Baseball Books? - Printable Version
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Baseball Books? - Phogge - 03-07-2022
I have reread everything I own. Any suggestions in this awful period for baseball?
Some of my favorites:
The Henry Wiggen novels (Mark Harris)
Veeck as in Wreck (Ed Linn)
Eight Men Out (Eliot Asinof)
The Teammates (Halberstam)
Chasing October (Dave Plaut)
The Era (Roger Kahn)
RE: Baseball Books? - DC 86 - 03-07-2022
(03-07-2022, 02:43 PM)Phogge Wrote: I have reread everything I own. Any suggestions in this awful period for baseball?
Some of my favorites:
The Henry Wiggen novels (Mark Harris)
Veeck as in Wreck (Ed Linn)
Eight Men Out (Eliot Asinof)
The Teammates (Halberstam)
Chasing October (Dave Plaut)
The Era (Roger Kahn)
Lords of the Realm (John Helyar)
A False Spring (Pat Jordan)
Jackie Robinson: A Biography (Arnold Rampersad)
Baseball's Great Experiment (Jules Tygiel)
You Gotta Have Wa (Robert Whiting)
Many great books out there, including Roger Angell's article compilations, but those would be my five.
RE: Baseball Books? - Spiny_Norman - 03-07-2022
(03-07-2022, 02:43 PM)Phogge Wrote: I have reread everything I own. Any suggestions in this awful period for baseball?
Some of my favorites:
The Henry Wiggen novels (Mark Harris)
Veeck as in Wreck (Ed Linn)
Eight Men Out (Eliot Asinof)
The Teammates (Halberstam)
Chasing October (Dave Plaut)
The Era (Roger Kahn)
I took a class spring quarter my senior year on the Literature of Baseball. A SWOPSI course taught by a guy from the community. Several of these were on the reading list. We also read The Natural (naturally), The Great American Novel by Philip Roth (highly recommended), You Know Me Al (by Ring Lardner), The Boys of Summer, and The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop. (by Robert Coover).
I'll also put in a plug for The Greatest Slump of All Time by David Carkeet. A novel that was good fun.
RE: Baseball Books? - UltimateCard - 03-07-2022
(03-07-2022, 03:05 PM)Spiny_Norman Wrote:(03-07-2022, 02:43 PM)Phogge Wrote: I have reread everything I own. Any suggestions in this awful period for baseball?
Some of my favorites:
The Henry Wiggen novels (Mark Harris)
Veeck as in Wreck (Ed Linn)
Eight Men Out (Eliot Asinof)
The Teammates (Halberstam)
Chasing October (Dave Plaut)
The Era (Roger Kahn)
I took a class spring quarter my senior year on the Literature of Baseball. A SWOPSI course taught by a guy from the community. Several of these were on the reading list. We also read The Natural (naturally), The Great American Novel by Philip Roth (highly recommended), You Know Me Al (by Ring Lardner), The Boys of Summer, and The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop. (by Robert Coover).
I'll also put in a plug for The Greatest Slump of All Time by David Carkeet. A novel that was good fun.
“Hard to Grip,” a memoir by a once promising pitcher (who coached my son at Lowell HS in SF) might be of interest: http://www.schaffnerpress.com/books/hard-to-grip
RE: Baseball Books? - skip75 - 03-07-2022
Some good lists. I would add:
The Fireside Books of Baseball (First, Second & Third; edited by Charles Einstein)
The Long Season (Jim Brosnan)
Summer of '49 and October 1964 (both by David Halberstam)
Game Six (Mark Frost)
Clemente (David Maraniss)
The Road to Omaha (Ryan McGee) - a Stanford connection
RE: Baseball Books? - gailtate - 03-07-2022
"24", by John Shea. Never read a better sports bio.
RE: Baseball Books? - JJJ - 03-07-2022
I've read these in the last 2 years, wanting to learn more about Nippon Professional Baseball.
You Gotta Have Wa (Robert Whiting) (second time after many years; also other non-baseball books by Whiting)
The Samurai Way of Baseball: The Impact of Ichiro and the New Wave from Japan (Robert Whiting)
Mashi: The Unfulfilled Baseball Dreams of Masanori Murakami, The First Japanese Major Leaguer (Robert Fitts)
Wally Yonamine: The Man Who Changed Japanese Baseball (Robert Fitts)
RE: Baseball Books? - Spiny_Norman - 03-07-2022
One I forgot from the Literature of Baseball class which I also highly recommend, The Glory Of Their Times, by Lawrence Ritter.
Sitting on my bookshelf in the queue to be read - Big Hair and Plastic Grass, A Funky Ride Through Baseball and America in the Swinging '70s, by Dan Epstein.
RE: Baseball Books? - Phogge - 03-07-2022
Thanks guys!
It's old but the Veeck book is worth a read.
RE: Baseball Books? - needle - 03-07-2022
When I was a boy, I read something--I feel like the title was something like, "A stranger in centerfield."
Think something like those Clair Bee books, though the characters in this novel were adults.
Almost certainly written in the 1950s or earlier, it was about a young and hungry (literally) baseball player who tries out and, to the surprise of everyone, finds success. Later, it's found out he has a criminal record, which is info that he had feared becoming known.
