Baseball History

 

Baseball: A History of America's Favorite Game (Modern Library Chronicles) by George Vecsey Paperback from Modern Library Media Published: 2008- ISBN: 0812978706 "Football is force and fanatics, basketball is beauty and bounce. Baseball is everything: action, grace, the seasons of our lives. George Vecsey's book proves it, without wasting a word." -Lee Eisenberg, author of The Number In Baseball, one of the great bards of America's Grand Old Game gives a rousing account of the sport, from its pre-Republic roots to the present day. George Vecsey casts a fresh eye on the game, illuminates its foibles and triumphs, and performs a marvelous feat: making a classic story seem refreshingly new. Baseball is a narrative of America's can-do spirit, in which stalwart immigrants such as Henry Chadwick could transplant cricket and rounders into the fertile American culture and in which die-hard unionist baseballers such as Charles Comiskey and Connie Mack could eventually become the tightfisted avatars of the game's big-money establishment. It's a celebration of such underdogs as a rag-armed catcher turned owner named Branch Rickey and a sure-handed fielder named Curt Flood, both of whom flourished as true great men of history. But most of all, Baseball is a testament to the unbreakable bond between our nation's pastime and the fans, who've remained loyal through the fifty-year-long interdict on black athletes, the Black Sox scandal, franchise relocation, and the use of performance-enhancing drugs by some major stars. Reverent, playful, and filled with Vecsey's charm, Baseball begs to be read in the span of a rain-delayed doubleheader, and so enjoyable that, like a favorite team's championship run, one hopes it never ends. "Vecsey possesses a journalist's eye for detail and a historian's feel for the sweep of action. His research is scrupulous and his writing crisp. This book is an instant classic---- a highly readable guide to America's great enduring pastime." -- The Louisville Courier Journal From the Hardcover edition.

Baseball in the Garden of Eden: The Secret History of the Early Game by John Thorn Hardcover from Simon & Schuster ISBN: 0743294033 Think you know how the game of baseball began? Think again. Forget Abner Doubleday and Cooperstown. Forget Alexander Joy Cartwright and the New York Knickerbockers. Instead, meet Daniel Lucius Adams, William Rufus Wheaton, and Louis Fenn Wadsworth, each of whom has a stronger claim to baseball paternity than Doubleday or Cartwright. But did baseball even have a father--or did it just evolve from other bat-and-ball games? John Thorn, baseball's preeminent historian, examines the creation story of the game and finds it all to be a gigantic lie, not only the Doubleday legend, so long recognized with a wink and a nudge. From its earliest days baseball was a vehicle for gambling (much like cricket, a far more popular game in early America), a proxy form of class warfare, infused with racism as was the larger society, invigorated if ultimately corrupted by gamblers, hustlers, and shady entrepreneurs. Thorn traces the rise of the New York version of the game over other variations popular in Massachusetts and Philadelphia. He shows how the sport's increasing popularity in the early decades of the nineteenth century mirrored the migration of young men from farms and small towns to cities, especially New York. And he charts the rise of secret professionalism and the origin of the notorious "reserve clause," essential innovations for gamblers and capitalists. No matter how much you know about the history of baseball, you will find something new in every chapter. Thorn also introduces us to a host of early baseball stars who helped to drive the tremendous popularity and growth of the game in the post-Civil War era: Jim Creighton, perhaps the first true professional player; Candy Cummings, the pitcher who claimed to have invented the curveball; Albert Spalding, the ballplayer who would grow rich from the game and shape its creation myth; Hall of Fame brothers George and Harry Wright; Cap Anson, the first man to record three thousand hits and a virulent racist; and many others. Add bluff, bluster, and bravado, and toss in an illicit romance, an unknown son, a lost ball club, an epidemic scare, and you have a baseball detective story like none ever written. Thorn shows how a small religious cult became instrumental in the commission that was established to determine the origins of the game and why the selection of Abner Doubleday as baseball's father was as strangely logical as it was patently absurd. Entertaining from the first page to the last, Baseball in the Garden of Eden is a tale of good and evil, and the snake proves the most interesting character. It is full of heroes, scoundrels, and dupes; it contains more scandal by far than the 1919 Black Sox World Series fix. More than a history of the game, Baseball in the Garden of Eden tells the story of nineteenth-century America, a land of opportunity and limitation, of glory and greed--all present in the wondrous alloy that is our nation and its pastime.

