Your Favorite Baseball Books
 

I was born in 83. Looking to learn something about ballplayers before my time. Would really like to read about some of the pre-war game. Recently devoured a Koufax book by Leavy and wanting more. What are some of your favorite books and why? Thanks!

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You should get a lot of responses here, but Levy's other book, "The Last Boy" about Mickey Mantle was also great. Some guys feel it treats Mantle disrespectfully, but in my opinion, it portrays him poignantly and compassionately as a real human being.

A couple of my other favorites are "October 1964" by David Halberstam, and "It's Good To Be Alive" by Roy Campanella.

There are so many great books. I'm trying to think of some more off the top of my head. There's one about the 16 inning game between Juan Marichal and Warren Spahn in 1963...(just looked) "The Greatest Game Ever Pitched" by Jim Kaplan.

"I Had A Hammer" by Hank Aaron is also great.

Mickey Mantle's "The Education Of A Baseball Player" also...

You couldn't do any better than Lawrence Ritter's The Glory of Their Times. Ted Williams' The Science of Hitting is great, as you might expect. For enjoyable reading and good writing about baseball -- any of Roger Angell's books. Pat Jordan's A False Spring is a little outside what you're looking for, but a terrific book about the disappointment of not becoming a major leaguer.

I'll second "The Glory of Their Times". If there's a must-read baseball book, that's it.

I'll also throw a mention for Leigh Montville's biography of Ted Williams, and Ty Cobb by Charles Leerhesen. They both add some really great perspective to the lives of the players, and dispel some of the stereotypes and generalizations about their temperaments.

'The glory of their Times'.

Lesser known but also good is 'Lucky Me'....by Eddie Robinson. He's almost 101 years old now.

I'll second "It's Good to Be Alive" by Campanella :)

The Great American Baseball Card Trading, Flipping, and Bubble Gum Book from 1973 is awesome. I don’t know if it’s still in print.

Oh yeah, I love that book. Fred Harris, one of the authors, actually has a Twitter page. I believe it still is in print. If not, it's pretty easy to get on the net.

"Ball Four", by Jim Bouton.

The Boys of Summer, about the 1950s Dodgers is great.

I remembered responding a few years back to a similar thread about baseball books (to add a couple of tomes about the old stadiums), so I searched it out and found it. Although it's probably more about baseball card books, take a look...

https://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=256700

All great suggestions here.

I'll second Roger Angell. I'm currently reading his Five Seasons, about, well, five seasons of baseball in the 70s. I'm also reading Mickey Mantle's My Favorite Summer 1956, about his triple crown season. Its a good read, packed with little stories about greats of that era.

My all-time favorite baseball book is Bill James' Historical Baseball Abstract, which is nice blend of history, SABR stats, and interesting digressions. While you may or may not agree with the way he evaluates players statically (with his "win shares" system), it makes for an interesting read of his top 100 players at each position throughout history. I find I can open the book to any page (and there's a lot of pages!), read a little, and find a new way to look at the game and the men who've played it during different eras.

"Behind the Mask" by Bill Freehan.

Mike

Thanks for digging this up!

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Thanks for all the suggestions. I just purchased "The glory of their Times". Can't wait to read it! I'll come back to this thread when I finish for the next one!

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Here's a cool bunch of them (couldn't quickly find my copy of 'Ball Four' to add to the pile)...

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Yes, indeed! It only stoked my love of old cards!

Crazy ‘08 by Cait Murphy. Focuses on the 1908 baseball season. Especially interesting if you’re a collector of T206 cards.

Speaking of Bill James: his book on the Hall of Fame, The Politics of Glory [retitled Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame?: Baseball, Cooperstown, and the Politics of Glory] is full of detail and impeccable arguments for and against everything to do with Cooperstown. A great read.

An absolute classic and great read. Agree with Glory of Their Times and Ball Four as well. The Teammates and Only the Ball was White are two more.

The Soul of Baseball
 

Simply a great read about life and baseball as Joe Posnanski traveled with Buck O'Neil for a year. You will laugh and you will cry....just a great one-sitting read.

Just picked up Dan Epstein’s Big Hair and Plastic Fields.I stumbled on his other book Stars and Stripes about the 1976 season. Found it at a library dollar sale. Really good read with lots of interesting tidbits.

Currently reading “The Southpaw” the first in a series of four books by Mark Harris about the life and career of fictional pitcher Henry Wiggen published in 1953. Still have a long way to go with it but it had good reviews and seems to really capture the essence of the game or at least as much as one could in a book. It’s definitely a fun read! You feel like you are part of the team going through the grind of the season. The best parts are probably the off the field bits although the game recaps are just vivid as if your sitting there in the dugout. I like it so far.

+1 :)

I'd like to mix in some fiction. Sounds interesting.

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My favorite as well. There's also an audiobook out there featuring some of Ritter's interviews.

A Whole Different Ballgame"
 

I found very interesting.... "A Whole Different Ballgame".....by Marvin Miller... it tells how he came to be the head of the Players Association in the 60's and all the battles he had with the owners and Bowie Kuhn.

Here are the baseball books that were on my bookshelf down here, although I'm sure I've read more around here somewhere. I just recently picked up the Stephen King book Blockade Billy, but haven't read it yet, but it's supposed to be a spooky story about a baseball player in the 50s. I'm currently reading the Cobb book by Charles Leerhsen. Only about 100 pages in, but it's been a good read so far, a deeper dive into his early years than I've come across in previous bios. He seems to be trying to debunk a lot of the popular myth of Cobb that was popularized by the Al Stump book back in the day. It's too early to give it an overall assessment though.

