Author Topic: Best baseball book you have ever read?  (Read 5318 times)

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Montcobaseball

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Best baseball book you have ever read?
« Topic Start: August 04, 2005, 03:47:18 PM »
What is the best baseball book you have ever read?  Fiction or non-fiction.

visionary

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Best baseball book you have ever read?
« Reply #1: August 04, 2005, 03:54:48 PM »
I thought that Summer Of '49 was pretty good.

a nonfiction pretty much, about the the 49 race between the Yankees and the Redsox.

Offline tomterp

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Best baseball book you have ever read?
« Reply #2: August 04, 2005, 04:30:05 PM »
Moneyball - The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis

Montcobaseball

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Best baseball book you have ever read?
« Reply #3: August 04, 2005, 07:59:26 PM »
The Iowa Baseball Confederacy.  Before you die read this book.  It is simply amazing.  It's fiction but you won't regret it.  It's still in most libraries and on Amazon.

DelNatsFan

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Best baseball book you have ever read?
« Reply #4: August 22, 2005, 01:57:48 AM »
Any Baseball book by Peter Golenbock is excellent. Even if you hate the Yankees, Dynasty was a great one, also The Forever Boys which was about the short-lived Senior League.
 
  The Teammates by Halberstam was also very good; all about Dom DiMaggio, Johnny Pesky, and Bobby Doerr's relationship with Ted Williams and their drive to Florida to see him for the last time.

  For humor Sparky Lyle's The Year I Owned the Yankees

Best baseball book you have ever read?
« Reply #5: April 08, 2006, 12:46:51 PM »
"The Only Way I Know" by Cal Ripken Jr. is a pretty good book.

"Joe DiMaggio: The Hero's Life" by Richard Ben Cramer is a really spectacular in depth book about DiMaggio.

Offline nats2playoffs

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Best baseball book you have ever read?
« Reply #6: June 15, 2006, 11:44:49 PM »
Damn Yankees by Douglas Wallop, originally published 1954. A middle-aged die-hard long-suffering Washington Senators fan makes a deal with the devil to help his team try to beat out the New York Yankees and win the pennant.  A hit Broadway musical and movie musical were based on it.  Trust me, the characters do not break into song and dance routines in the BOOK.  I read it twice as a kid.

Paperback: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393312666/102-3562975-0180160?v=glance&n=283155

DirtDogBaseball

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Best baseball book you have ever read?
« Reply #7: June 29, 2006, 01:57:55 PM »
Faithful - Stewart O'Nan & Stephen King

Two Diehard Boston Red Sox fans chronicle the historic 2004 season

Offline NatsAddict

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Best baseball book you have ever read?
« Reply #8: June 30, 2006, 07:39:31 AM »
On the serious side of the game:
I have to admit, I've read the Bill James books - his one on pitching was the most interesting.  I like the Andrew Zimbalist books better, though.  His latest, In The Best Interest of the Game?, had a lot of interesting insights.

(Auto)biography:
The Mick

Just for fun:
Anything by Ron Luciano.

Blogs:
The late, great Doug Pappas

Offline soxfan59

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Best baseball book you have ever read?
« Reply #9: July 12, 2006, 03:14:18 PM »
Quote from: "DelNatsFan"
Any Baseball book by Peter Golenbock is excellent. Even if you hate the Yankees, Dynasty was a great one, also The Forever Boys which was about the short-lived Senior League.
 
  The Teammates by Halberstam was also very good; all about Dom DiMaggio, Johnny Pesky, and Bobby Doerr's relationship with Ted Williams and their drive to Florida to see him for the last time.

  For humor Sparky Lyle's The Year I Owned the Yankees


I have to agree here.  I think for the total package, Dynasty by Glenbock was one of the best baseball books I have ever read.  A year by year look at the Yankees from 1949 through 1964, with each year focusing on one or two players in a "where are they now" segment, connecting to memories of what happened in that particular season.  Sort of a "Boys of Summer" approach with a lot more baseball action and a lot less pathos.

Offline CALSGR8

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Best baseball book you have ever read?
« Reply #10: July 23, 2006, 10:28:14 PM »
Quote from: "nats2playoffs"
Damn Yankees by Douglas Wallop, originally published 1954. A middle-aged die-hard long-suffering Washington Senators fan makes a deal with the devil to help his team try to beat out the New York Yankees and win the pennant.  A hit Broadway musical and movie musical were based on it.  Trust me, the characters do not break into song and dance routines in the BOOK.  I read it twice as a kid.
(Image removed from quote.)
Paperback: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393312666/102-3562975-0180160?v=glance&n=283155



Actually it originally titled:  The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant.  I read it this year after I saw Damn Yankees at Arena Stage.  Great Book!

