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Post by chrisfromnc on Aug 13, 2019 19:06:17 GMT -5
I’ve read a decent number of books about baseball. I’m certain many others on this message board have too. Let’s talk about the books you’ve read and the ones you’d recommend to others. My thought is that we don’t need have a contest to see who has the longest list of books read, but talk about them individually. If the thread has legs I’d guess we could collectively discuss a huge number of books.
I’ll start with the first baseball book I remember reading (at least it’s the first one I recall reading as I write this). I laughed endlessly reading “The Umpire Strikes Back” by Ron Luciano. I think he’d recently retired from a career as a umpire when he wrote it. He had so many hilarious stories about mistakes he made and the confusion that can happen on a ball field. I enjoyed it so much I read the next two books he wrote as well. It isn’t even close to being the best baseball book for me, but it was an early favorite of mine as a high school student. Who else has read his stuff, or even remembers him?
Talk with us about a great baseball book you read.
(Mods feel free to move this wherever you think best. Seems like an Off-Topicy kind of thing to me.)
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Post by adamoraz on Aug 14, 2019 0:23:49 GMT -5
I just finished "K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches." Very entertaining with a lot of good stories about many of the games most famous pitchers and guys who no one's ever heard of. It's laid out with a chapter each on some of the games most famous pitches (slider, fastball, curveball, knuckleball, sinker, splitter, changeup, screwball, spitball, cutter) and talks about their origins, pitchers known for using them and famous moments involving each pitch. It was interesting to see nearly the entire Sox 2004 rotation highlighted (Schilling for his splitter, Derek Lowe for his Sinker, Wakefield for the knuckleball, and of course Pedro for the changeup).
Interesting moments:
Christy Matthewson's famous fadeaway pitch was actually a screwball.
Advice for hitting a curveball
"Don't miss the fastball"
Why'd they ban the spitball:
"Really, it was just gross."
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Post by chrisfromnc on Aug 14, 2019 6:13:31 GMT -5
I was looking at that book for just a few seconds the other day. Thanks for the recommendation. I’ll put it on the list now. I thought the premise of the book seemed interesting, you’ve confirmed that.
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mobaz
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Post by mobaz on Aug 14, 2019 8:44:18 GMT -5
I will second "The Umpire Strikes Back." Read it every few years and still crack up. The sequence of him finding the "best" baseball to get outs so the game finishes faster and chasing it down to keep it in play had me in stitches.
Jim Bouton's "Ball Four" is obviously required reading, but 2003's "Foul Ball," about Bouton's quest to save Wahconah Park in Pittsfield, MA is also an interesting read. He's pretty full of himself (and as one of his foes from the book told me at an event, is "a horse's ass") but still fun for minor league and baseball nostalgia aficionados.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Aug 14, 2019 9:46:23 GMT -5
Not book related but I met Ron Luciano sort of. I was at Angel's Stadium, front row near the first base bag. Before the game he came up to me, handed me a $10 and asked me to keep a coke with ice available. He'd come over between innings and take a hit (I offered to slip in a beer but he declined). I don't remember anything specific just that he was funny as hell and a great guy. I'm guessing the books are very entertaining.
Good topic, thanks for starting it.
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Post by chrisfromnc on Aug 14, 2019 13:07:31 GMT -5
Not book related but I met Ron Luciano sort of. I was at Angel's Stadium, front row near the first base bag. Before the game he came up to me, handed me a $10 and asked me to keep a coke with ice available. He'd come over between innings and take a hit (I offered to slip in a beer but he declined). I don't remember anything specific just that he was funny as hell and a great guy. I'm guessing the books are very entertaining. Good topic, thanks for starting it. Your first hand story is typical of the kind of stuff you read in his books. The guy didn’t take himself seriously at all. It’s been so long since I read him, but I’m nearly positive he confesses that he never ever understood balks at all and he’d just parrot out yelling “Balk!” whenever he heard someone else on the crew call a balk. |
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Post by chrisfromnc on Aug 16, 2019 15:57:25 GMT -5
Well, I will try again with another series of three books, but these are much more modern.
