Iām a baseball history fanatic who writes on a wide range of topics for work and pleasure, which Iām glad to say often are the same thing. Iāve been a journalist for many years, even covered a few World Series, and Iāve written stories for books published by the Society for American Baseball Research. Iāve also written a lot about music, science, business, and politics, for newspapers and magazines. Iāve been a playwright, fortunate to have seen my work staged in different venues. And I also wrote a book called, The Music and Mythocracy of Col. Bruce Hampton: A Basically True Biography, which Iām really excited to tell you about in the next section!
This novel by one of my favorite writers, the late, great Paul Hemphill ā an icon of journalism and storytelling in the American South ā is a hilarious, vaguely autobiographical story of life in the low minor leagues. Hemphill perfectly captures the language, grit, rhythm, and flow of minor league baseball in the mid-1950s, touching on issues of workerās rights, segregation, sex, love, teamwork, and courage, without preaching or being sentimental.
My favorite moment in the book (and the terrific HBO movie version, starring William Peterson and Virginia Madsen) is when a Klan roadblock stops the Stogiesā team bus because they want to lynch the teamās star catcher, Joe Louis Brown, the only black player in the league ā one the Stogies suggests, ālet āem hang Whisenant, heās only batting .179.ā
A story with a heart of gold about love and the loss of innocence at the bottom of the most minor league in baseball-the class D Alabama-Florida League in the 1950s, with a sour old maverick manager, a yearning teenage second baseman, and a black catcher masquerading as a Venezuelan. "A first-rate novel."-Newsweek. "A sharp, unsentimental portrait of the minor league life...and Hemphill makes it all come to life, believably and memorably."-Sports Illustrated. "So good, so true, so funny..."-New York Times Book Review.
My go-to baseball book, one that Iāve read twice and listened to twice, which I particularly enjoyed because Bouton reads the audio version. This is the baseball book that changed everything ā well, it definitely changed baseball autobiographies and our expectations of them. There are parts that make me cringe, parts that would never pass the āpolitically correctā test today.
Regardless, what comes through most for me is Boutonās wit and observations of the game and its players, and what itās really like to play baseball at its highest level. Also, his love for the game and its grip on him is palpable. And itās a book that changes over time for me ā a romp and an inside look at life in the big leagues when I was young; and as an older man, it serves as a reminder that no matter how much you love doing something, some careers (like life itself), are fleeting.
50TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION New York Public Library Book of the Century Selection Time Magazine ā100 Greatest Non-Fiction Booksā Selection New Foreword from Jim Boutonās Wife, Paula Bouton When Ball Four was first published in 1970, it hit the sports world like a lightning bolt. Commissioners, executives, and players were shocked. Sportswriters called author Jim Bouton a traitor and "social leper." Commissioner Bowie Kuhn tried to force him to declare the book untrue. Fans, however, loved the book. And serious critics called it an important social document. Following his death, Boutonās landmark book has remained popular, and his legacy lives onā¦
The Sailor Without a Sweetheart
by
Katherine Grant,
Enjoy this Persuasion-inspired historical romance!
Six years ago, Amy decided *not* to elope with Captain Nate Preston. Now, he is back in the neighborhood, and he is shocked to discover that Amy is unmarried. Even more surprising, she is clearly battling some unnamed illness. Thrown together by circumstances outside theirā¦
This has some of my favorite stuff in it: old-time baseball and time travel. A really clever, adventurous, and fun novel, with a great cast of characters, including some fictional and some from history, like the Cincinnati Red Stockings of 1869 (when the story takes place) and Mark Twain, and why not ā this is, in some ways, a baseball version of Twainās A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthurās Court. The bookās protagonist, a 20th-century journalist, Sam Fowler, lands in 1869 Cincinnati and winds up helping the cityās legendary professional ball club. Brock wrote a sequel some years later and it was good, too, but this one about the 1869 season is one I intend to read again.
