Books on the PCL/Minor Leagues
 

I am trying to learn about the PCL and the players around the years of the Obaks (1909-1911). I have purchased two books about minor league history in general, The Minor League Register and the second edition of the Encyclopedia of Minor League Baseball. Specifically to the PCL, I also bought The Grand Minor League by Dick Dobbins. In flipping through it, I can see it deals predominantly with the 1940s and 1950s. This used to be the era I cared about more than any other, but now I am trying to double down on the Obak years and earlier. I see several books about the PCL for sale on Amazon. Do you guys know of a book on the PCL dealing specifically about 1900-1915? If I can't find a book with this info, there's always Google I suppose.

Edit to add: Baseball-reference.com is an amazing resource, and it also links to player bios from the SABR BioProject. There is a wealth of knowledge on many of these players and provides an understanding of how they came to play in the PCL.

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I have a book called The Pacific Coast League 1903-1988 by Bill O'Neal. The first 30 or 40 pages deals with that time period.

If you want, I'll mail you the book. (PM me your address)

PM sent your way :)

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Here are a few books on early California baseball that I have in my own collection. I can recommend them all:

John Spalding's Pacific Coast League Stars Volume 1:
https://www.amazon.com/Pacific-Coast...t+league+stars

John Spalding's Pacific Coast League Stars Volume 2:
https://www.amazon.com/Pacific-Coast...stars+volume+2

John Spalding's Always on Sunday:
https://www.amazon.com/Always-Sunday...palding+sunday

Dick Dobbins' Nuggets on the Diamond:
https://www.amazon.com/Nuggets-Diamo...s=dick+dobbins

Those look to be some great recommendations. I am going to start with Always on Sunday. Thanks!

Just be aware that always on Sunday is about the Califilornia League.

Gotcha. I have read about that league some but not much. I was under the impression there was some crossover between the two leagues??

Edit to add: Nevermind, did some reading. There doesn't look to have been any overlap.

Robert..In addition to the books mentioned by Kevin (which are cornerstone books for a West Coast baseball collection), there are books on the Los Angeles Angels and Hollywood Stars (by Richard Beverage), Sacramento Solons by John Spalding and Alan O'Connor, 16th and Bryant which covers players at Seals Stadium (Castellanos), The Greatest Minor League by Dennis Snelling (who just released a great book on Lefty O'Doul), Minor League Stars (3 volumes) by SABR just to mention a few. The bio committee at SABR also have numerous detailed stories on major leaguers, many of whom played on the West Coast. This should get you started:)

Thank you very much. There are definitely several books to be reading. SABR's online presence offers many good write ups on the PCL players as well.

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