The Glory of Their Times: The Story of the Early Days of Baseball Told by the Men Who Played It (Harper Perennial Modern Classics) by Lawrence S. Ritter Paperback from Harper Perennial Modern Classics Media Published: 2010- ISBN: 0061994715 Baseball was different in earlier days--tougher, rawer, more intimate--when giants like Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb ran the bases. In the monumental classic The Glory of Their Times, the golden era of our national pastime comes alive through the vibrant words of those who played and lived the game. The voices of the game's distant past continue to reverberate with a distinct freshness in Lawrence S. Ritter's The Glory of Their Times. An oral history of the game in the first two decades of the century, Glory sends out its impressive roster of players to tell their own stories, and what stories they tell--the story of their times as well as of their game; the scorecard includes Rube Marquard, Babe Herman, Stan Coveleski, Smoky Joe Wood, and Wahoo Sam Crawford. A delight from cover to cover, Glory is the next best thing to having been there in the days when the ball may have been dead, but the personalities were anything but.

Baseball: An Illustrated History, including The Tenth Inning by Geoffrey C. Ward, Ken Burns, Kevin Baker Paperback from Knopf Media Published: 2010- ISBN: 037571197X The acclaimed nationwide best seller and companion volume to Ken Burns's grand-slam PBS documentary--updated and expanded to coincide with the broadcast of a new, two-part Tenth Inning that lokos back on the age of steroids, home-run records, the rise of Latino players, and so much more. With a narrative by Geoffrey C. Ward, a preface to the new edition by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, a new chapter by Kevin Baker, and an introduction by Roger Angell Essays by Thomas Boswell, Robert W. Creamer, Gerald Early, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Bill James, David Lamb, Daniel Okrent, John Thorn, George F. Will And featuring an interview with Buck O'Neil

Baseball: A History of America's Game (Illinois History of Sports) by Benjamin G. Rader Paperback from University of Illinois Press ISBN: 0252075501 In this third edition of his lively history of America's game--widely recognized as the best of its kind--Benjamin G. Rader expands his scope to include commentary on Major League Baseball through the 2006 season: record crowds and record income, construction of new ballparks, a change in the strike zone, a surge in recruiting Japanese players, and an emerging cadre of explosive long-ball hitters.

