Off-season reading: the best baseball books

by letsgocyclones on Nov 1, 2009 6:21 PM EST Comment 37 comments

During the season we spend our time reading recaps, checking blogs, and looking at a glut of boxscores and stats. But now the ticker-tape type info is about to come to a full stop, and the deck is cleared for some bigger, fuller reads.

So what should the winter reading list include? What are the best baseball books? Maybe some categories would help, but feel free to free-associate.

1. Books by or about baseball people. (examples: "Ball Four," "Veeck as in Wreck," any good player bio)

2. Books by baseball writers/journalists. (examples: "Boys of Summer," "The Bad Guys Won")

3. Books that analyze the game or the stats. (examples: stuff by Bill James.)

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The Book

Numbers Game got me hooked on stats, after Moneyball caught my interest.
The Amazins is good if you want to relive past glories.

"We're investigating the investigative procedure of the investigation of Tony Bernazard"---Omar Minaya (he really didn't say it but he would"

by firejerrynow on Nov 1, 2009 7:18 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

As long as it doesn't involve the following:

Jayson Stark
The Phillies in a positive light

If none of them are involved, I’d be very fine with it.

Beer is good! And stuff!

by R_Adragna on Nov 1, 2009 7:22 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

Good post idea

Some worthwhile baseball books:

- Moneyball
- Baseball Between The Numbers
- Rob Neyer’s Big Book of Baseball Legends
- The Bad Guys Won, as mentioned above, by ma boy Jeff Pearls
- May The Best Team Win: Baseball Economics and Public Policy
- Heat (Doc’s book)
- Eight Men Out
- Feeding The Green Monster by Neyer – check out this post for a funny story about Neyer and anonymous Internet trolling

by James Kannengieser on Nov 1, 2009 10:28 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

Here's last year's thread for reference

http://www.amazinavenue.com/2009/1/3/708425/winter-training-for-fans-r

by Sam Page on Nov 2, 2009 12:01 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

ha, thanks!

last year at this time I was on metsblog. Anyway I hope another round’s useful.

by letsgocyclones on Nov 2, 2009 12:40 AM EST via mobile up reply actions 0 recs

Read Boys of Summer last year

great book. Also, highly recommend the Bill James Historical Abstract if you’re remotely interested in baseball history.

"[The Giants] beat us down. We were beat by a grown-man team, a team we want to be like one day. They came in here and took it to us. Out-manned us, out-gunned us. ... It wasn't even close." - Raheem Morris, 9/27/09

by cjmulrain on Nov 2, 2009 12:31 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

Baseball books I like

The Boys of Summer
Heat
Sandy Koufax: A Lefty’s Legacy
Praying for Gil Hodges
The Amazin’ Mets: 1962-1969
Brooklyn’s Dodgers: The Bums, the Borough, and the Best of Baseball, 1947-1957
The Era, 1947-1957: When the Yankees, the Giants, and the Dodgers Ruled the World
The Few and Chosen: Mets
The Few and Chosen: Dodgers
The Bad Guys Won

"Blinding ignorance does mislead us. O! Wretched mortals, open your eyes!"

by Brooklyn Dodgers Mets Fan on Nov 2, 2009 12:40 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

The Ticket Out

Darryl Strawberry and the Boys of Crenshaw.

Anybody read this? I haven’t had a chance but my old man loved it. Maybe it will be first on my list.

by letsgocyclones on Nov 2, 2009 1:06 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

I have it but haven't read it yet

by deadspy3 on Nov 2, 2009 10:40 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

I always come back to:

George Plimpton, The Curious Case of Sidd Finch [a Buddhist with a 168-mph fastball joins the Mets, based on the SI hoax article.]
Jim Collins, The Last Best League [about the Cape Cod Summer League.]

phliadelphoe ite domum!

by Doc Manhattan on Nov 2, 2009 10:08 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

Always a fun topic

Lots of great books.

The best, unfortunately, aren’t really Mets-related:

The Glory of Their Times by Lawrence Ritter
A False Spring by Pat Jordan
Game Time: A Baseball Companion by Roger Angell (anything by Angell will do)
The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract by Bill James
Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame? by Bill James
Ball Four by Jim Bouton
Lords of the Realm by John Helyar
Veeck as in Wreck by Bill Veeck
Eight Men Out by Eliot Asinof
You Gotta Have Wa by Robert Whiting
Baseball between the Numbers by Baseball Prospectus
Nice Guys Finish Last by Leo Durocher
Moneyball by Michael Lewis
The Soul of Baseball by Joe Posnanski
The Big Book of Baseball Legends by Rob Neyer
Bums by Peter Golenbock
Boys of Summer by Roger Kahn (overrated, but I’d feel funny not including it on the list)
The Numbers Game by Alan Schwartz
Baseball: A Literary Anthology by Various Authors
Nine Innings by Dan Okrent
Voices of the Game by Curt Smith (the book is a monstrosity in terms of its writing, but the stuff in here can’t be found anywhere else)
The Baseball Talmud by Howard Megdal (I might be biased here)

Mets-related stuff:

Can’t Anybody Here Play This Game? by Jimmy Breslin – far and away the best Mets book written.

The Bad Guys Won by Jeff Pearlman – very entertaining

The Worst Team Money Can Buy by Bob Klapisch – ditto

Mets by the Numbers by Jon Springer – just finished; a nice light read that works best as a casual stroll down memory lane. Worth the price just for the index of Mets uniform numbers.