I’ve read several books about cards specifically, and of what’s pictured here, The Card is a fun read about the famous Wagner T-206. Mint Condition is a deeper dive into the hobby which is more of an overall history. The Bubble Gum Card War is rather poorly written, and just horribly edited (they literally repeat entire passages numerous times throughout, but it is fascinating for card collectors and decently researched. It's about the battle between Bowman and Topps during the early 50s. I’ve also read some others which aren’t pictured here, and Cardboard Gods by Josh Wilker comes to mind. If you look it up, you’ll see tons of laudatory reviews, but I wouldn’t recommend it. It’s a memoir of a guy’s rather dull and troubled childhood during the ‘70s which he very loosely structures around collecting baseball cards in an often reaching and tangential manner.

Obviously, as a lifelong Tigers fan, I've read plenty of books about them. Of what's pictured, I would recommend Bless You Boys by Sparky Anderson to anyone, regardless of whether they like the Tigers or not. It's basically a journal that Sparky kept throughout the 1984 season, so he talks about managing the players in different situations, breaking down opponents, as well as just the occasional fun anecdote. Gives you a good insight into the mind of a manager.

Finally, I’ll touch on Jane Leavy’s work since you just read her Koufax bio. I think she’s a good writer, and she is clearly passionate about her subjects. I haven't read her Koufax book, but the Ruth book The Big Fella is a deep dive into the Bambino’s storied life, warts and all of course, and I thought it was well done. When it comes to The Last Boy, her Mantle bio, I have mixed feelings. I appreciate honesty in a biographer; after all, we’re all human, and our heroes aren’t angels. That said, when it comes to the excruciatingly detailed minutia of such maladies as genital warts and defecation, I feel that she crossed a line. Sure, be honest and tell us about the womanizing and drinking, and unfortunate side effects of injuries and such, that’s fair game, but why get so detailed on the things that are so personal that no one should know? Just because someone is a celebrity, doesn’t mean that we need to know about things that should be between them and their doctor (or their bathroom for that matter). To be honest, I wish I had never read it.

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The Kid From Tompkinsville series.

The Wrong Stuff by Bill Lee

The Bronx Zoo by Sparky Lyle

Ball Four by Jim Bouton

Also My Turn At Bat by Ted Williams

Books
 

Ty Cobb by Charles Leershen is a great book.
Also a second book by Pat Jordan The Suitors of Spring.

The Game Must Go On by Klima is a great read about baseball during WWII.

As for fiction, I have a couple of suggestions if you can find them: Dugout Tycoon and Teenage Baseball Stories.

I don’t believe these have been mentioned:

Baseball in the Garden of Eden by John Thorn - probably the best work on the origins of baseball

The Catcher was a Spy - on Moe Berg, a more interesting man than a ball player.

The Summer of '49 and The Teammates are both good reads, by David Halberstam, as is The Education of a Coach, if you're looking to branch out into football.

Agree with everyone about "Glory of Their Times"My favorite baseball book that is non-biographical is "I'm Fascinated by Sacrifice Flys" by Kurkjian.It is easily my favorite about the game itself. Its not about Stats or cards but is highly recommended to all you guys.Funny title for an awesome book.

It's good to hear some praise about 'The Teammates.' My dad has a signed ball from the late 40s or early 50s Red Sox, and a buddy just recently told me about that book when we were talking about the ball. He mentioned that the book covers that era of the Sox. I need to track down a copy.

Maybe I'll Pitch Forever by Satchel Paige is something you might like. I haven't read them in a while, but Jim Brosnan's two books, The Pennant Race and A Long Season, laid the groundwork for Bouton's Ball Four. (Brosnan was a reliever for the Reds' '61 pennant winners.) I think David Halberstam's October, 1964 might have already been mentioned, and I'd second that nomination.

Marvin Miller's autobiography, A Whole Different Ballgame, is also well worth your time, though it's not about game's greats. Lotsa great reading out there.

I'll second, third, fourth, or whatever The Glory of Their Time, The Boys of Summer, and The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract. A Complete History of the Negro Leagues and The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues are books I really enjoyed, although drier reading than the above. For Cuban baseball, I also enjoyed The Pride of Havana.

Fiction? W.P. Kinsella's Shoeless Joe (which is the basis of Field of Dreams), The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings by William Brasher (also made into a movie), Pride of the Bimbos by John Sayles, The Celebrant by Eric Rolfe Greenberg (featuring Christy Mathewson), and Waiting for Teddy Williams by Howard Frank Mosher. If you're ambitious, the prologue to Don Delillo's Underworld is all about the "Shot Heard Round the World." The prologue was later published as a standalone novella titled Pafko at the Wall (96 pages) if you don't want to make the commitment to Underworld (832 pages). (You can get Pafko at the Wall as an ebook for three bucks.)

One other non-fiction book I'd recommend: Dock Ellis in the Country of Baseball by Donald Hall.

Again on the topic of fiction, The Sun Field by Heywood Broun was the first mainstream novel that took baseball (Babe Ruth in this case) as its subject. It was published in 1923 and wasn't reprinted until 2008. In the days before the internet, it took me years of searching to find a copy, but now the reprint is readily available.

Doris Kearns Goodwin's memoir Wait 'Till Next Year is good worth a read as well.

Fiction
Shoeless Joe
Celebrant
Universal Baseball Association
Phillies fans, the books by Frank O’rourke

Funny and interesting
Flipping and trading book already mentioned
33 rd inning

Thanks for your review on "The Last Boy". With so many great recommendations on here I will probably skip that one for now. To be honest, if Koufax wasn't so interesting, I probably wouldn't have loved Leavy's writing. It could have been better.

Talkin' Baseball: An Oral History of Baseball in the 1970s by Phil Pepe is a fun read, mainly focusing on the Yankees, Mets, and Reds of that decade.