Past Time: Baseball As History by Jules Tygiel Paperback from Oxford University Press, USA ISBN: 0195146042 Few writers know more about baseball's role in American life than Jules Tygiel. In Baseball's Great Experiment: Jackie Robinson and His Legacy, Tygiel penned a classic work, a landmark book that towers above most writing about the sport. Now he ranges across the last century and a half in an intriguing look at baseball as history, and history as reflected in baseball. In Past Time, Tygiel gives us a seat behind home plate, where we catch the ongoing interplay of baseball and American society. We begin in New York in the 1850s, where pre-Civil War nationalism shaped the emergence of a "national pastime." We witness the true birth of modern baseball with the development of its elaborate statistics--the brainchild of English-born reformer, Henry Chadwick. Chadwick, Tygiel writes, created the sport's "historical essence" and even imparted a moral dimension to the game with his concepts of "errors" and "unearned" runs. Tygiel offers equally insightful looks at the role of rags-to-riches player-owners in the formation of the upstart American League and he describes the complex struggle to establish African-American baseball in a segregated world. He also examines baseball during the Great Depression (when Branch Rickey and Larry MacPhail saved the game by perfecting the farm system, night baseball, and radio broadcasts), the ironies of Bobby Thomson's immortal "shot heard 'round the world," the rapid relocation of franchises in the 1950s and 1960s, and the emergence of rotisserie leagues and fantasy camps in the 1980s. In Past Time, Jules Tygiel provides baseball history with a difference. Instead of a pitch-by-pitch account of great games, in this groundbreaking book, the field is American history and baseball itself is the star. In Baseball's Great Experiment: Jackie Robinson and His Legacy and the follow-up Jackie Robinson Reader, Jules Tygiel focused his historian's eye on what was arguably baseball's most stunning single event. Dissecting it from every angle, he followed its consequences through the weft of the national fabric in a pair of consummate, readable, and marvelously entertaining books that painted an arresting portrait of a remarkable man and his remarkable ordeal. In Past Time Tygiel widens his focus to turn his considerable narrative and interpretive skills loose on the broader tapestry of the game itself. The result is a superb collection of essays on American history filtered through the national pastime's lens. "If there is a unifying theme"--and there certainly is--"it is that while the game of baseball itself has changed minimally since its origins, the context and format in which Americans have absorbed and appreciated the game have dramatically shifted." Drawing on his encyclopedic knowledge of the game, Tygiel uses the game as his doorway for entry into--and airing out--several rooms of the American past. Though the nine essays that make up Past Time reflect the game's nine innings and are presented chronologically, they are each entities unto themselves and can be read in any order. Rarely stepping onto the playing field, they avoid the mushiness and rhapsodizing that baseball tends to evoke. Instead, they take provocative looks at the often overlooked--like why statistics hold the game together, and why holding the game together was crucial to an America emerging from the Civil War--and fresh looks at old warhorses like baseball and the Depression era, baseball and civil rights, and baseball and America's post-World War II geographical shift. The final "inning" examines such recent obsessions as rotisserie leagues and fantasy camps, and the chapter on Bobby Thompson's famed home run and how the ways we would experience the game in the early years of the Cold War would change is thoroughly absorbing. But, then, so is the rest of Past Time. It has you wishing for extra "innings." --Jeff Silverman

We Would Have Played for Nothing: Baseball Stars of the 1950s and 1960s Talk About the Game They Loved (Baseball Oral History Project) by Fay Vincent Paperback from Simon & Schuster ISBN: 1416553436 An All-Star lineup of former major leaguers remembers what baseball was like in the 1950s and 1960s. Whitey Ford, Duke Snider, Carl Erskine, Bill Rigney, and Ralph Branca tell stories about baseball in New York when the Yankees dominated and seemed to play either the Dodgers or the Giants in every World Series. By the end of the fifties, the two National League teams had relocated to California, as baseball expanded across the country. Hall of Fame pitcher Robin Roberts, Braves mainstay Lew Burdette, home-run king Harmon Killebrew, Cubs slugger Billy Williams, and Hall of Famers Brooks Robinson and Frank Robinson share great stories about milestone events, from Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier on the field to Frank Robinson doing the same in the dugout. They remember the teammates and opponents they admired, including Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, Warren Spahn, Don Newcombe, and Ernie Banks. For anyone who grew up watching baseball in the 1950s and 1960s, or for anyone who wonders what it was like in the days when ballplayers negotiated their own contracts and worked real jobs in the off-season, this is a book to cherish.

1939: Baseball's Tipping Point by Talmage Boston Hardcover from Bright Sky Press ISBN: 193172153X Baseball has never had a more important year than 1939, when events and people came together to reshape the game like never before. The author explains why that special year proved to be absolutely pivotal for our national pastime and its greatest heroes, as baseball's golden age met its modern era. Every chapter stands alone as a separate vignette, yet each intertwine to convey baseball's magic. Expert commentary, eyewitness reports, and candid facts uncovered through years of research illustrate how the role models of 1939 have stood the test of time as authentic heroes. Gehrig, DiMaggio, Williams, Feller, and Paige stand tall as men of remarkable achievement on the field, while events off the field the grand opening of the Baseball Hall of Fame, the debut of baseball on television, and the formation of Little League Baseball solidify 1939's landmark stature in history.

