Must Have Books?

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Posted By: MVSNYC

i am about to redeem a Borders Books Gift Card today...i thought i would load-up on vintage baseball books (or collecting books)...i do already have many on each subject...but wanted to get some opinions on what are must have books?

i was thinking:

-one of the hal chase books (but which one?)
-"luckiest man"-gehrig
-"big bam"-ruth

any suggestions?

thanks,
Michael

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

I still love reading "Baseball Before We Knew It" detailing the history of baseball from the beginning of time.

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Posted By: Max Weder

Michael

Black Prince was a very good book

Max

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Posted By: MVSNYC

2 great suggestions, thank you!

anyone else?

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Posted By: Frank Wakefield

Bill James' Historical Baseball Abstract

The Glory of Their Times, Ritter

Baseball When the Grass Was Real, Honig

Walter Johnson Baseball's Big Train, Thomas

John McGraw, Alexander

The Celebrant, Greenberg

If I Never Get Back, Brock

Pennant Races, Anderson

October 1964, Halberstam



These are some good baseball books. Read all of them, some twice.

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Posted By: Bill Stone

I would also recommend Smithsonian Baseball by Stephen Wong .

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Posted By: Jason Carota

Deadball Stars of the American League, as-well-as it's National League counterpart.

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

Michael, the greatest baseball books I've read are: The Glory of Their Times, Cobb (Al Stump), and Black Prince of Baseball. Ty Cobb by Charles Alexander is right behind these. I'd go with the Stump book first as it contains first-hand information that you will never find anywhere else.

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Posted By: Frank Wakefield

I agree with Jeff about Both Cobb books. Read both, then listen to Smokey Joe Wood on Ritter's The Glory of Their Times CD, where he talks about them betting on a ball game. Wonderful stuff. Gotta read about the incident before you listen to Smokey Joe.

And all of Alexander's baseball books are worth the read at twice the price.

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Posted By: MVSNYC

guys- great suggestions, thanks...

i do already have glory of their times, cobb, ruth, smithsonian...plus a ton of DVD's & books on collecting...

i'll let you know what i get!

MS

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Posted By: JK

Im reading "glory of their times" right now - its one of the best bb books Ive ever read.

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Posted By: Jason L

I just finished Glory of Their Times last night...great read. I particularly like the choice for the last sentence of the book, which is also repeated in the photo caption on the very last page....so very appropo...and so true for many things in life...

I ordered the SABR books -Deadball Stars of the NL and AL from Amazon, the NL book came right away, which I will start on, but the AL book won't arrive until some time in May for some reason! bummer.

Another fun read for Cubs fans would be "The Golden Era Cubs (1876-1940)" by Eddie Gold and Art Ahrens...very easy to read, put down and come back to -a collection of anecdotal stories, really...but specific to the Cubs

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Posted By: paulstratton

Frank,

Are there any books on the 1890 Louisville team that you know of?

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

MIKE

Since you are a New Yorker and a T206 guy....I highly recommend these two.

"The Summer of '49"....David Halberstam....it will give you an appreciation of the start of the 1950's
glory days in New York with those great "Subway-Series".

"The Year They Called Off The World Series"....Benton Stark....The exciting story of the 1904 Season
and how McGraw refused to play Boston in the World Series....lot's of T206 names in this story.

NOTE....this book is out of print....but, Borders found it for me.

TED Z

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Posted By: Bob

You guys missed some:
Eight Men Out by Asinof, The Unforgettable Season 1908 by Flemming, Where They Ain't by Solomon, They Year They Called off the World Series by Stark, The Iowa Baseball Confederacy by Kinsella, When Chicago Ruled Baseball by Weisberger, The Old Ball Game by Deford, The Ginger Kid (Buck Weaver story) by Stein, The Beer and Whiskey League by Nemec and The Great Baseball Mystery by Luhrs.

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Posted By: Mike

Two of my favorite books are the Bios on Rube Waddell, by Alan levy and the book called "fouled Away" a book on Hack Wilson, which is very good, and sad about what a great couple of years he had, and the very sad end to his life. Very good books. Hack's book is very interesting.

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Posted By: Adam J. Baxter

Some suggestions from my library:

Baseball in Blue & Gray: The National Pastime during the Civil War - George B. Kirsch

Baseball Legends of Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery - Peter J. Nash

Peverelly's National Game - John Freyer/Mark Rucker

Before The Curse: The Glory Days of New England Baseball 1858-1918 - Troy Soos

Always On Sunday: The California Baseball League, 1886-1915 - John E. Spalding

The first three can be found on Amazon for cheap 10-20 dollars.

The Soos book has been out of print for some time and can run you upwards of $100 or more. I was lucky to snag a NM copy on Ebay for $20.

The Spalding book is also out of print. It's very tough to find and procuring a copy that wasn't falling apart (softcover) was a real challenge.

