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I like to read, Thats no secret to anyone. My favorites are political thrillers, biographies and baseball books(are you stunned). The problem is most baseball books are like frozen pizza, mildly satisfying when your going through it but forgotten about five minutes after your done. But every once in awhile I read something really good. I just finished something that was really good which I'll talk about later. So an idea popped in my head as a public service I'll list 10 of my favorite baseball books. This way if anyone either gets any time or makes anytime they will know what to get. They will be listed alphabetically by the authors last name. So without further ado here is my version of the New York Times Book Review.

1.Eight Men Out-Eliot Asinof (1963)-If your reading this your probably familiar with the story of the 1919 Black Sox. Hollywood made a movie based on the book and actually did a nice job. As they stayed pretty close to the facts. But what truly separates the book is the details. Its impossible to get everything into a two hour movie. Reading this you get a good sense of who these 8 guys were as both players and people. You talk about a fractured clubhouse, these guys made the Bronx Zoo Yankees seem like a love in. Most of all you come to meet Shoeless Joe Jackson. Not as DB Sweeney or Ray Liotta but the real man. And at the end of the day Joe was an illiterate, ignorant guy who did not want to upset the players in the clique he was a part of, led by southerners Chick Gandil and Swede Risberg. We will never know if Shoeless Joe played 100% of not. We know he did take the money and then tried to return it and was talked out of it. As I type this another interesting part of the book was how justice in Chicago was proved to be an illusive thing. Well with current events with the Illinois Governor it seems the more things change the more they stay the same.

2.The Long Season-Jim Brosnan(1960)-Brosnan was a average, nondescript pitcher for the Cincinnati Reds in the late 50s and early 60s. Someone no one would know about 40 years later except he wrote 2 fantastic books, The Pennant Race and The Long Season. To my knowledge The Long Season was the first honest book that was taken from a diary. And to this day I'd sat it is still the best. Ball Four was written about 10 years later but probably would not have been published if it weren't for Brosnan's books. What make this book so good is it does a fantastic job making you see what it is really like to be a major league baseball player. Both the good and the not so good. Through the diary entries to go thro
ught slumps, disagreements with managers and coaches, crisis's of confidences, missing of family and trying to keep sane in the bullpen through the 154 game season. The book was not ghost written. And I'd be willing to bet even with all the money now in baseball the experience of being a player and going through the season in probably very similar. And reading this book is about as close as we will come to it.

3.Real Grass, Real Hereos-Dom DiMaggio(1980)-DiMaggio's book centers around baseball in that magical year of 1941. That was the incredible season when Joe DiMaggio had his 56 games hitting streak, Ted Williams hit .406 and the World Series had the famous Mickey Owen dropped third strike game. All this was occurring with the international situation as it was called in the day was going on(World War 2). Dom had a unique perspective on the years events as he played next to Ted Williams and obviously was Joe DiMaggio's brother. But while Dom talks about these events in some detail the best part about this book is his description of what baseball was like for both fans and players in 1941. The talks about how he believes travel by train helped team unity. His stories about road trips were very entertaining. He talks about the advent of night baseball. And the sameness in other words how you know who was playing where because players did not move around nearly as much as today. Also it was always the same cities. For the fans he talks about how radio was king and you could walk the streets in Brooklyn and hear the game on radio and not miss a pitch going from house to house. DiMaggio made it seem that the game is essentially the same but the players of that era enjoyed playing Major League baseball alot more than the players of today.

4.Bill James Historical Abstract-Bill James(2001)-Bill James is the father of modern sabermterics. I truly believe Bill James belongs in the Hall of Fame. The argument can be made he has done more to change the way baseball than other who was not officially connected to baseball with the probable exception of Marvin Miller. James taught us how to evaluate stats logically. And know the batting average is not the end all be all stat. But what I love about the Historical Abstract is not so much the stat head part of it. The first section takes each decade and gives it a decade in a box, He has great lists like the best offensive, worst uniforms, best baseball book and movie that should be made. It goes on and on. The lists are alot of fun to look at. Then he gives a very detailed essay on how the game was played during each decade. The second part of the book takes each position and ranks the players all time in that position. And he gives a detailed description of each player's accomplishments. While this section is a little stat heavy it is VERY readable. One thing about Bill James he is a very good writer. The above description really fails to do it justice. Simply put if I was stuck on a desert island and only had one book to have this would be that book. An all time classic. Anyone the least bit interested in baseball history should get in ASAP.