Greats of the Game: The Players, Games, Teams, and Managers That Made Baseball History by Ray Robinson, Christopher Jennison Hardcover from Harry N. Abrams ISBN: 0810958821 A deceptively simple game rich in subtleties, baseball, more than any other sport, is passed down parent to child, one generation to another. In every era, fans have found heroes to cheer, and in part our attachment to the game has been fueled by hotly contested efforts to measure the superstars of the present against the titans of yesteryear. Greats of the Game fondly contributes to the nostalgic appeal of the national pastime by celebrating-in a subjective, engagingly outspoken text and dazzling, rarely seen photographs-the game's greatest players, teams, managers, games, and colorful personalities. Here are a century's worth of stars and highlights: Babe Ruth and Nolan Ryan, Jackie Robinson and Barry Bonds, Don Larsen's perfect game, Willie Mays's catch of Vic Wertz's 450-foot drive in the 1954 World Series. Ray Robinson, author of the definitive biography of Lou Gehrig, shares more than 70 years of memories, while fellow baseball maven Christopher Jennison describes the stunning photos he has selected-in a lavish, opinionated treasury that is certain to inspire passionate debate. AUTHOR BIO: Ray Robinson has followed baseball since the heyday of Ruth and Gehrig. His books include Iron Horse: Lou Gehrig in His Time, The Home Run Heard 'Round the World, Knute Rockne of Notre Dame, and Will Rogers: An American Original. Christopher Jennison, who has chosen the photographs for this book and written the captions, is the coauthor (with Ray Robinson) of Pennants and Pinstripes and Yankee Stadium.

All Century Team
Mark Vancil (Editor)
In the summer of 1999, baseball fans pitched their votes for Major League Baseball's All Century Team. Celebrated here with hundreds of photographs and deep statistical analysis, the 30-player squad spans the century, representing big leaguers from the golden age to the modern era. Prodigy Ken Griffey Jr. roams the outfield with legends Ty Cobb, Willie Mays, and Mickey Mantle, among others. Relative newcomers Roger Clemens and Nolan Ryan are named to a pitching staff that includes Christy Mathewson, Cy Young, and Warren Spahn. Even the oft-injured slugger Mark McGwire makes the cut, riding his late 1990s home run bonanza to join Iron Man Lou Gehrig at first base.

No best-of compilation satisfies every criterion, but the All Century Team comes close, even recognizing omitted players who, statistically-speaking, merit inclusion. Editors Mark Vancil and Peter Hirdt devote a full-page spread to one such player, Greg Maddux, regarded as possibly the best pitcher ever: 

Maddux's greatness has all the other trimmings one would expect: four Cy Young awards, four ERA titles, and seven All-Star nominations. He also has one you wouldn't expect: nine Gold Gloves. Still, history doesn't always reveal itself in real time. It's often left to later generations to identify greatness in hindsight.

In fact, it's All Century Team's commitment to identifying greatness that's most admirable. A wealth of statistics, crammed into every available margin space, ranks each player's performance against other 20th-century standouts. Decades of brilliant photography help quantify intangibles like glory and grit. And a series of evocative anecdotes reveals how a player's worth is measured in many ways. Satchel Paige remembers the lightning-quick James "Cool Papa" Bell: "One time he hit a line drive right past my ear. I turned around and saw the ball hit his ass sliding into second." Reggie Jackson calls pitcher Tom Seaver "so good that blind people come to the park just to hear him pitch." Notable for both its style and its substance, All Century Team is an all-century baseball book. --Rob McDonald - Amazon.com
Hardcover

The Annotated Baseball Stories of Ring W. Lardner, 1914-1919
George W. Hilton(Editor), Ring W. Lardner
Paperback
Also in Hardcover

The Ashes of Lou Gehrig and Other Baseball Essays
by Sean Peter Kirst, Harold Holzer
The parents and widow of Lou Gehrig were so concerned about the potential desecration of his grave that they considered moving his ashes to the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Officials embraced the idea of creating an elaborate mausoleum for baseball greats, but the idea was killed by Gehrig's wife - whose cryptic remarks leave us wondering to this day about the disposition of his remains. Kirst's piece on Gehrig's ashes and numerous other essays are put together from dozens of personal interviews with baseball characters, both famous and obscure:

Babe Dahlgren claims he was blacklisted for rumors of marijuana use; Babe Ruth sends a note to a child stricken with polio - a note nearly lost when the family moved, and the first physical confirmation obtained by the Hall of Fame of the slugger's legendary kindness to children; a black cat is brought to the ballpark as a gesture of contempt when Jackie Robinson plays against Syracuse, a team he felt treated him as badly as any in the International League. The collection contains new information about the father of baseball card collecting, about a bat company whose accomplishments were lost in baseball lore, and about the dramatic murder trial of the first African American to play in the Major Leagues. Beautifully written, filled with fresh facts and revelations, these essays will appeal.