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Posted By: MVSNYC

guys, just got back from the Borders at Madison Square Garden (a few blocks from my apartment)...

they had a huge selection, but unfortunetly, not too many of the books you guys suggested...

i ended up getting:

-The Luckiest Man: Lou Gehrig
-Big Bam: Babe Ruth
-America As Baseball: National Geographic & Baseball Hall of Fame


thanks to all for your recommendations, i will continue to look for them.

Best-
MVS

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Posted By: Frank Wakefield

Fellow bibliophiles,

Louisville baseball books...

The book you want exists!!! Louisville Diamonds, by Philip Von Borries. Not found cheap, but a good book, focuses on Louisville as a major league team, 1876 to 1899. A good read if you want to know about players like Chicken Wolf, who lead the league in hitting in 1890.

There is also Baseball in Louisville, Jewell. You can find it with ABE. I have not read it.



And Bob mentioned Fleming's fine book, The Unforgettable Season, but omitted Fleming's Dizziest Season. First one is about 1908, includes the Cubs - Giants race. Second is about the 1934 season, I love the Gashouse Gang!

Mike Sowell wrote 2 great baseball books, one about Ed Delahanty, it really helps someone understand the idea of the reserve clause and how the second major league formed, and eventually peacefully coexisted with the first. The other Sowell book is The Pitch that Killed, about the 1920 pennant race, and those two fated Kentuckians, Ray Chapman and Carl Mays. I think that but for that pitch, both men may well have made the Hall of Fame.

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Posted By: Max Weder

Michael

I'm not sure if you're a SABR member, but for the membership fee, you get a number of great publications, many of which deal with vintage ball. http://www.sabr.org

Max

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Posted By: barry arnold

Thanks Michael et al.

I just bought The Black Prince of Baseball;The Glory of Their Times;
Cobb by Stump; Ty Cobb by Charles Alexander; and the Big Bam: Babe Ruth!
Can't wait for them to arrive.

Now i'm ready for spring break at the university!
This I call true research!

all the best,

Barry

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Posted By: Ray Piskadlo

I am currently reading "Before They Were Bombers" by Reisler. Looks at the Yankees from 1903 to the signing of Babe Ruth. Great book that looks at the Bronx Bombers before they earned that nickname.

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Posted By: jerry

I can recommend highly
Title: July 2, 1903
Subject: The Life of Ed Delehanty
Author: Mike Sowell

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Posted By: john/z28jd

If you collect Old Judge cards or just like the stories of the players from that era than Cap Anson 3 by Howard Rosenberg is a great book. There has to be easily 100+ players from the OJ set referenced in the book.I havent read parts 1 or 2 of the Cap Anson series by him but the 4th book is also very good.


http://www.capanson.com/cap_anson_books.html Heres the page with links to reviews on the side of the page. I would at very least call part 3 a must read

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Posted By: Bob

Two more great reads are When the Giants Were Giants by Peter Williams and The Year the Red Sox Won the Series by Waterman and Springer.

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Posted By: johnny

johnny!!

i'll have to check out that book...i'm thinking about collecting o.j.s

thanks

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Posted By: Bill

The Last Best League by Jim Collins is a book worth reading. It follows a team in the Cape Cod Baseball League for a season. I think it was around the 2002 season or something close to it.

Change your socks, drink water, and drive on.

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Posted By: John H.

A book that I will purchase soon is "Tris Speaker: The Rough-and-Tumble Life of a Baseball Legend" by Timothy Gay. The reviews for this book are very good and not much has been written about Speaker who is, no doubt, one of the most underrated of the all-time greats. Speaker was to Cobb as Musial was to Williams and Aaron was to Mays.

John

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Posted By: Max Weder

John

I'm about a 1/3 of the way through Guy's book on Speaker. While it is well written, I am finding that I am not getting the sense of Speaker's character as much as in, say, Henry Thomas's biography on Walter Johnson. Mr. Thomas did have the advantage of close contact to numerous family friends and scrapbooks, but the difference is still immediately apparent. Nonetheless, because so little has been written on Speaker, I think it is still worthwhile.

Amazon just emailed me on this one. Haven't seen anything about it.

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Posted By: Frank Wakefield

Wasn't Thomas a grandson?

The Thomas book is alive. I keep a postit note on page 250, so I can turn to it and read Heywood Broun's masterful prose about Walter striking out George Kelly with one out and a runner on third base. Wow.

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Posted By: Max Weder

Henry Thomas is indeed a grandson, which I should have mentioned, as well as adding a comma "family, friends"

Max

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Posted By: John H.

The softcover version of the Speaker book comes out tomorrow and I pre-ordered right after I posted about it. I'm looking forward to learning more about the Grey Eagle.

Henry Thomas' book on Walter Johnson is terrific. I hope to read it again some day but there's so many books and so little time.

Edit: My favorite baseball book is David Halberstam's "The Summer of '49". I find it to be a totally engrossing read, one that transports me back to an era before I was born. Another favorite is Robert Creamer's Baseball in 1941. Anything by Bill James is highly entertaining, whether you like him or not. His Historical Abstracts, Guide to Managers and Hall of Fame book are all tremendous.

John