I read, "The Bullpen Gospels: A Non-Prospect's Pursuit of the Major Leagues and the Meaning of Life"
by Dirk Hayhurst back when it first came out about 10 years ago. He is an excellent writer and gave me an even greater appreciation for how hard life in the minors is. He talks about how poor everyone is and how some players live on the puny per diem meal money. He is a very thoughtful person and I enjoyed the book immensely. He wrote a second and third book about his breaking into the majors and his brief MLB career. Nothing about the book is superficial insights. He talks a lot about how psychologically fragile all baseball players are in a way that fascinated me. All three of his books are very good reads, especially for guys like all of us who have a greater than normal interest in the minor leagues.
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Post by James Dunne on Aug 17, 2019 10:37:29 GMT -5
Yeah, Hayhurst's book is outstanding, great recommendation. Possibly my favorite baseball book, now that I think about it.
Jay Jaffe's Cooperstown Casebook is really fun. For people who see his JAWS formula and worry that it's going to be a lot of "Player X has a JAWS of Y, therefore he should be in the Hall of Fame," it very much isn't. He goes into a lot of depth into the players who seem to have been missed by the Hall, with great stories about their careers and why what made them great might've kept them less appreciated than they could've been by contemporaries. Also a lot of interesting stuff on the history of the Hall of Fame process, the politicking and relationships that led to a lot of lesser players getting in and some teams getting over-represented because of their connections.
I really liked Leigh Montville's Ted Williams bio. Montville has always been such a good storyteller.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Aug 19, 2019 13:35:22 GMT -5
I'll vigorously co-sign the suggestions of Ball Four, The Bullpen Gospels, and the Montville Ted Williams bio, which would've been the first three I mentioned.
I'll throw out there A Well-Paid Slave, about Curt Flood, as a great read that probably appealed to me in part as a lawyer (I weaseled my way into a January-term class about baseball, for credit, in which that was a book we read during law school... along with my then-girlfriend who I made sure I locked up with a long-term extension, if you will).
There is also, of course, David Halberstam's The Teammates.
And finally, for those who still consider themselves novices as far as the whole statistical revolution in the game goes, Baseball Between the Numbers, written by Baseball Prospectus's staff at the peak of its powers, might be a shade outdated at this point but did a good job of putting you in the right headspace to understand a lot of this stuff.
Also, Andrews just started Alex's new book and is raving about it.
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Post by chrisfromnc on Aug 20, 2019 6:55:23 GMT -5
Great recommendations, all.
Haven't read the Curt Flood book or Between the Numbers. I'll put them on the "To be read soon list". The Teammates is a fantastic read. Books about sports that apply to larger life issues (friendship) always appeal to me.
I finished reading Homegrown last night. It is just pure excellence. Alex has an incredible gift for providing insight into something you already knew, but presenting in a way you hadn't thought about before. Everybody here knows all the prospects he talks about and the player moves that were made from 2011 to 2018 but it is riveting reading to have it presented in the way he does. I haven't mentally "ranked" it yet, but it is going to be one of my all time favorite baseball books, without question.
Just randomly, I Had a Hammer by Hank Aaron is a book that I enjoyed a lot. It was compelling to follow his career as his home run totals grew. The awful racism he experienced early in his career and then as he approached Ruth's record was appalling. |
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Post by chrisfromnc on Oct 11, 2019 12:02:55 GMT -5
I’m halfway through The MVP Machine by Ben Lindbergh and Travis Sawchik. It’s very good reading. There is a lot of focus on Trevor Bauer and his unorthodox training methods and how those methods turned a below average athlete into a very good major league pitcher. There’s some of the stuff we all know about JDM turning his game around.
I’m also learning even more about Brian Bannister and exactly what he does for the Red Sox. His first interview was with Mike Hazen for a job as the assistant director of the farm system. During the interview he went on and on with Hazen about pitcher development and Hazen realized he had to hire him, but for a job that didn’t exactly exist at that time. The authors discuss Bannister’s impact on Rich Hill’s revival. Looking forward to the second half of the book.
A strong thumbs up.
