This survey, which has been available on the Internet since 1991, is
not intended to be an all-encompasing review of baseball books. There are
no how-to books, no rule books, no books with an emphasis on photographs
and/or art, no fiction, and no poetry. What this survey does try and cover
is a selection of the best books which cover various angles of baseball itself
from an analytic perspective. I have tried to come with books that cover
a extremely wide variety of baseball topics, including general histories,
specific histories, biographies and autobiographies of both historical and
more recent personalities, economics, labor-management struggles, scouting,
defense, statistical analysis, the minor leagues, Japanese baseball, the
negro leagues, broadcasting, etc.
HISTORY:
The most accessible general history of baseball that has been published can
be found in David Voight's three volumes of American Baseball. Harold
Seymour's Baseball - The Early Years and Baseball - The Golden
Age provide a more scholarly and detailed history of baseball through
the 1920s. Seymour's more recent Baseball: The People's Game provides
an unparalleled account of the early history of the game outside Organized
Baseball. Charles Alexander's Our Game and Benjamin Rader's Baseball:
A History of America's Game are both solid one volume histories of
baseball.
Some excellent baseball history books which focus on more specific topics
are:
Eight Men Out by Eliot Asinof - the story of the 1919 Black Sox
The Boys of Summer by Roger Kahn - a recollection of the 1952-3 Brooklyn
Dodgers
The Pitch that Killed by Mike Sowell - a fascinating study of the
circumstances behind the only time a major leaguer was ever killed by a pitched
ball.
The Unforgettable Season by G.H. Fleming - a chronicle of the 1908
National League pennant race, a race which many have called the most exciting
ever.
BIOGRAPHY:
Charles Alexander's Ty Cobb, John McGraw, and Rogers
Hornsby are 3 of the best baseball biographies ever written. Almost as
good are Robert Creamer's Babe and Stengel - His Life and Times.
Ed Linn co-authored the two most colorful baseball biographies ever written:
he co-wrote Veeck as in Wreck with Bill Veeck and Nice Guys Finish
Last with Leo Durocher. Other notable biographies include:
The Long Season and Pennant Race by Jim Brosnan - the first
real baseball "diaries" written by a ballplayer
Ball Four by Jim Bouton - an honest, incisive look at the dynamics
of a baseball team by a controversial player
A False Spring by Pat Jordan - a memoir of a baseball player who failed
to fulfill his dreams
Dock Ellis in the Country of Baseball, by Donald Hall and Dock Ellis,
is a highly original and thought provoking book that filters the offbeat
personality of Dock Ellis through the vision of his very talented
co-author.
Diz, by Robert Gregory, is an exhaustive and always absorbing biography
of one of the most entertaining pitchers of all time, Dizzy Dean, and at
the same time provides a perceptive look at baseball during the era of the
Great Depression.
Another entertaining pitcher is demythologized in Mark Ribowsky's new Don't
Look Back: Satchel Paige in the Shadows of Baseball, a comprehensive
biography of the player some consider the Negro Leagues' answer to Babe Ruth
as a star.
Cobb, by Al Stump, is a less scholarly but more probing biography
of the great ballplayer and justifiably despised person Ty Cobb was than
Charles Alexander's earlier biography of the controversial star.
Walter Johnson, Baseball's Big Train is an amazingly comprehensive
biography of perhaps the greatest pitcher of all time by his own grandson,
Henry W. Thomas. The book was the winner of the 1995 Casey Award, which is
given to the best new baseball book every year.
The Only Way I Know, by Cal Ripken and Mike Bryan, is the intelligent
and thoughtful story of one of the most admired players in America.