Sean Peter Kirst, a columnist and writer, lives in Syracuse, New York. He is the winner of the national 2003 Clarion Award for opinion writing for his work in the Syracuse Post-Standard. The Publisher
Paperback from McFarland & Company

 

Autumn Glory: Baseball's First World Series by Louis P. Masur Hardcover from Hill & Wang Pub

American Baseball : From Gentleman's Sport to Commissioner System
David Voight, et al
Paperback / Published 1983

The Babe : The Game That Ruth Built
Listed under Babe Ruth Books

Baseball Fever: Early Baseball in Michigan
by Peter Morris
Listeed under Detroit Tigers

The Baseball Timeline : In Association With Major League Baseball
by Burt Solomon
(Hardcover)

The Baltimore Orioles : Four Decades of Magic from 33rd Street to Camden Yards
by Ted Patterson, Brooks Robinson
Listed under Baltimore Orioles

Batter Up!: Celebrating a Century of Minnesota Baseball
by Ross Bernstein, Genny Zak Kieley
(Paperback)

Cal: Celebrating the Career of a Baseball Legend
by Sporting News (Editor), The Sporting News
Listed under Baseball Legends

The Complete New York Yankees: The Total Encyclopedia of the Team
by Derek Gentile
Listed under New York Yankees

Confessions of a Baseball Purist: What's Right, and Wrong, With Baseball, As Seen from the Best Seat in the House
by Jon Miller, Mark Hyman (Contributor)
Broadcaster Jon Miller didn't know he was a baseball "purist" until acting commissioner Bud Selig accosted him with the moniker on national TV in 1993. "At one time," writes Miller in retrospect, "the label 'baseball purist' could've been worn as a badge of honor. Any legitimate fan would've been pleased to be thought of as a purist. But I suppose that to Mr. Selig, a purist was a lonely old man hunched over a windup Victrola, thumbing through a 1929 Who's Who in Baseball, fretting that the game just hasn't been the same since the Babe retired." In Confessions Miller admits to being a purist--loosely defined by him not as a forlorn fan stuck in a period-piece movie but as a fan knowledgeable enough to realize that baseball evolves for the good of the game--despite what myopic owners might try to perpetrate in the short term. In a chapter titled "The Good Old Days Are Now," Miller reminds die-hards of the old adage about things changing and staying the same. To wit, here's Ty Cobb in 1925: "The great trouble with baseball today is that most of the players are in the game for the money." Miller goes on to suggest that the 1990s will be remembered in 20 years as a "golden age" of hitting and that accusations of juiced balls, watered-down pitching, smaller ballparks, and expansion still cannot account for this decade's abundance of outstanding batters. The voice of the San Francisco Giants (and formerly the Baltimore Orioles) holds forth on everything from interleague play (it's good for the game but messy) to traveling with Cal Ripken (a game of Strat-O-Matic baseball reveals just how competitive the Iron Man really is). Occasionally he whiffs--as when he suggests that ballparks install 20-second time clocks to keep pitchers hurling at a reasonable pace. But ultimately what comes through the anecdotes and arguments is his tremendous love for the game and a generous capacity for recognizing the quality of the present and not just the past. --Langdon Cook - Amazon.com
Paperback: 272 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.75 x 8.41 x 5.43
Johns Hopkins Univ Pr; ISBN: 0801863163; Updated edition (April )

Cool Papas and Double Duties : The All-Time Greats of the Negro Leagues
by William F. McNeil
Listed under Negro Baseball League

The Dodgers Encyclopedia
by William F. McNeil, Bill McNeil
Listed under Brooklyn Dodgers
 

The Era 1947-1957: When the Yankees, the Giants, and the Dodgers Ruled the World by Roger Kahn Paperback from Univ of Nebraska Pr

