the non-fiction is Robert W. Creamer's Babe- The Legend Comes to Life.

I believe this is the definitive bio of Ruth and with such a bold subject, the best sports biography I have read.

[clydepepper]

Originally Posted by Bored5000

Really? Not liking "Wicked Curve?" I am a lifelong Phillies fan, so I enjoyed the information on the 1915 pennant winning team and some of the details on obscure players from that team. Perhaps the book does rely too heavily on game-by-game overviews, but I found the section of the book on Alexander's post-baseball life fascinating.

Eddie- Thanks for the 'pep' talk by way of a positive review on what lies ahead in this book. I am enjoying it a little more.

Learned a little more about Hans Lobert - have a Turkey Red of him.

A quote from Huey Fullerton and Alexander's detailed description of his own injury in September of 1915 were very interesting.

[Bored5000]

Originally Posted by clydepepper

Eddie- Thanks for the 'pep' talk by way of a positive review on what lies ahead in this book. I am enjoying it a little more.

I didn't want to give you too much of a "spoiler" about the book, but your post about the repeated mentions of GCA wearing his cap too tight made me chuckle. Even Babe Ruth dreaded seeing Alexander come into game seven of the 1926 World Series...his cap too small for his head.

[Eric72]

For Deadball Era fans who have not yet read it, I recommend Crazy '08 by Cait Murphy. It's an enjoyable trip through the 1908 season.

[TUM301]

Originally Posted by Eric72

For Deadball Era fans who have not yet read it, I recommend Crazy '08 by Cait Murphy. It's an enjoyable trip through the 1908 season.

You are spot on here, just finished it last week. It was like experiencing the whole season with the added bonus of reliving the players ` lives we talk about daily on the net 54. THUMBS UP !

[bbcard1]

Ball Four for nonfiction, Box Socials for fiction, but it is not a book with that many fans

[wolf441]

Non-Fiction - Glory of Their Times is no contest, so I'll nominate a lesser known work: Fifty-nine in '84 - Old Hoss Radbourn, Barehanded Baseball and the Greatest Season a Pitcher Ever Had by Edward Achorn. Met the author and he was a heck of a nice guy. I also LOVE Radbourn's passion for sneaking in a flip of the bird in almost ever photo of him!

Fiction - The Iowa Baseball Confederacy by W.P. Kinsella. I also loved If I Never Get Back by Darryl Brock, which was already nominated.

[Chris D.]

Originally Posted by wolf441

Non-Fiction - Glory of Their Times is no contest, so I'll nominate a lesser known work: Fifty-nine in '84 - Old Hoss Radbourn, Barehanded Baseball and the Greatest Season a Pitcher Ever Had by Edward Achorn. Met the author and he was a heck of a nice guy. I also LOVE Radbourn's passion for sneaking in a flip of the bird in almost ever photo of him!

Fiction - The Iowa Baseball Confederacy by W.P. Kinsella. I also loved If I Never Get Back by Darryl Brock, which was already nominated.

Just downloaded 59 in '84 to read on vacation next week.

[Tabe]

Originally Posted by Chris D.

Just downloaded 59 in '84 to read on vacation next week.

GREAT book. Some others:

"Crazy '08"
"Living on the Black"
"The Big Bam"
"Glory of Their Times"
"The Pitch That Killed"
"Ted Williams: The Biography of an American Hero"
"Ball Four"

I'm sure I'm missing tons of others. I've read lots and lots of great non-fiction baseball books. I've read hardly any poor ones - the Cobb books by (the fraud) Al Stump and Jane Leavy's awful bio of Sandy Koufax being the only two that come to mind.

[bgar3]

I support the aforementioned, Celebrant, Universal Baseball Association, GOTT, the Great American Baseball Card Flipping ...,. Under the fiction catagory some of the best mysteries are the ones by Troy Soos, especially Murder at Fenway Park (about 1912) and The Cincinnati Red Stalkings (about 1869 memorabilia).

