drewswerds

With the recent untimely passing of David Halberstam, I was prompted to pick up his book about the 1964 World Series (again… I first read it when I was in Syracuse, ten or so years ago) and reminded of how engrossing it is, and how good a writer we’ve lost. In fact, I’d have to say it’s one of the best baseball books I’ve ever read; which got me to thinking: What are the best baseball books I’ve ever read?

I’m so glad I asked. In no particular order, I present my Top Five Baseball Books of All Time (not including books that I’ve never read, or will someday read, or that haven’t been written yet):

1. The Boys of Summer, by Roger Kahn — In my opinion, this is the best book about baseball ever written. Kahn’s writings on the Brooklyn Dodgers made me a fan, even if the team ceased to exist a decade before I was born.
2. Stolen Season, by David Lamb – Lamb’s story about his solo trek around the country touring the minor leagues is an excellent view of a very different baseball world. This book is about 15 years old now, and I imagine that a lot of what the author saw has changed. The minor leagues look a lot like the major leagues these days, but that wasn’t the case a decade or two ago (remind me to bore you with my diatribe on how the Bluejays ruined a perfectly good minor league team in Syracuse sometime). Stolen Season provides a glimpse of a more charming, idealized game.
3. Ball Four, by Jim Bouton – Some would argue that this is the best book about baseball ever written. I would disagree, but only a little. Bouton’s illuminations into the world of baseball are certainly the most controversial and ground-breaking to have been written on the subject. Ball Four is required reading for any baseball fan. So go read it, already.
4. October 1964, by David Halberstam — My current nightstand fodder depicts baseball during one of its most turbulent and exciting times: A Yankee dynasty was crumbling, African-American players were breathing new life into the game, and the power-balance between owner and player teetered on the brink of a epochal shift. The tipping point is illustrated in this four week span when the nation, as well as the national pastime were poised for change.
5. The Artful Dodger, by Tommy Lasorda and David Fisher — Alright, so few will support me on this one, but as a fifteen year old I read this book twice on a summer vacation that my family took to Key Largo in 1985. Lasorda tells a story like no one can, and his Dodger evangelism was both humorous and illustrative for a die-hard fan of the Tigers (a team upon whom I could only keep tabs by listening to a crackling WJR on nights when the AM signal was clear enough to cross Lake Erie from Detroit to Cleveland). Where were the girls on this trip!? Not in Key Largo, by god. The Artful Dodger and my Night Ranger tapes kept me occupied in an otherwise calm, relaxing — read: dull — trip.

Honorable mention goes to all the Bill James Baseball Abstracts I collected as a kid (and inexplicably got rid of as an adult) and to the early edition of Rotisserrie League Baseball by Glenn Waggoner and Dan Okrent that I got as a birthday present when I was thirteen. Both books changed the way I looked at and contributed significantly to my obsession with the game of Baseball.

What are your favorite baseball books? Drop me a reply and let me know…