Other Good Books:
Why Time Begins on Opening Day - Thomas Boswell
How Live Imitates the World Series - Thomas Boswell
Its Good to Be Alive - Roy Campenella
Walter Johnson: Baseball's Big Train - Henry W. Thomas, Foreword by Shirley Povich - Written by Walter Johnson's Grandson!
The Ripken Way - Billy and Cal Ripken

Best baseball book you have ever read?
« Reply #11: July 27, 2006, 11:52:04 AM »
Quote from: "nats2playoffs"
Damn Yankees by Douglas Wallop, originally published 1954. A middle-aged die-hard long-suffering Washington Senators fan makes a deal with the devil to help his team try to beat out the New York Yankees and win the pennant.  A hit Broadway musical and movie musical were based on it.  Trust me, the characters do not break into song and dance routines in the BOOK.  I read it twice as a kid.
(Image removed from quote.)
Paperback: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393312666/102-3562975-0180160?v=glance&n=283155


Just ordered a copy off www.half.com for $2.  I might as well strap in and read the book a lot of people have been talking about.  :wink:

Offline nats2playoffs

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Best baseball book you have ever read?
« Reply #12: July 27, 2006, 12:37:56 PM »
Being in Comcast territory, and limited to radio for most games, is a constant reminder of Damn Yankees' description of Joe listening to Washington baseball on his radio.  Winning the 2006 home series against the Yankees, when they clearly outhit us, was another reminder.  The book captured the passion of a devoted fan of a losing team, who is transported to a magical possibility of being able to personally change the outcome of his own team's performance.
         

Offline OldChelsea

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Best baseball book you have ever read?
« Reply #13: August 15, 2006, 11:16:35 PM »
Field of Screams (1994) by Richard Scheinin...captures the human element as few other books have.

Offline Vladman1327

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Best baseball book you have ever read?
« Reply #14: August 16, 2006, 12:54:52 AM »
Moneyball was very good.  I enjoyed it a lot.

I am reading Game of Shadows now, too, sort of.  I haven't read it for a while, since I have to read for..............school.

Offline OldChelsea

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Best baseball book you have ever read?
« Reply #15: August 18, 2006, 11:30:02 AM »
Two other don't miss baseball books are Charles C. Alexander's excellently-written biographies of Ty Cobb and John McGraw, two of baseball's dominant figures in the pre-Ruth era.

Speaking of Cobb, his own autobiography (My Life in Baseball) re-surfaced a few years back. It's a good read, albeit a little why's-everybody-always-picking-on-me in spots, and containing a factual error or two (for instance, in naming his all-time team his catcher was Mickey Cochrane, whom he describes as having caught Rube Waddell...if that had actually been true Cochrane would have beaten Joe Nuxhall by six years as the youngest big-leaguer ever, since Waddell died in 1912...when Cochrane was nine).

DirtDogBaseball

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Best baseball book you have ever read?
« Reply #16: August 21, 2006, 12:40:42 PM »
WOW....something other than Readers Digest
VERY IMPRESSIVE!

 8)  8)

ChestRockwell

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Best baseball book you have ever read?
« Reply #17: August 21, 2006, 01:01:12 PM »
Quote from: "DirtDogBaseball"
WOW....something other than Readers Digest
VERY IMPRESSIVE!

 8)  8)


hi troll!

How are your Sawx doing?

DirtDogBaseball

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Best baseball book you have ever read?
« Reply #18: August 21, 2006, 02:57:03 PM »
The childish nick-names from the Caps board..... :shock:

What happend to your Daddy Chelsea?
Don't tell me the shut-in's being SHUT OUT by his own clones.
Maybe we should check all the HOSPICE facilities!
 :lol:

ChestRockwell

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Best baseball book you have ever read?
« Reply #19: August 21, 2006, 03:17:00 PM »
Quote from: "DirtDogBaseball"
The childish nick-names from the Caps board..... :shock:

What happend to your Daddy Chelsea?
Don't tell me the shut-in's being SHUT OUT by his own clones.
Maybe we should check all the HOSPICE facilities!
 :lol:


hi troll! nice childish nick names you got there Sparky!

Offline The Chief

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Best baseball book you have ever read?
« Reply #20: August 21, 2006, 05:49:50 PM »
If you guys just want to bicker, please take it somewhere else.

DirtDogBaseball

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Best baseball book you have ever read?
« Reply #21: August 21, 2006, 05:51:25 PM »
:lol:
Thanks Chief!

Offline OldChelsea

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Best baseball book you have ever read?
« Reply #22: August 21, 2006, 07:27:10 PM »
Yet another recommendation: if you saw the film Eight Men Out (1988) about the Black Sox scandal, don't miss Eliot Asinof's book of that title from the early 1960's, which formed the basis of the screenplay...good film, but an even better book.

ChestRockwell

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Best baseball book you have ever read?
« Reply #23: August 22, 2006, 09:24:56 AM »
I just recently read Damn Yankees, pretty good read, especially everything about Billy Martin.