Amazin’ by Peter Golenbock – not a fan of the oral history style, but there is stuff here you won’t find elsewhere

Pure Baseball by Keith Hernandez – not a memoir, but a great look at baseball strategy

The Complete Game by Ron Darling – like the Hernandez book, it’s less about the memories and more about a pitcher’s mindset on the mound

Hello, Everybody, I’m Lindsey Nelson by Lindsey Nelson – tough to find these days, but it’s a great read by a guy who’s largely forgotten by today’s generation of fans.

by Alex Nelson on Nov 2, 2009 9:47 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

thanks alex

i looked for a bunch of these on paperbackswap.com and found a few. (do people know about paperbackswap? love it.)

by letsgocyclones on Nov 3, 2009 9:32 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

High & Tight: the Rise and Fall of Doc and Darryl by Bob Klapisch

its actually a pretty bad book but in an absurd and hilarious way.

true story: a friend in college tried for 4 years to donate this book to the campus library and only got them to accede to his demands after he had a pledge class start a mass letter writing campaign on the books behalf. those letters were pretty funny.

wow, what a great story.

Lets hope that when gut check time comes again the Mets will pass it with flying colors.

by kendynamo on Nov 3, 2009 12:22 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

Awesome.

by Solomon96 on Nov 5, 2009 12:40 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Cool topic

The last baseball book I read was Sydd Finch, which somebody has mentioned. Not mentioned is Bats by Davy Johnson, which was about the 1985 season. I read that a while back and enjoyed it. This thread also reminds me that I need to read Moneyball.

You don't cheer for the Mets. You drink for the Mets.

by Kevin H on Nov 3, 2009 9:08 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

moneyball disappointed me

only because i came to AFTER i’d worn through the bill james historical abstract and AFTER i’d read a lot of moneyball hype. seems like its great contribution was to turn people onto rational baseball thinking, especially when blogs like this one weren’t yet doing that.

by letsgocyclones on Nov 3, 2009 9:27 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Really?

I read it kind of late, but as a story I found it still really well-written and compelling, full of great characters

by deadspy3 on Nov 3, 2009 12:46 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

not trying to be too hard on it

just geared myself up for something truly special and found it a little hokey. but yes, some very good stuff in there.

by letsgocyclones on Nov 3, 2009 3:25 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

fiction

that’s a category i forgot. a few i haven’t read and am intrigued by:

Bang the Drum Slowly
The Natural
The Great American Novel — by Phillip Roth
The brooklyn dodgers chapter of Don Delillo’s UNDERWORLD

one i have read and was delighted by:

Summerland — a young adult novel by Michael Chabon

by letsgocyclones on Nov 3, 2009 9:37 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

I finally got around to The Natural a couple of months ago.

I enjoyed the shit out of it. Really excellent book.

"He's definitely mixing it into his repertoire. That's French for 'repertoire' " - Keith Hernandez

by Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright on Nov 3, 2009 11:44 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

The Hunt for Met October

I’ll be writing that book after the WS ends. It will be a short story. Maybe 3 or 4 pages.

by fxcarden on Nov 3, 2009 11:17 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

Movie version starring Sean Connery as Carlos Beltran

And he’ll still be speaking with his Scottish accent for the role.

by James Kannengieser on Nov 3, 2009 11:55 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Word

Scene: Beltran and Reyes are hanging out in the clubhouse.

Reyes: When this is over, I’m gonna move to Montana, marry a round woman, and raise
rabbits, and she will cook them for me.

Beltran: Where the hell is Montana ?.

Out from behind the wall comes Shane Victorino disguised as the cook, and shoots Reyes in the gut, only Reyes had just finished filming the next under-armor commercial, and the bullet bounces off him, and hit Victorino in the wrist, forcing Charlie Manuel to take him out of the movie.

by fxcarden on Nov 3, 2009 12:44 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

That's gangsta

"Blinding ignorance does mislead us. O! Wretched mortals, open your eyes!"

by Brooklyn Dodgers Mets Fan on Nov 3, 2009 3:26 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

i do a mean Connery.

"I dunno. I never smoked any Astroturf"
-Tug McGraw

by squid92 on Nov 3, 2009 5:38 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Hey Trebek, what's the difference between your mother and an ill mallard?

One’s a sick duck, and I forget how the rest goes, but your mother’s a whore!

by BobbyV_Incognito on Nov 3, 2009 9:43 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

ok

to mark my progress so far:

The Book — ordered from Amazon
The Worst Team Money Could Buy — coming from paperbackswap
“The Babe” by Robert Creamer — paperbackswap
Bang the Drum Slowly — paperbackswap
The Ticket Out: Darryl Strawberry and the Boys of Crenshaw — asking my dad to send

and a half-dozen more marked “to read” on goodreads.

sweet.

by letsgocyclones on Nov 3, 2009 10:30 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

I Had a Hammer: The Hank Aaron Story

Just trolling, but it is actually a good read. Though I think they overplay the race card a bit.

http://www.capitolavenueclub.com/

by PWHjort on Nov 4, 2009 2:23 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

Anything by W.P. Kinsella

but I particularly liked the Iowa Baseball Confederacy (for your fiction list).

Soul of Baseball by Posnanski. A little sappy but I like Posnanski and it was pretty touching. The Bad Guys Won by Poz is also a relatively entertaining book that you can plow through in a couple days.

by dtro on Nov 4, 2009 12:25 PM EST reply actions 0 recs