BASEBALL LABOR AND ECONOMICS:
Andrew Zimbalist's recent Baseball and Billions is the best overall
survey of baseball economics; it is not only well researched and full of
solid analysis, but also highly readable. Gerald Scully's The Business
of Major League Baseball is a more scholarly overview of the economics
of MLB. Lee Lowenfish's recently updated The Imperfect Diamond is
far and away the best account of baseball's labor-management struggles. Marvin
Miller's recent A Whole Different Ballgame, written with Allen Barra,
is a fascinating though somewhat repetitive account of the success of the
Players Association. Bowie Kuhn's Hardball is well-written and valuable
for its portrayal of the relationships between owners and commissioners,
though other parts of the book are badly marred by Kuhn's inability to deal
with reality. James Miller's The Baseball Business: Pursuing Pennants
& Profits in Baltimore is a fascinating look at the workings of one
major league organization. Never Just A Game: Players, Owners and American
Baseball to 1920, by Robert F Burk, is a revealing look at the business
side of baseball during the sport's early days. John Helyar's Lords Of
The Realm is an interesting though overly gossipy look at the history
(primarily recent history) of the behavior of baseball ownership.
STATISTICAL AND SABERMETRIC ANALYSIS
Pete Palmer and John Thorn's The Hidden Game of Baseball is the best
overview of sabermetrics and the application of statistical analysis towards
baseball, though some studies that are presented by the book have major faults.
The Diamond Appraised by Craig Wright is a fascinating work of applied
sabermetrics (despite the small parts of the book written by Tom House),
and probably the best example of the spirit of sabermetrics available. The
Bill James Historical Abstract is a fascinating look at the evolution
and history of baseball and its players that is partly accomplished through
the use of sabermetric methods. Bill James' This Time Let's Not Eat The
Bones is an uneven survey of James' pre-1989 work.
SCOUTING:
Kevin Kerrane's Dollar Sign on the Muscle is an excellent overview
of scouting. Mark Winegardner's Prophet of the Sandlots is a fascinating
and extraordinarily well written look at Tony Lucadello, perhaps the most
succesful scout in baseball history. Scouting Reports, by Stan Hart,
provides a window into how scouts evaluate and rate prospects by presenting
many original scouting reports on a variety of mostly familiar players.
THE MINOR LEAGUES:
There is a paucity of good literature on the minor leagues. Robert Obojski's
Bush League is a solid if unspectacular history of the minors. Neil
Sullivan's more recent The Minors is an uneven but interesting look
at the same subject. Steve Fireovid's recent The 26th Man (written
with Mark Winegardner) is an insightful look at the life of a mature minor
leaguer. David Lamb's recent Stolen Season is a wonderful travelogue
through both the substance and the spirit of the minor leagues. The previously
mentioned Roger Kahn's Good Enough To Dream is an enjoyable account
of Kahn's season as an owner of an independent minor league team.
THE NEGRO LEAGUES AND THE ACCEPTANCE OF BLACKS INTO MLB:
Jules Tygiel's Baseball's Great Experiment: Jackie Robinson and His
Legacy is a scholarly and highly readable treatment of the subject, and
is being reprinted in an expanded edition last spring. Robert Petersen's
groundbreaking Only The Ball Was White, first published in 1970, remains
the definitive book on the history of the Negro Leagues and their players.
John Holway's Voices From The Great Black Baseball Leagues is an
engrossing work of oral history featuring the memories of many Negro League
participants. The Negro Leagues Book, a recent publication of SABR
edited by Dick Clark and Larry Lester, is the most complete assemblage of
information on the Negro Leagues ever put together, with rosters, statistics,
a player register, etc. The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball
Leagues, by James A. Riley, is an equally monumental compendium of
information on over 4,000 players from the Negro Leagues.
BASEBALL OUTSIDE AMERICA:
Robert Whiting's You Gotta Have Wa is an enjoyable if somewhat lightweight
study of Japanese baseball and the experience of Americans who play in the
Japanese leagues. The Tropic of Baseball, by Rob Ruck, is a comprehensive
look at baseball in the Carribean with a focus on why the Dominican Republic
has been so successful in producing ballplayers. Sugarball: The American
Dream, The Dominican Dream provides an excellent history of baseball
in the Dominican Republic. Diamonds of the North, by William Hubert,
is a solid overview of the story of Canadian Baseball.