I think all ended up being forgiven, with the final chapters about a big game.
Anyone remember reading this?
RE: Baseball Books? - CowboyIndian - 03-07-2022
The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant ( became Broadway's Damn Yankees)
Highpockets ( from grade school)
The Wrong Stuff by Bill "Spaceman" Lee (haven't read it but I love the guy....from Novato, I think)
RE: Baseball Books? - Phogge - 03-07-2022
Lee went to Terra Linda HS in San Rafael. Played against him in HS and college (USC). Played in senior leagues for years and was a fixture at Red Sox fantasy camps.
RE: Baseball Books? - Red80 - 03-07-2022
(03-07-2022, 02:43 PM)Phogge Wrote: I have reread everything I own. Any suggestions in this awful period for baseball?
Some of my favorites:
The Henry Wiggen novels (Mark Harris)
Veeck as in Wreck (Ed Linn)
Eight Men Out (Eliot Asinof)
The Teammates (Halberstam)
Chasing October (Dave Plaut)
The Era (Roger Kahn)
"Ball Four". By Jim Bouton. Far more than a baseball book. A Classic. Belongs on the same shelf with The Great Gatsby, Gone With The Wind, In Cold Blood, and Catch-22.
RE: Baseball Books? - BostonCard - 03-07-2022
Strike Three! - A Player's Journey through the Infamous Baseball Strike of 1994
Or does that hit too close to home?
BC
RE: Baseball Books? - Renaissance Man - 03-08-2022
(03-07-2022, 03:35 PM)skip75 Wrote: Some good lists. I would add:
The Fireside Books of Baseball (First, Second & Third; edited by Charles Einstein)
The Long Season (Jim Brosnan)
Summer of '49 and October 1964 (both by David Halberstam)
Game Six (Mark Frost)
Clemente (David Maraniss)
The Road to Omaha (Ryan McGee) - a Stanford connection
The Halberstam books are outstanding.
RE: Baseball Books? - lex24 - 03-08-2022
“Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty” by Charles Leershen. Interesting read in a lot of respects. According to Leershen, much of what is “known” about Cobb was manufactured by a writer (Al Stump) that penned an “unofficial biography” that was full of falsehoods.
The book is not an “exoneration” of Cobb by any means. But it is a somewhat different version of his story that is the “conventional wisdom.”
Baseball at the turn of the 20th through the dead ball era was a different game to say the least. The book has some terrific stories of that game.
Worth a read.
Cobb lived for years in Atherton and his daughter, Shirley, owned an excellent bookstore in Menlo Park.
RE: Baseball Books? - Mick - 03-08-2022
(03-08-2022, 09:06 AM)lex24 Wrote: “Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty” by Charles Leershen. Interesting read in a lot of respects. According to Leershen, much of what is “known” about Cobb was manufactured by a writer (Al Stump) that penned an “unofficial biography” that was full of falsehoods.
The book is not an “exoneration” of Cobb by any means. But it is a somewhat different version of his story that is the “conventional wisdom.”
Baseball at the turn of the 20th through the dead ball era was a different game to say the least. The book has some terrific stories of that game.
Worth a read.
Cobb lived for years in Atherton and his daughter, Shirley, owned an excellent bookstore in Menlo Park.
Read and loved this book. Very good read.
Also "Trading Bases" written by a former Wall Street trader who had a Stanford MBA. "Liar's Poker" meets "Moneyball."
https://www.amazon.com/Trading-Bases-Fortune-Betting-Baseball/dp/0451415175/ref=asc_df_0451415175/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312174407663&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=18382908237854362270&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9007324&hvtargid=pla-504397095807&psc=1&tag=&ref=&adgrpid=60258870857&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvadid=312174407663&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=18382908237854362270&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9007324&hvtargid=pla-504397095807
RE: Baseball Books? - terry - 03-08-2022
If you like your baseball stories with a dose of mysticism, try these novels by W.P. Kinsella:
The Iowa Baseball Confederacy
Shoeless Joe (this is the basis of the movie "Field of Dreams"; I like the book better)
Kinsella also wrote some baseball-related short story collections, such as The Thrill of the Grass and The Further Adventures of Slugger McBatt.
Summerland, by Michael Chabon, is a baseball-themed fantasy novel for young adults. Your grandchildren might like it.
Negro League Baseball: The Rise and Ruin of a Black Institution, by Neil Lanctot, is a thorough history of the Negro Leagues, including the business side.
RE: Baseball Books? - Phogge - 03-08-2022
I have a hard time getting past the first couple of chapters in Chabon’s work but I breezed through Summerland.
A couple more: Roger Kahn “Good Enough to Dream.” A year as owner of a Class A team.
“Wherever I Wind Up” by R.A.Dickey. The knuckleball Cy Young winner. Particularly interesting is his story of attempting to swim across the Mississippi River on a bet.
RE: Baseball Books? - CompSci87 - 03-08-2022
There was a recent book about life in the minor leagues by a Stanford player's mother. I read it on Kindle Unlimited, but sadly have already forgotten the title and author. I heard about it on the CardBoard, so hopefully someone can help with the details.