5.The Boys of Summer-Roger Kahn(1972)-One of baseball's all time classic books. Kahn a native New Yorker went back and interviewed the remaining living members of the Boys of Summer and came out with this amazing book. The names of the players on those teams are legendary. Start with HOFs Pee Wee Reese, Duke Snider and of course Jackie Robinson. And a supporting cast that included guys like Carl Furillo, Gil Hodges and Don Newcombe. New York in the 50s was the time of Willie, Mickey and the Duke. Reading this you got the impression that the current Met-Yankee rivalry was nothing compared to these three teams. Who you rooted for defined you. I loved how Kahn talks about how much baseball meant to the people of New York in the post WW 2 era. As for Dodgers these incredible players were just guys who lived in the neighborhood. Players who would barbecue with neighbors. I'd be willing to bet never in the history of baseball has a team been more interwoven and important to a community than the Dodgers to Brooklyn. Like 8 Men Out what I also loved about this book is you get to know the players as people. In an era now when we put players on a pedestal it is refreshing to read about these average guys who just happened to be great players but were not the least bit spoiled . They really seemed to get along with each other also. Think of how easy it would have been to have attitudes on that team but there were none. The best book I've ever read about one team and one time period.

6.Moneyball-Michael Lewis(2003)-This is the very controversial book that deals with Billy Beane and the economics of baseball. Lewis is not a sports writer, he is a business writer. So he takes a different approach than most sports writers. His basic question was this, why do the Oakland As with one of the smallest payrolls in baseball consistently have teams in contention. With that basic premise he spend a season with Billy Beane. Most of you know I'm a big Billy Beane fan(even though he traded my guy Rich Harden). What Lewis found was that Beane and his chief assistants JP Riccardi(now GM of the Blue Jays) and Paul DePodesta used statistics much more than tradional subjective scouting reports. Beane is much more interested in what a player has done and not what he looks like or what a scout might think he might do. The now famous Moneyball draft produced Nick Swisher and Joe Blanton for the As. Beane says to survive and compete he needs to find the things that the market undervalues that help you win games. For a very long time the thing was On Base Average. Now everyone is familiar with OBA. The portrayal of Beane is very interesting. He is an ultra competitive kind of guy. His success using sabermetrics has spawned a whole new movement in baseball to hire young GMs that are good at interpreting stats. Not former players or managers. Other than Beane and Riccardi two of the best GMs in the game Theo Epstein of the Red Sox and Andrew Freidman of the Rays come from this school. While some out there still are not on board with this new way of looking at how to run a franchise the results are clear. A great read for anyone interested in what its like to be a GM.

7.Crazy 08-Cait Murphy(2007)-This was the best baseball book I read last year. Murphy like Michael Lewis is not a baseball writer. As a life time baseball fan she wanted to write a baseball book and her grandfather keep telling her that the 1908 season would make a great topic. The 08 season was the season that featured Merkle's boner. Murphy does an amazing job taking you back to 1908 and putting you right in the middle of probably the wildest pennant race ever between the New York Giants and Chicago Cubs. You have to shake your head as you read it so say I can't believe this really happened!! Baseball at the turn of the century truly was a different game played by some truly different people. No TV, no radio. only John McGraw of the Giants and Frank Chance of the Cubs doing about anything to beat each other legal or otherwise. One interesting thing Murphy does is every couple of chapters she writes about something going on in pop culture at the time so you really get a sense of being in that time. It reads like fiction but this race really went down like its described. A terrific read.

8.Rob Neyers Big Book of Baseball Lineups-Rob Neyer(2003)-There is no plot in this one. What Neyer does is he takes each team and gives a lineup for the team all time 1st team,2nd team single season,all rookie,home grown, traded away, gold glove and iron glove. He gives little snippet of info for each player. His is a great book if you just want to pick something up for 5 minutes at a time. Over the years I crack it open every one and then. Its great especially if you love baseball history and comparing players from different eras.

9.I Was Right On Time-Buck O'Neil(1996)-Anyone who saw the Ken Burns baseball series came away with the feeling that Buck O'Neil stole the show. O'Neil was an above average player from the Negro Leagues in the 30s and 40s. He later became a scout and first black coach in the majors. He enthusiasm is incredible. He knew and played against everyone from the 30s to the 80s. His stories of the Negro Leagues and especially Satchel Paige have you laughing out loud. But when they got on the field it was no joke. This is the only autobiography on my list because O'Neil is such a different kind of person. Positive people like him are very few and far between in the world today in all walks of life. This is a is pretty quick read that will stay with you for a long time. As an afterthought if I was a big league manager I would make it required reading for all the black players on my team so they could see they are getting an opportunity to make millions of dollars because of the sacrifices of people like Buck O'Neil.

10.The Glory of Their Times-Lawerence Ritter(1966)-What Ritter did was go around the country and interviewed great players from the early part of the 20th century. He then devoted a chapter to each player. Some players include Smokey Joe Wood, Edd Roush, Lefty O'Doul, Paul Waner and many others. The powerful part of this book is hearing the players actual words descibing what baseball was like in another time. Its funny, sad and very informative. The best book about baseball in its early days.