Ernie Harwell: My 60 Years in Baseball
by Tom Keegan, Al Kaline, Ernie Harwell
Hardcover from Triumph Books

The 500 Home Run Club: From Aaron to Williams
Bob Allen, Bill Gilbert
Listed under Baseball Legends

Glove Affairs: The Romance, History, and Tradition of the Baseball Glove
by Noah Liberman, Yogi Berra
Hardcover from Triumph Books

 

The Golden Voices of Baseball by Ted Patterson Book Description: The Golden Voices of Baseball is a book that's been in the making for some 80 years. In addition to the fascinating sketches and photos of baseball broadcasting legends that veteran author Ted Patterson has compiled, fans will also be able to hear the inside stories about their careers in audio CD form. Included are many of the classic calls these legends made over the last half century. From pioneers such as Graham McNamee, Harold Arlin and Ted Husing, to broadcasting icons such as Mel Allen, Jack Buck and Vin Scully, this compilation of words and voices is destined to become the definitive book about baseball broadcasting history. Besides those that have already been mentioned, the list of 40 featured broadcasters includes Red Barber, Bob Prince, Lindsey Nelson, Russ Hodges, Jimmy Dudley, Jack Brickhouse and Ernie Harwell. Hall of Famer Curt Gowdy contributes the foreword to the book and the introduction to the audio CD. Hardcover: 200 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.82 x 10.44 x 10.14 Sports Publishing, Inc.; ISBN: 1582614989; Book & Cd edition (November 8, )

Hal Chase : The Defiant Life and Turbulent Times of Baseball's Biggest Crook
by Martin Donell Kohout
Hal Chase is considered by many to be one of the best first basemen ever to play the game of baseball. He was able to make the routine look spectacular, the spectacular look routine. But Chase will never have his plaque in Cooperstown because he has gone down in history as the biggest crook in baseball. Chase was repeatedly accused of throwing games, bribing players, betting against his own team, and various other crimes, yet with his relaxed nature he always managed to get off the hook for his misdeeds by working his charm. His playing career lasted from 1905 to 1919, and by the mid-1930s he was a destitute alcoholic living off friends. The last fifteen years of Chase's life saw him hospitalized repeatedly for a variety of ailments, living off a sister and brother-in-law who loathed him. This work traces the turbulent life and times of Hal Chase from his humble beginnings to his sad end. Amazon.com
Paperback - 347 pages
McFarland & Company; ISBN: 0786410671

The Hidden Language of Baseball: How Signs and Sign Stealing Have Influenced the Course of Our National Pastime
by Paul Dickson
Hardcover from Walker & Co

I Was Right on Time : My Journey from Negro Leagues to the Majors
by Buck O'Neil
Listed under Negro Baseball League

John McGraw
by Charles C. Alexander
... as manager of both the old Baltimore Orioles and New York Giants, he's the only skipper in the game's history to win almost 1,000 games more than he lost. Amazon.com
Paperback - 358 pages Rep edition (March )
Univ of Nebraska Pr; ISBN: 0803259255

Land of the Giants: New York's Polo Grounds
by Stew Thornley
More than thirty years after its demolition, the Polo Groundslike some other urban neighborhood parks such as Ebbets Field, Yankee Stadium, Fenway Park, and Wrigley Fieldstill holds a place in the hearts of baseball fans. The Polo Grounds was the home of the New York Giants from John...
Hardcover - October 2000

Milwaukee Braves : A Baseball Eulogy
by Bob Buege
Listed under Baseball Teams
 

New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract by Bill James Divided into two sections, "The Game" and "The Players," this comprehensive and opinionated tome describes the evolution of the sport over the decades (uniforms in the 1890s, best minor league teams of the 1930s, the Negro Leagues, etc.) and the characteristics of its players (stats, injuries, habits and proclivities). Publisher's Weekly Hardcover - 998 pages (October 23, ) Simon & Schuster; ISBN: 0684806975

Now Pitching for the Yankees : Spinning the News for Mickey, Billy, and George
by Martin Appel, et al
(Hardcover)

1960: The Last Pure Season
by Kerry Keene
(Hardcover)