I also think the older classic histories are still great reads, eg, America's National Game, histories by Spink, Richter, Church and Ellard's, Baseball in Cincinnati. Newer histories like Block's Baseball Before We Knew It, and Thorn's, Baseball in the Garden of Eden are excellent

[I Only Smoke 4 the Cards]

Spalding's World Tour is a great non-fiction book about Al Spalding's 19th century baseball tour.

[uffda51]

Fiction - If I Never Get Back - Darryl Brock

Non - Where Nobody Knows Your Name: Life In the Minor Leagues of Baseball - John Feinstein (probably because I just finished it). GOTT is also great.

[BosseFieldBoy]

Cobb biography by Al Stump...although I don't know if it's better characterized as fiction or non-fiction.

[Tabe]

Originally Posted by BosseFieldBoy

Cobb biography by Al Stump...although I don't know if it's better characterized as fiction or non-fiction.

Fiction. Definitely fiction. Stump is nothing but a fraud.

[Dewey]

Two year old thread bump.

Compiling my summer reading list. (I'm a teacher.) Came across this thread. Great suggestions. Just picked up Eig's book on Jackie Robinson's first season and Kinsella's Iowa's Baseball Conspiracy at a local used bookstore.

Recommend: A Prayer for Owen Meany and The Brothers K (not by Dostoevsky). Two great works of fiction tangentially related to baseball.

[VintageJay]

I'm surprised Eliot Asinof's Eight Men Out hasn't been mentioned, though I guess some would have a problem choosing it as fiction or non-fiction.

The Glory of Their Times was edited more than written by Lawrence Ritter, so I would go with Jonathan Eig's "Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig" as the greatest non-fiction work that I have ever read.
Eig's book on Capone is also well researched.

[egri]

If murder mysteries are your thing, I recommend the Mickey Rawlings series by Troy Soos. They're set around the end of the Dead Ball era/beginning of the live ball era. Soos does a great job of recreating the time period.

[deadballfreaK]

Well, I keep hearing "the Celebrant". Never heard of it, but looked it up on Amazon and for a penny and 4 bucks shipping I am the proud owner of a nice copy. Got it in today's mail, but too tired to start right now. It looks very promising.

Wally Yonamine from Hawaii The man who changed Japanese Baseball

[ajjohnsonsoxfan]

Ty Cobb - A Terrible Beauty by Charles Leerhsen is really good. Debunks using modern research methods most of what we thought we knew about Cobb. Lots of amazing detail about the players we talk about daily here on net54.

[Yoda]

For fiction, like many, have to go with "The Natural." What a tale!
For non fiction, "Matty and McGraw" by Frank Deford, but I might be prejudiced since my daughter, Lauren, is married to Chris, Frank's son. My copy has a nice personal inscription from Frank. What a nice man.

[slipk1068]

Short stories and fiction read Horseshoes or Alibi Ike by Ring Lardner? Good stuff

[vintagebaseballcardguy]

Two books by Robert Creamer come to mind, one about Babe Ruth and the other focused on the 1941 season. I am not home at the moment to name the exact titles.

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[ngrow9]

I'm partial to this one, myself, but I may be a tad bit biased:



http://www.amazon.com/Baseball-Trial...eball+on+trial

[I Only Smoke 4 the Cards]

Fiction - Shoeless Joe

Non-fiction - Spalding's World Tour

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[jerseygary]

I'm rather partial to this book, though I have to admit, I wrote, illustrated and designed it...

[scotgreb]

I just finished listening to "The Glory of Their Times" and thoroughly enjoyed it. It was fairly cheap on Audible and helped fill a few otherwise uneventful days of commuting.

It was great to hear several "old timers" being interviewed -- particularly Hans Lobert, Richard Marquard, and Fred Snodgrass.

Scott

[RTK]

A wonderful book not just about baseball but about life in general and one of the finest people to have lived on this earth, Buck O'Neil. It's a book I'll probably pick up and reread passages from over time.

[RTK]

The O'Neil book is almost a collection of life changing parables, a collection of Buck's baseball stories intertwined with life lessons. A really good read is Montville's Williams book.You get into the mind and era of a great hitter.