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Post by soxin8 on Dec 24, 2019 14:37:22 GMT -5
Enjoyed Summer of 49 about another Red Sox near miss before my time (But didn't really enjoy how it ended). Also, The Boys of Summer about Jackie Robinson and the Brooklyn Dodgers and their battles with the Yankees in several World Series.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Dec 26, 2019 11:40:21 GMT -5
Enjoyed Summer of 49 about another Red Sox near miss before my time (But didn't really enjoy how it ended). Also, The Boys of Summer about Jackie Robinson and the Brooklyn Dodgers and their battles with the Yankees in several World Series. I was reading Summer of 49 when my copy of Homegrown came in, which I had to prioritize for a few reasons. I look forward to getting back to it. Halberstam definitely had something of a formula, but I very much enjoy it. By the way, I'll preview for the folks in this thread: Alex Speier is going to be our next guest on the podcast once I fix my computer sitch. If anyone has Homegrown questions or thoughts, shoot me an email at podcast@soxprospects.com and I'll ask! |
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Post by chrisfromnc on Feb 16, 2021 17:38:00 GMT -5
I’m looking for some help. I’m regularly amazed at the impressive statistical analysis of a good number of posters. By the standards of this community, I’m somewhat ignorant about advanced statistics. Maybe not, ignorant, but not nearly as well versed as some. I’m fine with that. My fandom is totally satisfying to me as is. But I’m as intellectually curious as anyone and since I love baseball I’d appreciate some input from this board regarding resources to get a little smarter about sabermetrics. If you search in the Amazon bookstore for “Sabermetrics “ you only get about 10 books, which shocked me. I’ve read a couple of them (they weren’t exactly devoted specifically to sabermetrics). I’m looking for something that divides the line between being too basic and too advanced. In a perfect world I’d like something that has some readability in addition to providing useful information to inform me about advanced stats. The link below goes to an Amazon page for a book that looks fairly promising. There is only one review to rely on. So who knows if it’s really worth a read. So... two questions....got any books that you’d recommend to me and can anyone tell me about the book below? www.amazon.com/Understanding-Sabermetrics-Introduction-Baseball-Statistics/dp/1476667667/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Sabermetrics&qid=1613502717&s=books&sr=1-1 |
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Post by costpet on Feb 17, 2021 8:24:21 GMT -5
I liked "Moneyball". That changed the way people look at the game.
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Post by billyw on Feb 17, 2021 9:24:50 GMT -5
"The Last Best League" is one of my All time favorite Books and "The Glory of Their Times," is a great read about some of baseballs early stars. Some HOFamers and some near misses but all interesting stories.
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Post by James Dunne on Jun 10, 2022 9:12:04 GMT -5
Looking for a rec for this summer. Will probably be picking up the new Howard Bryant book on Rickey, but I wanted to see if there was anything out there I might be missing.
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Post by jmei on Jun 10, 2022 20:47:22 GMT -5
I liked “The Only Rule Is It Has to Work” from Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller.
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Post by chrisfromnc on Jun 11, 2022 16:13:19 GMT -5
I liked “The Only Rule Is It Has to Work” from Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller. I enjoyed that a lot. It’s a great read. |
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Post by carmenfanzone on Jun 11, 2022 16:39:56 GMT -5
I concur about Homegrown. I would think it is must reding for anyone interested in this site.
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Post by James Dunne on Jun 15, 2022 22:07:13 GMT -5
I concur about Homegrown. I would think it is must reding for anyone interested in this site. Absolutely mandatory read. I was lucky enough to be at the Devers Triple-A debut that Speier talks about in the book. |
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Post by Manuel De Moya on Jun 29, 2022 12:33:56 GMT -5
Looking for a rec for this summer. Will probably be picking up the new Howard Bryant book on Rickey, but I wanted to see if there was anything out there I might be missing. Currently reading "How to Beat a Broken Game" by Pedro Moura, about the 2020 Dodgers and the current state of the game. I'm about 40% in and really enjoying it so far. |
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Post by ghostofrussgibson on Sept 5, 2022 17:13:16 GMT -5
Pure Baseball by Keith Hernadez. He dissects a couple of games with great insight.
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Post by jessiejim on Dec 20, 2022 23:45:24 GMT -5
"Summer of '49" by David Halberstam - my fav
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Post by chrisfromnc on Mar 12, 2023 14:30:58 GMT -5
I’m curious if anyone here has read Joe Kelly and Bradford’s book. I just read a couple reviews saying it was good “light reading “ and good if you are already a Joe Kelly fan. Probably a “wait until paperback “ book for me but I thought I’d see if anyone has a different opinion.
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