The New York Mets Encyclopedia
by Peter C. Bjarkman
Listed under New York Mets
 

100 Years of the World Series by Eric Enders Hardcover from Barnes & Noble

Take Me Out to the Ballpark: An Illustrated Guide to Baseball Parks Past & Present
by Josh Leventhal
Listed under Sports Stadiums

The Teammates
by David Halberstam
Listed under Boston Red Sox

Red Sox Century
by Glenn Stout, et al
Listed under Boston Red Sox

The 1919 World Series : What Really Happened?
by William A. Cook
One of baseball's infamous events is the 1919 World Series between the Chicago White Sox and the Cincinnati Reds. Overshadowed by the suspicion cast upon, and the subsequent indictment of, eight White Sox players for throwing the games, the 1919 World Series has often been simplistically and inaccurately portrayed by the popular media in the decades since. This book takes an objective look at the series, players, managers, owners, and on-field events to separate fact from fiction ... Amazon.com

1951: When Giants Played the Game
by Kerry Keene

Hank Greenberg : The Story of My Life
by Hank Greenberg, Ira Berkow (Contributor)
Listed under Baseball Legends
 

Rob Neyer's Big Book of Baseball Lineups : A Complete Guide to the Best, Worst, and Most Memorable Players to Ever Grace the Major Leagues by Rob Neyer Paperback from Fireside

Summer of '49
by David Halberstam
With the airwaves saturated with so much sporting choice, it's hard to imagine how, not that long ago, baseball so completely dominated the landscape and captured imaginations. Given the 1949 season that veteran journalist David Halberstam meticulously recreates, maybe it's not so hard after all. It was a season of great public and personal drama for the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees, with the conflict finally resolving itself in a Yankee pennant following a head-to-head showdown on the final day of the season. Each team was led by a star of the highest magnitude: Joe DiMaggio spurred the Yankees despite missing half the season with a foot injury; Ted Williams virtually carried the Sox on his back, missing an unprecedented third Triple Crown by mere decimal points on his batting average. Halberstam focuses much of his narrative on the trials of these two individual sporting giants, adding fine supporting performances by Yogi Berra, Ellis Kinder, Dom DiMaggio, even restaurateur Toots Shoor. Both on and off the field, Halberstam beautifully captures the ethos of a more innocent game that no longer exists, played by heroes far more driven by their pride than by their salaries. Amazon.com
Paperback: 384 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.90 x 8.15 x 5.30
Harper Perennial; ISBN: 0060007818; (March 19, )

Treasures of the Baseball Hall of Fame : The Official Companion to the Collection at Cooperstown
by John Thorn, Ted Williams, National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum
"Baseball is at the core of our national life, and the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is the game's national shrine, the repository of its heritage." So begins this tour of the treasures of the Hall of Fame. Every baseball fan knows that Cooperstown stands for the best of the history and tradition of the great game. For those fans who visit this village in upstate New York--400,000 make the pilgrimage annually--and for those who cannot get there, John Thorn, baseball's foremost historian,... Amazon.com
Hardcover - 304 pages
Villard Books; ISBN: 0375501436

Queen of the Negro Leagues: Effa Manley and the Newark Eagles
by James Overmyer
Listed under Negro Baseball League

Whitey Ford (Baseball Hall of Famers)
by Arthea Nolan
(Library Binding)
 

Why Is The Foul Pole Fair? (Or, Answers to the Baseball Questions Your Dad Hoped You Wouldn't Ask) by Vince Staten Hardcover from Simon & Schuster

The Yankees Century : Voices and Memories of the Pinstripe Past
by Alan Ross
Listed under New York Yankees

Zim : A Baseball Life
by Don Zimmer, et al
Listed under Baseball Legends

1947 : When All Hell Broke Loose in Baseball
Red Barber
Not recommended
Paperback / Published 1988

The Greatest Team of All Time : As Selected by Baseball's Immortals, from Ty Cobb to Willie Mays
by Nicholas Acocella, Donald Dewey
Out of Print - Try Used Books

The Joe Williams Baseball Reader : The Glorious Game, from Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth to the Amazing Mets : 50 Years of Baseball Writing
by Peter Williams (Editor)
Out of Print - Try Used Books
 
 

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