COLLECTIONS:
Roger Angell may be America's greatest baseball writer. His occassional pieces
in the New Yorker have been collected in The Summer Game, Season
Ticket, Five Seasons, Late Innings, and Once More Around
the Park. The last one contains pieces from throughout his career. Thomas
Boswell's baseball columns have also been collected in many books; two of
the finest are How Life Imitates the World Series and How Time
Begins On Opening Day. His latest is Cracking The Show, which
covers the years 1989-1993. The best general collection of baseball items
can be found in the 3 Fireside Books of Baseball, which are unfortunately
out of print. Editor Charles Einstein has recollected many of the pieces
which originally appeared in the Fireside books along with new pieces in
The Baseball Reader and The New Baseball Reader. The Armchair
Book of baseball and The Armchair Book of Baseball II, both edited
by John Thorn, are both solid collections. Also, Insiders Baseball,
edited by Robert Davids, The National Pasttime, edited by John Thorn,
and The Perfect Game, edited by Mark Alvarez, are all excellent
collections of material which originally appeared in SABR publications.
BROADCASTING:
Curt Smith's Voices of the Games is a superb history of baseball
broadcasting which has recently been updated and issued in paperback. Smith's
more recent The Storytellers is a valuable collection of stories as
told by many of the great baseball broadcasters. Red Barber's The
Broadcasters is a solid history of the pioneers of baseball
broadcasting.
ENCYCLOPEDIAS
Total Baseball is the only true baseball encyclopedia. It not only
features career statistics of every major league baseball player ever (using
both familar statistics and sabermetric measures), but also features almost
1000 pages of text articles covering all the major aspects of the game. The
more established Baseball Encyclopedia, published by Macmillan, also
covers the career statistics of all major leaguers ever and features a wider
variety of traditional statistical measures. The Sports Encyclopedia
Baseball, a lower priced encyclopedia, features statistics of players
since 1901 and is organized by team and year. The Encyclopedia of Minor
League Baseball, which is available from Baseball America, is a comprehensive
source for information about the minor leagues in the 20th century. The
Minor League Register, also from Baseball America, provides career statistics
(although the offensive statistics unfortunately do not include walks) for
hundreds of minor league stars. The Ballplayers, edited by Mike Shatzkin,
contains biographical information about every player who has ever played
in the majors. The Biographical History of Baseball, by Donald Dewey
and Nicholas Acocella, provides slightly more extensive biographical information
about over 1500 individuals who have made an impact on baseball. The Home
Run Encyclopedia, put together by SABR, is an exhaustive guide to all
the home runs that have been hit in baseball history. The Great Encyclopedia
of 19th-Century Major League Baseball, by David Nemec, is the most complete
compilation of information on 19th century baseball ever imagined.
STATS has recently published 2 huge , expensive volumes which
fall into this category; the STATS All-Time Baseball Sourcebook, and the
STATS All-Time Baseball Sourcebook The Handbook features the most complete
statistical information on every single major league players ever of
any book in print; it features information such as complete fielding statistics
and pitchers' batting statistics that can't be found elsewhere. The
Sourcebook is essentially the largest errata ever published; it features
a ton of stuff including an astonishing number of leader boards, situational
statistics
BALLPARKS:
Diamonds: The Evolution of the Ballpark, by Michael Gershman, is a
brilliant overview of the history and development of the places in which
major league baseball has been played. Phillip Lowry's Green Cathedrals
is a solid look at the features of all the individual major league parks,
past and present,but is marred by too many factual errors. Bruce Kuklick's
To Every Thing A Season: Shibe Park And Urban Philadelphia is an excellent
study of the relationship between a community and its baseball park and
teams.
An excellent site on ballparks can be found at
http://www.ballparks.com
WOMEN AND BASEBALL:
Women At Play: The Story of Women in Baseball, by Barbara Gregorich,
is a full and satisfying examination of how women have participated in baseball
from the late nineteenth century through today. Susan Johnson's When Women
Played Hardball is an informative look back at the All-American Girls
Professional Baseball League through oral history.
