What’s in your baseball library?

Prompted by Bob Hendley’s comment below.

What should be?

I’ve bought three baseball books in the past month:

If you need an overview of baseball history for your reference shelves, I just got this one (used). It’s current through 2004 and it’s pretty good.

If you want a good history of the Dodgers – Giants rivalry through 2003 (so not including the Giants’ three WS championships in the 2000s), this is a good one.

And finally, I added a minor classic: I picked up a used copy of David Halberstam’s Summer of ’49.

My entire baseball collection is cataloged at Library Thing.

What do you have and what do you want to get?

42 thoughts on “What’s in your baseball library?

  1. Eric puts the Dodgers at about $17 million under luxury tax as they begin off-season maneuvers.

    • For those of you on Stanton watch, they would have to shed around $10 million in salaries to fit him in and under.

    • Where would Stanton play? He’s not a CF, and Puig’s better in right. If, as the FO says, AGon’s still a regular, where does Bellinger play? I’m agnostic on Stanton, because he’s had some injury issues as well.

  2. Great collection of books noted in all your posts. Let me add “Branch Rickey: Baseball’s Ferocious Gentleman” (2009) by Lee Lowenfish, a tremendous approximately 700-page biography of Rickey and how he became the man who integrated modern baseball. Also, Jimmy Breslin wrote a much shorter and lighter biography of Rickey, which I enjoyed.

  3. I have a bunch of books. My favorite books on the Dodgers are the Boys of Summer and Leavy’s book on Koufax. Both books have strong framing devices which helps keep them interesting, especially the Koufax book with the background of what might have been the best pitched game ever on both sides. I’ve got Leavy’s book on Mickey Mantle waiting to be read. I have several of Bill James’s books. I especially like the original Historical Baseball Abstract.

    My favorite baseball book of all is probably Ball Four. Every ten years or so Bouton released a new edition with a with appendix updating what had been going on lately. I’ve also got the original sequel, I’m Glad You Didn’t Take It Personally, which is also great fun. And then there’s his book, Foul Ball, about his efforts to preserve Wakonah Park in Pittsfield, MA, the oldest ballpark in the US from corrupt officials and corporate superfund sites. Still a fun read despite the seriousness of the subject matter.

    • I actually saw the Seattle Pilots play several times at home in the Ball Four season. When they played the Red Sox, we were close enough to chat with Ken Harrelson (who was much funnier then than he ever was as a broadcaster).

  4. It looks like I now have about 70 baseball books in my library. About a month ago I finally got around to weeding the collection and got rid of a bunch that were not that great. My favourites now are my Angell collection and my Boswell collection. As for books about the Dodgers: Jon’s 101 Things, Bums by Golenbook, I Never Had It Made, and of course the best of all – The Boys of Summer.

  5. Today — Wednesday, the 8th — marks two anniversaries:
    One week since the Dodger ended their glorious year.
    One year since the determination of the new occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue — aka Black Tuesday. (But take hope: Virginia, New Jersey, and Mueller, oh my!)

  6. Most of my baseball books are, since I taught first grade for many years, fictional picture books that I read to my students to help instill in them a love for the game. My favorite is titled “The Babe and I” a young boy growing up in depression era New York, getting a chance meeting with Babe Ruth.

  7. Another book on my shelf for reading is Larry Colton’s book on the integration of the Southern League. Did a quick visit of Birmingham this past summer. The museum of the Negro League is small, but delightful, with among others exhibits for the local kid Willie, Satchel Page and Blue Moon Odom. The latter was with the 1964 Birmingham Barons, which were integrated that year by Charlie O., also born in Birmingham. Many of the members of the A’s dynasty of the early 1970s passed through this AA team. The 1967 club is considered to have been the best minor league team ever.

  8. I thoroughly recommend “Sandy Koufax: A Lefty’s Legacy.” It’s Sandy’s story wrapped around an in-depth look at his perfect game.

    • This one is close to my heart, as it also serves as a chronicle of my first game at DS, whence my moniker.

    • Great news!
      Surprised that they’re already talking about Doc’s contract being up. I think the fit between FO and field is great. The major “if onlys” from the Series were lack of execution by the players.

      • But, given how we suffer as fans when our team has to play in Ccors, them getting the shaft when it comes to awards is retribution.

  9. Dodger books that I have read and can recommend include “The Best Team That Money Can Buy” by Molly Knight, with clubhouse stuff on the likes of Matty and Puig. Very much enjoyed “The Lost Innocents” by Michael Leahy, which looks at the Dodgers of the 1960s in the context of turbulent social change.

  10. Combining chinitos theme and books, a novel, “The Temptation of Baseball” by Dori Jones Yang caught my eye.

  11. Nice list that I need to peruse. Don’t have a list, but thinking of my baseball books, I tend to like biographies have read some interesting ones recently on the Babe, Clemente and Mantle.

    • Those Chinese markets were a godsend when we lived in BA. Food there, though great, tends to be more bland than not (an old joke says that Argies consider mayonnaise to be a spice).