Time travel meets baseball in this āgrand adventureā about a modern-day reporter who witnesses the birth of Americaās favorite pastime (The Washington Times)
Contemporary reporter Sam Fowler is stuck in a dull job and a failing marriage when he is suddenly transported back to the summer of 1869. After a wrenching period of adjustment, he feels rejuvenated by his involvement with the nationās first pro baseball team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings. But American sports isn't the only thing to undergo a major transformationāSam himself starts to change as he faces life-threatening 19th-century challenges on and off the baseball diamond. Withā¦
In the 1960s, Ritter interviewed a bunch of guys who played major league ball in the early days, from the 1890s through the 1930s (or so), with lots of stuff from the Deadball Era. The result is this marvelous book filled with priceless tales told by the men who knew, played with (and occasionally fought with) Ty Cobb, Cy Young, Nap Lajoie, and the immortals from that era. Anyone who wants to understand what baseball was like in 1903, or there-and-then-about, must read this book. Reading this book is like sitting on a porch in a rocking chair next to grandpa while he tells stories that you actually want to hear.
āEasily the best baseball book ever produced by anyone.ā āCleveland Plain Dealer
āThis was the best baseball book published in 1966, it is the best baseball book of its kind now, and, if it is reissued in 10 years, it will be the best baseball book.ā ā People
From Lawrence Ritter (The Image of Their Greatness, The 100 Greatest Baseball Players of All Time), comes one of the bestselling, most acclaimed sports books of all time, The Glory of Their Timesānow a Harper Perennial Modern Classic.
Baseball was different in earlier daysātougher, more raw, more intimateāwhen giants like Babe Ruthā¦
Daniel āDanā Bluford is the Director of Polar City Single Organism Research Lab Facilities. A business he helped to create. The worldās leading architect of sustainable, ecologically conscious products for energy, manufacturing, water treatment, waste management, and environmental clean-up equipment. A company whose mission statement read in part, āBetter environmentā¦
You donāt have to be a Dodgers fan to love this book about the Brooklyn teams and players from the late 1940s through the mid-1950s. Well, itās mainly about that. Itās also an autobiography as Kahn describes his childhood in the Borough of Churches (Brooklyn), and his years covering the Dodgers for one of the great newspapers of all time, the New York Herald Tribune.
Kahn was a graceful writer who beautifully relates the camaraderie and the turmoil from those years and lovingly shares the true, often touching stories of men like Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, Carl Erskine, and their teammates in their retirement years. Required reading for every avid baseball fan.
Described by Richard William of The Guardian as 'the best sports book of 2013, and the best sports book of all time', The Boys of Summer is the story of the young men who learned to play baseball during the 1930s and 1940s, and went on to play for one of the most exciting major-league ball clubs ever fielded, the Brooklyn Dodgers team that broke the colour barrier with Jackie Robinson.
It is a book by and about a sportswriter who grew up near Ebbets Field, and who had the good fortune in the 1950s to cover the Dodgers forā¦
This is the amazing story of Col. Bruce Hampton, the charismatic musician/bandleader whose long career ended when he collapsed and died on stage during the encore of his 70th birthday concert, surrounded by some of the worldās best musicians, including Grammy winners and a Cy Young Award winner. Itās a biography that reads like a novel. As Billy Bob Thornton, who directed Hampton in his Academy Award-winning film Sling Blade, said of the book, āYouāll disappear into Bruceās world in this book, and you may not want to come out.ā
With a foreword by Grammy-winner Chuck Leavell and cover designed by Flournoy Holmes (the artist who created the cover for the Allman Brothersā iconic album, Eat a Peach, and many others).
A Last Survivor of the Orphan Trains
by
Victoria Golden,
Four years old and homeless in 1930, William Walters climbed aboard one of the last American Orphan Trains, and, without knowing it, embarked on an extraordinary path through nine decades of U.S. history.
For 75 years, Orphan Trains transported 250,000 children from the East Coast into homes in the emergingā¦
Some knowledge is dangerous... especially in the wrong hands...
As the conflict in Vietnam heats up, Simon Hannay is pursuing his Masters in Comparative Literature at a Midwest university, teaching karate on the side and doing his best to avoid the draft. He's not overly excited about his thesis... untilā¦