PUBLICATIONS WITH BOOK REVIEWS:
Unfortunately, both the SABR Review of Books, and its successor, the
Cooperstown Review, both of which provided reviews of a wide range
of baseball books, are no longer published. Back issues may be worth seeking
out for reviews of many baseball books from recent years. NINE: A Journal
of Baseball History and Social Science Perspectives is published bi-annually
and features a large number of reviews of baseball books in each edition
in addition to other interesting articles.
OTHER:
Lawrence Ritter's The Glory of Their Times is regarded by many as
the best baseball book ever written. It is a fascinating oral history of
the baseball players of the early part of this century.
Mike Bryan's Baseball Lives is a wonderful collection of stories about
the people who live baseball, from players and scouts to front office
personnel.
David Falkner's The Short Season is an excellent book about spring
training.
Mark Okkonen's Baseball Uniforms of the 20th Century is a comprehensive
and colorful history of the uniforms of major league baseball.
Paul Dickson has compiled two reference books that are integral parts of
any collection of baseball books: The Dickson Baseball Dictionary
is a complete dictionary of baseball terms and Baseball's Greatest
Quotations is a very well selected collection of baseball wit and wisdom.
Baseball And The American Legal Mind, edited by Spencer Waller, Neil
Cohen and Paul Finkelman, is an impressively comprehensive collection of
both legal documents related to cases involving baseball and legal analysis
of baseball.
Redefinition Inc. has published a series of uneven but often worthwhile baseball
books in a series called The World Of Baseball. Titles include The
Hurlers, The Sluggers, The Fielders, Low and Outside,
The Explosive Sixties, October's Game, Speed, The
New Professionals, The Inside Game, and The Old Ball Game.
Like most similar series, these titles are available only by mail.
David Falkner's Nine Sides of the Diamond is an interesting look at
the art of defense.
The Baseball Draft, available from Baseball America, is a complete
look at the results of the annual draft and some of the best draft stories.
Bill James Guide to Baseball Managers is an absorbing look at the
history of baseball managers and their strategies. James' earlier The
Politics of Glory is an entertaining look at how the Hall of Fame works
and who should be in the Hall of Fame that makes many interesting sidetrips
(The book has been retitled Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame
in its trade paperback edition).
Daniel Okrent's Nine Innings is a sometimes fascinating look at the
minute intracacies of a single baseball game. (I feel obligated to note that
reactions to this book vary widely - Some people regard it as a masterpiece,
while others find it exasperating. No other book on this list recieves such
wildly divergent reviews) A somewhat similar book is Pure Baseball,
by Keith Hernandez and Mike Bryan, which examines the intracacies of two
"average" baseball games.
Everything Baseball is a unique resource which attempts to list every
major baseball-related film, television and radio program, piece of artwork,
song, poem, and work of fiction (At this point, it's a bit out of date,
though).
Ted Williams' Hit List, by Ted Williams and Jim Prime, is a sometimes
enlightening (though occassionally exasperating) look at how the greatest
hitter of all time rates other hitters from both the past and the present.
Baseball: An Illustrated History, by Ken Burns and Geoffrey Ward,
is the comprehensive and colorful companion to the exhaustive (though somewhat
error prone) PBS series Baseball.
The Way Baseball Works, by Dan Gutman, is a suprisingly thoughtful
and very well-illustrated look at what the title implies. The book covers
everything from the design of equipment to the physics of fielding to the
various levels of baseball organizations.
Brooklyn's Dodgers, by Carl E. Prince, is a through and fascinating
examination of the relation between the Brooklyn and its Dodgers in the years
after World War II.
ON CD-ROM
The Bill James Baseball Encyclopedia is the best source of historical
statistics on cd-rom. However, it is expensive, and it does not completely
satisfy users who want many advanced search and retrieve functions. The cd
is produced each year by Miller Associates.
The cd-rom version of the book How Baseball Works is somewhat frustrating
to use but does include some interesting demonstrations and presentations.
To Part 2 of the Baseball
Book Survey
To Suite
101:Baseball, a web site I am now producing which features new articles,
discussion areas, the 100 top baseball links on the web, and more!
Comments and suggestions are
welcome.